Strange as it may seem, I never specifically intended for Kpopalypse blog to become the almost vaguely semi-popular site that it is today – I actually just started blogging because I felt like it. Of course, being slightly popular is certainly nice as well as flattering, and I definitely appreciate all my readers who are entertained/bemused/horrified/[fill in the blank] by the content of this site, but of course there’s a flipside – with a larger audience also comes a larger amount of highly entertaining butthurt. However for each person who hates the content, someone else likes it, so how are different people interpreting the content here so differently? Obviously I’m not going to change my writing style to accommodate anybody, but how wide is the gulf between what some people think is being said, and what is really being said? I thought it would be interesting to explore the different ways that various people get buttblasted about Kpopalypse content.
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As a k-pop blogger, my primary goal is to express myself fully about topics that are of interest to myself in a style that I personally find entertaining to write in. Of course, not everybody else finds my writing equally entertaining to read. As I deeply care about this issue, I thought I should run through a few of the main objections to the Kpopalypse writing style, so I’ve got something to link to people should they choose to complain about it in future.
OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE
It seems that some of you weak cunts don’t like swearing much and think that Kpopalypse blog would be just fine without all the fuckin’ offensive language all the time, and that it might help people take my serious topics a bit more seriously. This objection almost always comes from people with limited experience of Australian culture, because Australians generally grasp and appreciate the high-profanity communication style – people from other countries, less so (depends a little on the country though). As far as I can tell, objections on the grounds of offensive language is an issue with cultural difference. Know that Australians do typically swear a fuckin’ lot, and that this is reflected in their speech and colloquialisms, as the introduction to this extremely accurate educational video demonstrates:
Australians tend to use insults affectionately quite frequently – the above insults as well as words like “cunt”, “slut”, “fuckwit” etc can have both negative and positive meanings depending on context. Even more frequent than this is Australians using swearing neither negatively or positively, but simply as punctuation – most of the time when Australians swear it’s simply a way to colour the speech. The following video contains positive, negative and neutral examples of swearing in typical Australian context.
Many years ago I spent time living in an international student residence, I was only of only three or four Australians living in a building of over 200 overseas students, mostly from various parts of Asia with a small selection from various other countries. During this time, the other students were quite shocked by how much I swore – likewise, I was equally shocked by how little they swore. In particular, I expected that the Americans would be swearing all the time, after all that’s all they ever seem to do in their movies and music – but the Americans I met at the residence almost never swore at all. I learned quickly that there was a wide cultural gap between the way Australians talked and the way people from other countries talked. Only people from the UK and Europe seemed to swear as much as I did.
This cultural distinction is probably why I often get misinterpreted as “aggressive” or “angry”. Honestly, when I’m writing this shit I’m usually sitting in my comfortable computer chair with a cold drink and my cat next to me, listening to fun k-pop songs and being all happy and shit. I haven’t been in any fistfights for a good ten years and I’m probably one of the most laid-back, easygoing, non-aggressive people you’re ever likely (or unlikely) to meet.
Another thing to consider is that this blog started initially as an addendum to the Kpopalypse Radio Show. On the radio show I’m not allowed to swear out of context because of broadcasting guidelines – i.e I can’t say “you’re a fucking cunt and you should go and fuck yourself” but I am allowed to say “this song is called ‘you’re a fucking cunt’ and the band is called ‘you should go and fuck yourself’, please now enjoy this track” because there’s a context for me to say those things. Not being able to swear freely when I want to is kind of restricting though, so having a blog is a good way to be able to discuss things that would normally be brought up in the radio show, but in a more free manner without the language restrictions that would apply in that situation.
I hope that’s nice and clear for you fucking basic bitches out there, which brings us to the next point:
CONDESCENDING TONE, BEING ON A HIGH HORSE, OR WHATEVER
Some people seem to think that I’m condescending (which means “being talked down to like dumb cunt”) or on my high horse about something, or have a shitty tone or whatever. Gosh, not sure where they get that idea. Let’s hand it over to some opinionated folks on Reddit/kpop, commenting on various articles of mine:
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This guy’s obviously being a dicksack troll, but there’s a point buried in this comment that’s worth addressing, which is: I don’t assume people know stuff about things when I write. There’s a lot of shit that I don’t know, why should I assume other people know things? I think that for me to assume others had knowledge would be presumptuous of me and in fact more rude than if I explain things from scratch. For example, if I suddenly developed a keen interest in, say, fishing, that’s something that I know fuck-all about, I’ve never caught a fish in my life. So if I were to read a quasi-educational blog post about it (in the style of my more educational articles) I wouldn’t want the author to assume that I had any prior knowledge at all, I’d want to be talked to as if I was a noob. On the other hand, if I did know a thing or two, I wouldn’t take offence at being told any of the noob stuff, I’d just say to myself “clearly this chunk of information here is for the noobs so I’ll just skim-read that for the giggles and then focus more on the other stuff”. If there was nothing in the article that I didn’t already know – then great! I can read it purely for entertainment instead of education – and that’s why my educational articles have jokes in there and references to this and that, and aren’t totally dry with pure information and nothing else… so that way they can be read as something fun if you’re one of the folks who already knows how MR Removed works or how the industry sucks dick or whatever bullshit I’m raving on about this week.
Of course, some of the crazier k-pop fans have trouble thinking about it like that. I think some folks are very heavily invested in the idea of “I know more stuff than others”, and perhaps have also heavily invested their time and energy into arguing in favour of something I’m deconstructing. Say for example that you were someone billing yourself as an “expert in MR removed videos” and spent maybe a year or two commenting on every MR removed video you could find and assessing the vocal quality carefully. Then a post like my one about how MR Removed is all crap comes along, written by some cunt like me with my trademark offensive language, and just to add injury to insult once you dig beneath all the shits, fucks and cunts there’s a whole bunch of actual correct stuff in the post about how you’ve just wasted 18 months of your life. Denial is the first stage of grief, and it’s one that most people don’t get past, because people fear criticism and being shown to be wrong – when confronted with a truth that contradicts someone’s worldview, most people’s gut reaction is to cling to the lie even harder. It’s got nothing to do with people being stupid or whatever either – more intelligent people actually are better at clinging onto lies because a more intelligent person is better able to rationalise their own beliefs and construct a counter-argument in the face of conflicting evidence. That’s why most people never change their political persuasions during their lifetime (regardless of where in the political spectrum they sit)- if you’ve already invested years of your life in a certain way of looking at the world, the psychological resistance to admitting “hey, maybe I was wrong” is huge. That’s the kind of barrier I hit with people all the time, and the easiest way for them to graciously save face in a situation and turn the heat elsewhere where the ideological rug is whisked out from under their feet is to say “ahem, well, er yes, I already knew this, surely everyone knows this, you’d be stupid not to know these things, right? Right? You’re just being condescending and talking down to me, stop that right away!”
But what if I AM being a cunt? Here’s another comment from Reddit/kpop, slightly more valid and less trolly:
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He thinks I’m the unpleasant one, gee – I hope no retarded dogs reading this took offence. The same person, when then asked “be that as it may – what did you think of the article”:
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I could indeed present my views in whatever some people think is “a respectable manner”, but fuck me, that would be boring as shit for me to write. It would read like a University essay probably, I had enough of that crap back when I actually had to do University. I think less people would want to slug through the text too, I don’t believe the assertion made here that I would get more positive reactions if I cleaned up my act a bit, I seem to have lots of nice folks willing to read my stuff and take it in the spirit in which it’s intended so if anything I’d probably lose readers if I started compromising the way I wanted to write for some crybabies who need a tampon change. As far as persuading people goes… honestly I don’t care that much if people agree with me or not. Sure, I guess it’s nice if they do, but the main aim of my blogging isn’t to make other people think as I do and/or develop some kind of weird cult of personality around my writing and opinions (even though I do like to have a little fun with that idea from time to time), the main aim of my blogging is to entertain myself by writing stuff that I enjoy writing, and perhaps also entertain others, if they so choose to be entertained. That’s why I have that bit on the sidebar that says “all of it is primarily for my own personal amusement, although if you like it too, that’s fantastic and I love you”. If you want to read my writing and have fun, do – if not, then don’t, simple. Nobody’s paying me for this shit (or at least not yet, hurry up SM) so I’m not that concerned about being persuasive, popular or whatever.
Here’s another Reddit/kpop comment from some funster:
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Every single time I do a worst-of-k-pop style list I always put up lengthy disclaimers along the lines of “this is just my opinion, and I don’t believe that my opinion is superior to anybody else’s, me being a music industry professional makes no difference at all because music is subjective, your opinions may differ and that’s fine, blah blah-de-fuckin’-blah” but I think next time I’ll skip all that shit because it’s clear from comments like this that no cunt ever reads any of it. I’m sick of repeating it like a broken record anyway. Even the articles that don’t have a disclaimer like that surely have enough of a satirical opinionated tone to them that people with two brain cells to rub together to produce a thought might figure out all on their lonesome that it’s just my opinion and I’m not trying to pass my opinions off as facts… or maybe people really are that stupid, and I need to talk down to them some more and be more condescending until they get it? I guess then they’ll just turn around and say that I’m being condescending, in which case they’d be right – but I’m only condescending like that because stupid motherfuckers like the person who commented above are creatures that DO exist. Guess I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t!
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The people who are with me in spirit understand the correct tone which my articles should be read in, and they understand that even if I do sound condescending at times (generally for comic effect, or just to deliberately annoy commenters like the above) that I’m not talking down to them, but to the legions of dumb fucks out there, of which there are many. It’s just true that there’s lots of dumbasses in the world, it’s not a big deal. Everyone was dumb once, and plenty of people still are. Why do you think so much stupid shit happens in the world? So the moral of the story is this: if you read something I write that sounds like I’m having a go at some dumb cunts for being dumb, you can either take it as a personal attack (in which case you must be one of the dumb cunts that I’m addressing), or you could say “he’s not talking about me” and either laugh along with me, or ignore me and get on with your life. Your choice.
I’ll still “brigade the sub” though, because why the fuck shouldn’t I? In fact I did just this when an intrepid caonima reposted this very post to Reddit, upon which Redditors immediately complained that this post was not relevant and shouldn’t be on the site at all because it wasn’t kpop related, swiftly downvoting it to oblivion. Never mind that it was Reddit/kpop related – Redditors were passionate and argued strongly in favour of the irrelevancy of their own content, because “them’s the rules”. Like Fight Club, the first two rules of Reddit/kpop appear to be “do not discuss Reddit/kpop”. No wonder the community there never improves.
TRYING TOO HARD, OR PRETENTIOUSNESS, OR OVERDOING IT OR WHATEVER THE FUCK
Let’s get back to that first comment again because it was so awesome:
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Is Kpopalypse a “tryhard”, whatever that is? I guess it depends on what that statement really means. Taken literally, I do work pretty hard on writing long-ass blog posts when it comes to things like finding cool links and selecting images, conceptualising the posts, formatting, time committment, and so on, but the actual writing style isn’t something that I work on at all, writing the amount of utter shit that I do in the way that I do it is just something that comes naturally and always has. If the writing style comes off as “tryhard” to somebody else, maybe it’s because they’re so fucking stupid that in order to write as articulately as my lame tossed-off blog thoughts, they would have to try quite hard?
Maybe that’s not it, maybe what they’re getting at instead is the whole idea of pretension and being someone else or whatever, but my writing style on this blog is quite true to my personality in terms of the thought processes inside my head, it all comes out fairly unedited and stream-of-consciousness if anything (just ask poor Asian Junkie who has to edit my long-winded tangent-filled ramble every so often into something resembling a sensible condensed article). If I were to try and clean up my act a little (as the people whining about offensive language or condescending tone would want me to do) then THAT would actually be far more pretentious and trying a lot harder in both senses of the word.
What a sad world we live in these days where “trying too hard” is actually seen by so many people as a negative thing, and “tryhard” is actually considered to be an insult. I actually enjoy putting effort into things and having the projects that I undertake come out the way that I want them to due to my hard work, I find that very satisfying. And although I don’t, if I were to adopt a persona in my writing that was pretentious or whatever, so what? Whose business is it anyway?
Just like the crazies who still hate T-ara in 2015 when the rest of the world has moved on, my haters will never be happy no matter what I do, so there’s no point “trying hard” to please them, I might as well just continue to do whatever the fuck I want – and I will. I’m also not trying very hard to defend myself here, this post probably has tons of logic holes in it but I really don’t care, I wrote it in between dinner and perving at Martina’s correct polka dot use, only because I’m putting off another much more involved post, and you didn’t pay me to write it (although perhaps you should). But hey now I have a nifty post to link to people who bring out the same dumb arguments about my writing, so instead of burning up precious carbons telling them to go fuck themselves in a fresh paragraph every time I can just link this over and over – yay!
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