QRIMOLE – August 2025

It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month!

I found this video of NMIXX Jiwoo that made me wish that best smile was a category in the objectification survey. Does Jiwoo mrs as a successor to Nayeon for the bunny teeth throne now that the latter has removed herself from consideration?

I think her teeth are too straight to be bunny teeth, they all protrude about equally. You really need the front upper two or four really protruding a little past the rest to get the bunny effect. The fourth category in the objectification survey “most attractive” is really all about faces (because most people consider the face to be the most attractive part of a person) so you could certainly vote for Jiwoo there if you wanted. Also, for anyone who hasn’t cast their vote in the 2025 Kpopalypse Objectification Survey yet, what are you doing with your life. CLICK HERE to vote! Also I’ve seen a few recent photos of Nayeon that seemed a bit more bunny-ish so she may have just gotten veneers rather than a total jaw reset. Here’s hoping.

Last year, Jojo siwa did a kpop methodology by buying a song and poppify it some more. Did she succeed in making the song better?

OG song:

Jojo’s version:

I don’t like the original at all really and I don’t like the new version either, but if I had to choose one to listen to at gunpoint I’d pick the original because the backings are somewhat less generic. It’s still the same uninteresting-as-fuck song at its core though so the quality variance isn’t huge.

Thoughts on Anthony Fantano?

Don’t really give enough of a fuck about him to even watch him enough to have an informed opinion. Doesn’t he cover western pop? I’m kpopalypse not westernpopalypse.

thoughts on this blantant i am ripoff that’s topping the charts? it’s from an animated movie about a kpop group that seems cheesy as fuck. there are other songs but i know you’re gonna say they’re shit

and

What are your thoughts on the K-Pop Demon Hunter soundtrack? Do you think the soundtrack’s popularity will bring the return of actual athemic and good choruses? How long do you think it will take? (probably like 2-3 years). Idk, I just felt like I’ve been underwhelmed by 2025 releases so far. I thought Kpop was making a comeback since around 2020, but all the momentum has dropped off. Makes me wonder if K-pop will ever even get a “silver era” – before I bore of it – that is if it never reaches 2009-2011/12 standards again.

Kpop Demon Hunters is on my list of things to check out and review for this site, and when I do, I’ll also review the songs from it at that time. Expect it fondly.

Two music related questions for you. Putting your degree to use, if the other questions this month aren’t.

They sure aren’t. Anyway let’s go.

Question 1: I occasionally get migraines. Besides meds, this YouTube audio has been extremely effective with even the worst migraines I’ve had in making the pain tolerable or even nonexistent. Is it some sort of placebo effect? Or is there something scientifically going on with this music that helps you relax or something? I’ve been using it for years and it works well. And naturally if I still have a migraine and turn it off, the pain comes back in full force. I’m not one of those people who believes in specific “vibrations” having spiritual power or any shit like that so this has to be a natural phenomenon?

Probably nothing scientific about it other than music in general tends to help people relax just because it gives them something else to focus on. I mean okay yeah there’s a very slim chance that there’s a frequency in this shit which has a wavelength which matches the length of whatever it is in your head that’s hurting, but you’re just as likely to get a match like that with Napalm Death as you are with someone’s ambient relaxation music. But hey if it works for you, why not keep using it. You could use this for the same purpose if you wanted.

Question 2: One of my favorite songs at the moment that I’m sure you’ll hate due to the genre (R&B) is this short one by Halle Bailey.

It’s a pretty simple, repetitive song, but the thing that seems cool to me is whatever is going on with the keys. Like the song starts and seems to generally be in one key, but when she sings “back and forth” or “shut the door,” it seems slightly different and sort of unusual? It also gives the song a specific vibe. Like a lot of the ad libs and vocalizations seem like they should be off key but aren’t. What’s happening there?

Wow, the average-ass western songs are coming into QRIMOLE thick and fast this month. Yeah I didn’t like this song, I mean it’s not the worst thing ever but it doesn’t do a lot, it’s just two minutes of nothing. The sound you’re hearing is layered (overdubbed) vocal harmonies, something k-pop doesn’t tend to fuck with (because so few k-pop vocalists are even capable of singing the root notes without electronic help let alone harmonising over them) but the better western R&B singers will harmonise a fair bit because that’s the sound of R&B from way back. Combining it with the fairly strong reverb on the track definitely gives the harmony an ethereal quality, what you’re focusing on as a “wrong” note is probably your ear isolating out the harmony note and hearing it away from the context of the root note. Because a harmony note isn’t the actual melody, it’s not “the right note”, it’s like an extra “enhancing note”… I’m trying to explain this in a non-music-theoryish way. But it’s this sound:

Hello. i have a few questions.

do you think that kplp fans will overhype a song because the dance is really cool. ive started to notice it with bts a lot. i like bts its mindless to me and sometimes i really need that but when i look at songs like dope which isnt a terrible song to me people hype it up because the footwork it hard. when a single comes out for any kpop group its always about the dance rather then the fact that werid ass noice does not stuit the beat and the autotune is ass fucking you. i do wonder which kpop songs would be popular if the dancing wasnt a thing.

also NCT the expermental unit isnt that expermental to me its just a werid noise over a normal beat with aave. maybe i heard arca all the werid latin stuff and thats created a bias but kpop to me is just who can make the most radio boring song and overwork your idols the hardest. final question do you think the issue above us because the kpop indistry was bulit on making money for the korean industries rather then other music genres which where created as a act of defiance. how can anything be a protest in kpop when it was buildt on helping the industires that harm the people.

i would like to thank you for your time and have a good day.

The dancing is definitely part of the package that sells people on k-pop overall. It’s one reason why you’ll never really see the “virtual” stuff ever be more than a niche thing. People like the human connection and part of that is the dancing.

NCT definitely isn’t all that experimental, when I talk about them risk-taking, I’m talking about risk-taking within the context of pop music, which is a pretty small degree of risk-taking really. It’s nothing all that wild, I mean it’s not fucking Merzbow. But it’s all relative – it’s still pretty risky compared to what most k-pop agencies are churning out. There’s nothing particularly rebellious about Korean idol pop, I think anyone who is looking for that should look to other genres. There’s plenty of protest music out there that people could check out.

Through a lot of factors (group drama, depression, just personal growth etc), I’ve found myself friendless since the pandemic. I’ve been trying to put in the effort to change this, to make at least one by going to clubs and hobby classes. But people seem very creeped out by a person, especially a girl, with zero social connection, especially for a long period of time. The assumption is that “if nobody wants her, there must be something wrong with her.” And this is worse because generally people do expect women to have larger social circles than men. I don’t proclaim my loneliness to people I am trying to befriend, but it’s found out via indirect means. Such as having no stories to tell that include another person, never mentioning talking to another human, lack of social skills, being always available, etc. Also, the question is sometimes posed by the other person. Not in an accusatory manner, but often in one of curiosity. Example: “Where do you like to go with your friends on the weekend?” And that’s how they find out. Should I lie? Seems unreasonable since I can’t hide 5 years of lacking social development. I also don’t want to start a friendship off of a lie. How do I get out of this catch 22? I don’t want to be alone anymore.

I’m hardly the person to ask about being more social give how wilfully antisocial I am, but I don’t know… could they really be judging you as hard as you think? To me it feels like a good segue into “that’s why I’m here, you know”. However even if so, I think most people would understand the effects of COVID on the social landscape so you can probably just blame it on that if you felt like you needed an “out”, just say you had to lock down really hard and because of that you lost track with a lot of people. Not necessarily a lie from what you’ve told me, and it prevents people from digging further because nobody really wants to hear about COVID, we’re all thoroughly sick of talking about it by this point. And if they pry even further you can tell them that YOU are sick of talking about it and you’d rather look to the future. Makes it easy to change the subject from there. Or just reverse it and start asking them questions. Most people’s favourite conversation topic is themselves so you’ll find that asking people about themselves is a great way to extract yourself from awkwardness. See how you go with that, but don’t be surprised if this advice sucks because I am very antisocial, sincere apologies if it falls short.

i read the roundups close-to-weekly and im wondering how rockit girl always has a song in a weekly roundup? also what do you think of this? thanks for the roundups, they’re really useful for me to keep up with kpop releases and judge them all 😀

Rockit Girl are just very prolific – they had a break for a while but I guess they have a new album out or something I dunno. Also their videos are super cheap so it’s pretty easy for them to churn them out.

Passcode suck, those horrible twee j-pop melodies, ugh. There are good heavy bands from Japan, Passcode is not one of them. Glad you’re enjoying the roundups!

With the progression to UAU, Dreamcatcher seems to have even further followed the trajectory of Gfriend. In retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight, what do you think about Minx/Dreamcatcher -> UAU vs Gfriend -> Viviz and how their careers went?

I wouldn’t really know about commercial viability and how they’re doing financially. While I hope that all k-pop groups do well financially at least as far as the individual members are concerned, I also know that in such a crowded industry this simply isn’t possible. So I don’t broadly care about whether something is a hit or a flop, what I do care about is artists being able to have a decent livelihood doing what they love, and what I also care about is if the music is any good. I don’t have a window into these girls’ lives so I have no idea how they’re doing day to day but I will say that while Gfriend and Dreamcatcher were pretty close in quality, Viviz has much better songs than UAU – at least so far. It’s early days for UAU so who knows what will happen. I mean, probably not much, but you never can tell.

Ozzy Osbourne passed away and I’m extremely sad about it. Is there any song you enjoy from either Ozzy or his band Black Sabbath?

All the early Black Sabbath records with Ozzy on vocals are good and of similar quality, you can’t really go wrong with any of that stuff. I never got into him as a solo artist though, I thought “No More Tears” was a good song but apart from that his solo career didn’t interest me.

I saw in one of your roundups that you dislike the Gibson Les Paul. I know Slash plays a Les Paul, so what makes them so shitty? That had me thinking what you think of other popular models like the SG, Teles, or Strats. And what your favorite guitars are at certain price tiers (e.g., under $1000, $1000-$2000, $2000+)?

There’s a few reasons why I don’t like the Gibson Les Paul, some are just personal taste and others are more objective.

• Weight – weights of all guitars vary but the Gibson Les Paul is a notoriously heavy guitar on average. Very uncomfortable to play standing when doing a long show for this reason.
• Comfort while sitting – I also don’t like the way the Gibson Les Paul plays while sitting down with it, it sits too low on my leg if I’m sitting it on my right leg.
• Tuning issues – Gibson Les Pauls have shocking tuning stability, here is an excellent video that runs through the reasons why.
• Durability – Gibson Les Pauls are notorious for breaking at the headstock, due to a combination of a few weird design choices – high headstock angle, a lot of wood carved out for the truss rod cavity, and the decision to make the neck and headstock out of one piece of wood. Other brands that copy the Les Paul shape tend to fix these problems on the way to some extent (notably Epiphone but also others).
• Workmanship/price – for the ludicrously high price point of a Gibson Les Paul, the workmanship on them often isn’t that great.

Note that all of these points except the first two also apply to the Gibson SG. I fond SG’s a lot lighter and more comfortable but the tuning and durability still sucks. The Flying V is actually the best Gibson model in my opinion just because it’s got a better headstock design, but I used to own one and I still had to get it fixed – twice – because the wiring was dogshit and it would cut out during shows.

I think Ibanez have the budget market for heavy metal guitars completely sewn up – great quality control, great prices and weirdly their budget guitars often look better than their expensive models. If you’re more of a pop/rock person and wanted cheap I’d just get a Squier, the top of the line Squiers are quite cheap and honestly better than the lower end of Fender price point these days. There are other options too but a lot of them aren’t easily available, a lot of people talk about Harley Benton now but I’ve never even seen one of those in my country ever and I’ve heard anecdotally from people overseas that their QC is hit and miss.

If money was no object I’d get a high-end ESP or PRS. Similar prices to Gibson but you actually get a seriously blinged-out guitar for your buck with modern features and not dumb design decisions from 70 years ago that Gibson still sticks to for some reason. However money is an object so I’ll probably never get one, the most expensive electric guitar I own currently is a Fender “Japan Modern” series because I wanted something that still looked like a Fender to appease certain classic rock audiences with certain snobby requirements but still had modern features under the hood like noiseless pickups, locking tuners, comfort cuts and so forth. The other thing I’d consider buying is a super-light headless guitar, I think this guy has some serious points about the Ibanez Ichika Nito model, I’d love an ultra-light headless guitar for long band practices. For a lot of gigging for audiences that don’t have gear-snob requirements I use the Squier Hello Kitty models, they’re cheap, simple (one pickup, one knob, fixed bridge, not much to go wrong) and seemingly indestructible.

Guitar trivia – one of the funniest things about Slash that people don’t know is that the Gibson Les Paul he played in the iconic “Sweet Child O Mine” video isn’t actually a real one but a “Chibson”, a fake Chinese Gibson copy that illegally carried the Gibson logo on it. Hilarious that Slash playing a fake Gibson on that video almost singlehandedly brought the Gibson Les Paul back into popularity in the late 80s right when it was (deservedly) dying, espcially given the way Gibson carry on about fakes.

Why do publicity stunts work so well in kpop?

Because k-pop fans are dumb and they think that what gets said in the media actually matters. The smarter ones grow out of it eventually and often end up on this site.

Wait this low-key is giving lovelyz

Well Lovelyz definitely had songwriters who were using j-pop style songwriting, they were just doing it better than j-pop groups ever have (not uncommon for Korea to take j-pop style and improve it drastically). That video you linked is awful by the way. The difference between that and Lovelyz’ better songs couldn’t be clearer. Don’t link j-shits, people. The same thing always happens.

this song has a really nice beat and you might like this sort of 80s chorus and structuring

Absolute fucking garbage. Great sounds, actual song is trash. Again, don’t link j-shits. The same thing always happens.

The last time I submitted a QRIMOLE was around 4 years ago, asking about a soon-to-collapse relationship (although I didn’t know it then). It seems like I have learned nothing because I have returned to once again ask oppar for romantic advice.

Basically, I (girl) have been romantically interested in my close friend for about one of the five years that I’ve known her. From the start, I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it because I was pretty sure she wasn’t interested. It didn’t make sense to discard a good friendship though, so I figured I would quietly take the L and just wait to get over it. I thought I had pretty much gotten over it until she got a boyfriend like two months ago, which upset me more than I expected. Despite my clear conflict of interest, I have tried my best to be supportive of the relationship. She doesn’t seem to suspect anything, but I think her bf can tell that I dislike him (for purely selfish reasons, he’s a great guy).

Long story short, her family are being awful and are putting her in a position where she has to break up with her boyfriend. I am genuinely very sad and angry on her behalf as I think the situation is unfair. I also think I am her main confidante to vent to about this. Unfortunately, although the priority should be supporting my friend, I can’t help but think about my own feelings. I feel like I am deceiving her by not coming clean about my past/present interest in her, and feel significant guilt about continuing to hide it, especially since she confides in me about her romantic life. However, I don’t see how dealing the additional psychic damage of one of her closest friendships falling apart would be beneficial when she’s already in a shit situation.

To reiterate, I still don’t expect us to get together even in the best case scenario, but would be pretty devastated if we stopped being friends. Oppar please tell me if I am a bad person. Thanks

don’t include this section please (stuff redacted at reader request) end section

It’s probably best for you to not tell her how you feel unless a sudden twist happens and there’s actually some real benefit to both of you in doing so (i.e she shows clear interest in you and there’s a real sustainable hookup possibility). It’s not always a bad thing to keep things secret, if revealing those secrets is just going to cause pain and give nobody any joy. You’re under no obligation to tell anyone else anything about yourself. Don’t feel bad about it, you’re already being there for her as a friend while she’s going through this shitty stuff which you are also under no obligation to do, so I certainly wouldn’t feel like you have to do anything extra on top of that. If you care about her just keep being there for her when you can, and maybe things will happen or maybe they won’t, a lot of that is outside of your control so I guess just roll with it and do the best you can, see where it takes you. Nothing to feel guilty about.

I plan on listening to Viviz’s full album. I haven’t yet, but I’m wondering if you would also listen to it or if you would or if you ever listened to GFriend albums in full, since you like their title tracks so much. (I haven’t listened to GFriend album in awhile).

Many years ago I had some Gfriend stuff on CD and listened to it and I now can’t even remember what it sounded like but there were dogshit ballads probably.

Kpopalypse Oppar, Have you ever considered just writing your roundups with embedded links of the music video in the title of the song instead of impeding every single video directly? Obviously, this would make your posts load faster, so are you not doing this for aesthetic reasons? Some other reason? I do think the thumbnails are useful to tell what’s a shitty ballad and they liven up the page, keeping it from being just text. Perhaps just imbed the video itself for good/decent releases, and all the other stuff can get secondary treatment of just imbedded links. That’s probably another great way to make K-pop stans whine.

I give all releases the same “exposure” for a very specific reason. I want the nugu stuff and artists nobody cares about to stand on an equal footing to the A-list artists and get the same treatment. The message is that it’s all music at the end of the day and that you have an equal chance of liking/disliking every song (as do I) so why not give every song the same opportunity to be both seen and heard. Also the pictures the video creators use as thumbnail often tell a story of their own, which is worth commenting on. K-pop is at least as much a visual form as it is an auditory form, so highlighting the visual presentation is important. Also if I started only featuring certain videos people would flood my social media with whining about why I embedded video X and not video Y etc etc, I don’t want to create a “haves and have-nots” heirarchy within roundup where some artists get embeds and some don’t, when the Korean system itself is already overly heirarchichal. If anything I want to be the opposite – an equalising force.

Do u like gorguts

Not really, they were definitely one of the weaker death metal bands from the big death metal explosion of the late 80s.

How rock is Olivia Rodrigo’s music really?

I don’t know, it’s rock. Rock by a corporation is still rock. Plenty of worse music out there.

Why does the music here sound so ominous? It’s scaring me but I can’t explain it.

Because it doesn’t resolve on the root note or tonic of the key, so it sounds like it’s going somewhere and never arrives. Or, it sounds like a question without an answer. If that’s confusing, read more here.

Oppa, how are you and your cat and girlfriend? I trust you’ve all been well. I haven’t been, so I ask once more for a crumb of your infinite wisdom with some family drama. Fair warning: this gets a little personal and possibly disturbing.

I’m the youngest of a trio of sisters, 25 years old with a single mom. Mom’s a lil cupcake now bless her heart, but back in the days, having to take up the role of two parents had been rough on her. She was strict and struggled with some anger issues. The one who took the brunt of it was the middle one, unsurprisingly. Let’s call her Lara. Lara wasn’t so good at the studying and the books. Lara liked friends and going out. Lara was pretty, popular and got a lot of attention from boys. Lara was also misunderstood, and like most popular people, always had people starting rumors about her. So yes, while she did fuck up, it was often exaggerated and she got blamed for things she didn’t do. So, she started also doing those things that she was getting blamed for anyway, and subsequently got into even more trouble.

Fast forward to the present, Lara is 28, and I literally don’t recognise my sister anymore. She’s gotten so deep into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Yes, she was even in the whole “Earth is flat” movement at some point. Aliens. The apocalypse. Lizard people. Magic and curses. Quantum physics and conspiracies on the origins of the pyramids, you name it. And relating all of the above to random phrases in religious books taken out of context. She appears to think of herself as some type of prophet now, and every time we see her, she won’t stop preaching. Like, she literally talks for hours and hours and no matter what we do or how disengaged we are, she just won’t stop. She sends me tons of reels on instagram everyday. Apparently that’s her source of information along with some questionable documentaries and a VERY dubious talk show host. Not only is she completely misinformed, she’s also insisting on talking about these things to the wrong people, at completely inappropriate times, with no regard for how long it takes and not allowing anyone to interrupt. She’s completely neglected herself, her sleep schedule is wack, she barely eats, shows up to work late, is ALWAYS broke, is extremely forgetful, emotionally volatile and dismissive. Her life completely revolves around this stuff now, and I have reason to believe that she does all of it as a form of escapism from her own reality – being unsuccessful in her business ventures, having continuous clashes with mom, all her friendships and relationships failing (but she’s never in the wrong, of course. everyone’s just bad), etc. She never wants to address any of that or talk about anything real and grounded. This has become her new reality.

We have reason to suspect she’s also likely using some substances (apart from recreational marijuana, which we’re already aware about). She’s barely at home now (it’s been about a year of this particular down-spiral), and every time she comes, she starts her nonsense talk, me and mom try to listen, try to entertain and engage her in conversation, eventually lose patience and politely ask her to stop, and when she just doesn’t, yes, we lash out, then she lashes out even further, yells like a madwoman and storms out again. And it’s just been this vicious cycle over and over again. It also appears she’s always purposely picking fights at home so she has an excuse to leave the house and do whatever she wants (aka possibly drugs). Add to that: she’s a very manipulative pathological liar with a serious victim complex – always blaming everyone else for her problems.

It’s not just that listening to her is exhausting – because it really is – but it’s also extremely debilitating, demoralizing, downright soul-sucking, and while we all agree that she’s not entirely sane at the moment and have to be patient with her, we also have our limits. Unfortunately, resources and facilities for mental health/rehabilitation are few and far between here, and we simply don’t have the money for it. Even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to admit her because we’re in a foreign country and both her ID and passport or expired. Our home survives on a relatively small income which I’m making from working a full-time office job, and instead of either of my elder sisters being a support and helping me out, they’re often asking to borrow from ME. (The eldest is working while studying in Latvia, she’s kind of just detached, bothered and doing her own thing). I don’t know. I’m unable to move forward with my own life because of this situation, I can’t leave my mom because I’m literally all she has right now, but with all my money going into basic expenses just to survive, I can’t even continue my training to become a doctor because I would either be working for free or paying for it, in which case there’s no one to financially support either of us. My degree’s just sitting pretty for two years and I’m unable to move an inch in any direction.

I know this was a really loaded question, I’m just feeling kind of lost and looking for real, practical solutions that aren’t just “You shouldn’t worry about anyone, just go live your life!” or “go call the cops on your sister and get her arrested” (yes, the oldest one actually suggested that). And I mean, while I have some resentment for Lara, I also hate seeing her spiral like this. I don’t want her to hurt herself or do anything extreme. I want the best for her at the end of the day, I want her to get out of her own head and live in the real world like the rest of us. I simply don’t think I am financially, mentally or emotionally equipped to help her. Even if you don’t have any immediate solutions, I would appreciate you just holding space for me, since I remember you mentioning friends that had dealt with substance abuse issues before.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading this essay! On a lighter note, I’m kind of into song-writing. I have the lyrics and the melodies down, but I can’t play instruments (yes including my own vocal cords) and am looking for a way to bring them to life. What are some tools or ways that I can either generate the instrumentals myself, or look for a producer to work with? How to make money off of all these drafts in my notes app?

I’m good, gf and cat are also good!

Lara isn’t so good though. I’ve lost people to similar bullshit. The way I handle is is that around them I just constantly ridicule them. Not in an angry “everything you believe sucks” way but just in a fun way. The trick is to keep the conversation going and keep it fun and lighthearted, lots of jokes and gentle ribbing, as soon as you “lose it” and start yelling that’ll just push her further into the rabbit hole. If you make fun of it but lightly it becomes exhausting for her rather than you. Then she has a choice to either join in the fun and come back out of the rabbit hole a bit or just shut up about the lizard men or whatever. I think people tend to cling to things by nature and if you’re not getting the love from where you need it the most, you’ll seek it out in other places like Ancient Egyptian fake moon landings that killed JFK or whatever. Whatever you do don’t cut her off, or threaten to, then all hope is lost. Give her a clear way out.

Do not under any circumstances let your family borrow money (or anything else) from you without paying it back. Keep tabs on it. Remind them daily how much they owe. Start joking about charging interest. If they don’t get the hint, actually start charging it, or start borrowing stuff of theirs of equal value. Don’t let people take you for a ride. Every transaction must be a two way streeet. Good luck. Things won’t always be this way. But you can fight (just a little) to make it more tolerable.

Go to a music shop and get one of those little composer MIDI keyboards that comes with a free version of a digital audio workstation. If unsure get the staff there to help, you shouldn’t have to spend much money because this stuff is aimed at new starters. Then get stuck into some free YouTube tutorials that show you how to use the software and do basic beats, melodies, etc.

is objectifying people always bad? i think it’s just part of being human that you exist as a subject and an object in different contexts. i think the morality if this just depends on the context/extent to which you see someone as a desirable object, but what do you think? i ask bc people always throw around the slogan “don’t objectify idols” somewhat mindlessly, as though most of us dont all watch performances and buy photocards with a similar, voyeuristic gaze

Fancy asking me of all people this question. I think objectification is fine, we all look at each other, it’s okay to enjoy that, just be respectful about it and don’t make assumptions about people based on what you see (or don’t see).

I’ve recently been thinking about how kpop fans love to hate on “companies mistreating idols” (the mistreatment is always something like not releasing a full album every other week, instead of actual life-threatening situations that ironically will result from being pushed to do crazy schedules). And it struck me as odd because a lot of fans are workers at companies themselves, they have much more things in common with the regular workers of their loathed companies rather than their idols. What do they really want?? Why are kpop fans so demanding all the time?? Y not just enjoy the kpop products!! I have nobody to discuss things like these with.

My question to you is actually this: do you have plans to add some sort of forum/discussion functionality to the ask oppar site? (I just found out about that site and may have missed announcements/context info abt it). I think a lot of caonimas would enjoy to have some kind of space that is untethered to any other platform or contingent to your vetting of submissions to just caonima-off of each other’s thoughts! But that kind of thing may be resource-intensive to make & maintain I guess.

Often when k-pop fans talk about “companies mistreating idols” what they really mean is “companies not giving me the products and services that I personally prefer”.

No I will not be starting any forums, discussion boards etc, simply because it’s just too much for me to moderate and I barely have the time to do the things I already do for readers. The closest I have right now is a subreddit which people could use for that if they wanted but very few people use it. On the other hand if I made socials and gave it to someone else to moderate, they may end up making decisions that I don’t agree with and I wouldn’t want that under any “official” umbrella. Or it may just flop completely and now it’s another thing I feel obliged to maintain. Of course anyone can go off and make their own “unofficial” place to do this stuff and that’s fine, if someone wants to make a Kpopalypse discussion forum I wouldn’t object, but I won’t make one of my own… I may participate in someone else’s though!

Do you like “Girls’ Generation” by SNSD or “Into the New World” by SNSD more? Both of these songs I found so cheesy at first listen. In fact, I couldn’t finish either at first. But then I kept hearing snippets, and then I started going through your post catalouge and found it again in your dark ages best songs. So I tried listening to ITNW again, and it just clicked. Perhaps it was the strong choreo (which I wish more of their songs had), but either way now I really like both ITNW and GG (song).

Also, do you know if there are any performances of “Girl’s Generation”? The song has an MV but it’s so search engine unfriendly that I can’t find any stage or concert performances of it. Do you mind helping me find one? (if you can find nugus, you can do this. I believe in you!)

Your first question is answered here.

Here’s some loive performances of “Girls’ Generation”, including some with actual live vocal(!):

Hi! I currently have this song on repeat. My question is, how does this evoke the same feeling I got when listening to Eyedi’s &New? is it the wah wah instruments that both have? or is there other reasons? What songs are similar to the two?

Similar instrumental choices in the backing track, particularly the bass and drums which are kept very simple. Also the way the vocal phrases are broken up with a fair bit of space between each vocal line.

Is Viviz consistently decent? As opposed to Gfriend’s generally good with some miserable trend-chasing misses but occasionally great? Which kind of group do you prefer?

Gfriend were a better group overall. I don’t mind Viviz though, they don’t have anything truly bad, at their worst I can still listen to them.

Hi oppar! Hope you’re doing well!

I have some relationship advice to ask from you. I’m 21M and I’ve been in a relationship with a 27M for, by the time you read this, almost two months now. I’ve been in two serious relationships before, and honestly, they both ended because I’m an insecure anxious attachment fuck. I always crave attention, get mad/anxious when my bf is out having fun without me / not texting me / busy, and I overthink too much. I definitely wasn’t like this before my first relationship, but I don’t think it’s fair to pin this all onto my first ex, since most of the problems from the relationship came from me.

I’ve been a *bit* better with this new relationship! We don’t text too much because we don’t have to, and I think we’re in a healthy spot. I’m not guilt tripping my bf as much as I used to with my exes, and I try my best to not be anxious. Although since we just started dating, it’s a bit too early to tell if we’re gonna be healthy in the long run.

What am I supposed to do? I’m definitely aware of these issues, and I always feel so bad whenever I make these mistakes (it’s not like I like it when I get anxious), but when it comes down to it, I always seem to be making these same mistakes to some extent. And it doesn’t help that all of these relationships have been long distance. Do I just have to grow up?

Also, what do you think of the guitar and drums in this song:

Last question first, I don’t mind the song, Beabadoobie is pretty good generally speaking. And there’s also a lesson you can learn from her that will help you with your first question.

Watch this video. Beabadoobie can’t help herself. She wants to “keep out of it” and probably knows deep down that’s the right decision, but something inside her just wants to “address it” somehow. Which is a mistake, of course. Laughing it off or at least ignoring it is the better way, she needs to learn how to brush it off. By poking the bear she makes it ten times worse for herself. Sound familiar? Don’t poke the bear in your relationship. Women are generally pretty socially smart, and guys are mostly shit liars – you’ll probably know when your man is cheating, you likely won’t have to guess (there are some very devious guys who can fake it, but most of them are sloppy and eventually fuck up somehow). You’re doing very well by acknowledging that you’re unintentionally sabotaging by overthinking things. Don’t worry, you’ll get better! It comes with practice. That doesn’t mean be blissfully ignorant though, just have faith in your own smarts and don’t give into negative self-talk.

What do you think of Kara’s 2014 release mamma Mia? Me personally I feel like it’s their best title track from chorus to bridge to outro

It came off like a worse “Pandora” to me at the time, and… well, it is, but a worse “Pandora” still isn’t bad. It’s the Michael Jacksony vocal lines in “Mamma Mia” that I don’t like, I don’t think they fit with the tone of the rest of the song. Take that out and it’s one of their better tracks.

What are your thoughts on cottage cheese?

I only like cottage cheese in the context of curry. I’m a big paneer fan.

Can you explained to me what’s wrong with the audio mixing in the chorus in f(x)’s version of Chocolate Love? Something about it sounds super crunchy and unnatural, like as if it was sped up (which it is compared to the SNSD version) after it was recorded without a high enough sampling rate (because oh shite, we need to save a few seconds for Amber). Or is the audio quality just that bad? Because I just don’t feel like I notice/get bothered by this in the SNSD version. So why would the audio quality be worse for f(x)? Or perhaps I’m just tripping.

Yeah I don’t think they sped up the actual recording itself, but the f(x) vocals sound slightly drier. Also the Girls’ Generation version has some extra vocal harmonies in it (listen for the low “oooohs”) that soften the harshness of multiple girls singing in unison  together, I think perhaps it’s the subliminal effect of a more layered vocal approach that smoothes out SNSD and feels weirdly absent in the f(x) version.

What happened to Neospring?

They closed down. I’m not sure why (I read about it but I can’t remember) but I guess it’s hard to run a popular site for free when you’re a small team. I’ve now replaced it with ask.oppar.party which is run by a loyal caonima so if you have those quick and thoughtless questions that you couldn’t be bothered waiting each month for QRIMOLE to address, you can ask them there.

Hi Kpopalypse. Life has been shit and I haven’t been able to visit your site in the past 2 months, but I’m glad to learn that you’re working on a new book and that you have a new questionbox ask.oppar.party (whose tab icon appears to be a hand flipping the bird – symbolic caonima superpower of not giving a fuck).

QRIMOLE is a special place where people can vent their sorrows safely and ask advice when life gets shitty without fear of being judged or ostracized or harm. Its existence is important
and I hope you will never lose your strength and willingness to keep it going (I’m sure it can get taxing in terms of time-effort-negativity ratio and even your caonima shields need time
to recharge to 100%).

I hope writing is going well for you and you’re feeling inspired? I remember you wrote an article a while back about the process of actually editing and registering and publishing and distributing your books. And all the legalese and bureaucracy that comes with that too. Once your current book is complete, would you consider doing a tutorial of that full process updated for 202x? I know you snark about current gens having allergies to reading, non-existent literacy skills, and attention spans of goldfish, but video format is just much clearer and easier to follow and understand (and you can set it to 0.25 speed and rewind it as many times as necessary).

And if you post it on YT/TikTok/Other it could get views from not just your caonima readership but other people looking to learn how to self-publish too. It could serve as promotion for both your book and your potential book agent/assistant services. It could get picked up by the almighty algorithm and become viral. Although with your music background and knowledge I think you might get more views from kpop reaction video type content instead of tutorials sadly. It seems like the algorithm loves those. And kpop memes and brainrot. I don’t know why it ignores your song covers and video essays. By the way, your last one – This is how kpop labels actually make money – is really good. The presentation and the pacing are just right. The supermarket intro was creative and clear edifying imagery as an analogy. And your voice is so chill while narrating, like a cross between smooth story-telling and easy chat with a friend.

And I personally find the absence of fast cuts and angles and superfluous effects refreshing, similar to old-school mini-docs. I think that’s why the algorithm isn’t showing it. It’s too informative and explanatory – the absence of click-baiting cringiness, repugnant exploitative grifting, unrelated filler blurbs or caricaturish over-the-top ridiculousness goes against everything the algorithm encourages and rewards. I am going to stream it overnight just to piss off the algorithm and hopefully it will break 1k.

And your Guide on How to Tell if someone Is Actually Singing in “live” Performances reminded me of when mrjkpop did a test side-by-side video with one of his songs and asked his viewers to vote which side they thought was live, and more than half of the voters thought the playback one was live. This premise is WingsofPegasus’ bread and butter. An evergreen topic that will always need to be explored and elucidated, especially as technology is getting better and better at faking perfection.

So I guess realistically kpop reactions would be your best bet if you were to get monetized, since kpop will keep debuting new groups and releasing songs in a never-ending stream, and with fandom manipulation and brainwashing only becoming stronger, kpop reaction videos will always get views from thousands to hundreds of thousands. And I am sadly musically illiterate / just a casual music listener, but you have knowledge as a musician and songwriter and sound engineer and more so your reactions would really bring something new to the table in terms of analysis. You already watch / listen to a lot of kpop, why not react to it in video format and hopefully make some money out of that? If I had your ears and your brain I would dissect the ever-loving fuck out of all my favorite albums (many of them not kpop actually). Which btw you could also consider if kpop is too risky, metal / rock reaction channels like David Heretic, Charismatic Voice, WingsofPegassus etc. are popular and self-sufficient, and no incidents of doxxing and harassment like in kpop circles. But that’s just a thought. Probably influenced by my 2 months of working for free under the promise that I would get a long-term contract after, only to get shafted at the end. I hate the present-day work field. I have to beg and grovel at every interview to get shitty Monday to Saturday jobs that pay minimum wage (that my parents and grandparents would have required only 8 years of schooling for – meanwhile I’m here with worthless degree and debt), and I only get hired for the trial period which is on my dime and free for them, and then as soon as that expires I get the boot. If I had skills that would translate into a lucrative YT channel so that I never have to worry about interviews and getting / losing my job it would be fucking amazing. But I don’t. But you do. So maybe consider it for the future? If you want ofc. I get the sense that you are a writer at heart, and you are very good at writing and have a great way with words, and it looks like it makes you very happy? Maybe as much as music? As a multi-talented artist does one form of art make you happier than the other or are they all equal? Or is there a risk that by turning any activity into monetized work that it will ruin the joy of doing it? I wouldn’t want you to lose your spirit in the process…that would be tragic.

Sorry, my stream of consciousness got gloomy at the end. I was just trying to say that it’s great that your fortitude and resilience and discipline are intact no matter what, that kpopalypse.com is still going strong since 2012, that your posts have only branched out more without compromising on quality and sincerity, that you’re still making games/interactive fictions, writing books, doing streams, answering qrimole questions. It’s admirable and reassuring (I can’t think of the right word atm) to witness something principled and solid and unchanging. Hats off and Hwaiting

My post about how to self-publish a book is probably my longest post ever on this site and it took forever! Making it into a video would be an even bigger task, and I don’t think it’s the best format for such information. I’d rather tackle smaller topics via video.

I’m glad you liked my videos! I’m not doing them for virality so while I definitely welcome views, likes, comments etc I’m not out here trying to be “a YouTuber”, I’m happy for the videos to just be for my readers plus anyone else curious. I don’t like fast gimmicky edits, making things slow and easy was a deliberate decision. It’s partly aimed at people who misinterpret my tone as “angry” etc, I’m really nothing like that at all and I hope the videos make this obvious.

I despise “reaction” videos and I block every single YouTube channel that hosts that type of content. Yes I’m aware this content is popular but once again I don’t love the idea of clicks enough to do that, I’m not trying to make a living off YouTube and I don’t want to do something so time-consuming that it takes away from the writing, I don’t want to have a life of pumping out YouTubes for the bucks, I’d rather cover what I want to cover, when I want to cover it, at a relaxed pace. Anything becomes a job if you do it too much.

I think I enjoy music and writing equally! Both have always been a big part of my life. I hope I can continue to do both for as long as possible! Pacing myself is a big part of that. Doing it too much means I may get sick of it and burn out. I’ve managed to sustain this site for over a decade precisely because I pick the schedules that suit myself the most and I don’t try to do too much or be everything to everybody. Work/life balance applies to everything!

Have you ever watched White: The Melody of the Curse? It’s a Korean horror film about a failed K-Pop group, notable for having actual Kpop idols in its cast, one of whom is Eunjung from T-Ara, who I know you’re a big fan of. Because of its setting and cast, from what I understand, it should be a fairly accurate representation of K-Pop. You know, besides the underlying metaphor of K-Pop ruining idols’ lives.

Yes, and you can read a review of it plus other horror films with T-ara members in them here.

Sometimes I think of how everything is progressively getting worse by design and how we’re forced to work harder and harder in exchange for less and less, and I start to despair. Next week I go back to work (I was in “vacation” aka unemployment as I waited for my employers to hire me again) and I don’t feel like I’m mentally prepared to go back to the grind. I started learning how to play guitar during the unpaid “vacation” so I think practicing my beginner baby exercises and scales will motivate me a bit, but aside from that, do you have any advice to help me cope with this existential dread?

I also want to ask in your opinion and professional experience, any advice for beginner guitar players like me? I only have one hour and sometimes just 30 minutes a day to practice.

Existential dread of working – if your current position doesn’t allow climbing the ladder due to no clear path, or maybe politics, then start job hunting. If you’re in a shit job that isn’t paying you what you’re worth, it’s the time to put the feelers out for something better. Don’t wait until things get really bad. There are good jobs out there, you just have to stepping stone your way up.

When you’re first starting guitar, practice every single day. Put your guitar somewhere where it’s out in the open, near where you are all the time. If you spend a lot of time on your couch, put the guitar by your couch. If it’s your bed where you hang out, put the guitar by your bed, etc. Make it as easy to casually grab as possible. Leave it out of its case, only use the case for travel. If it starts pissing you off, put it down… and then pick it up again later that day, or the next day. Even if you only do a little each day, the progress will build because it’s muscle meory training and daily reinforcement is what you need. An hour a day is fantastic, 30 mins a day is good too… but 10 minutes every day is better than an hour once per week.

Oppar, I know you (probably?) won’t be able to relate to this question much, but I’ve been recently struggling with something that I thought I’d never really give a second thought: my gender! I say this because I’ve never really given a fuck about it, but ironically, me not caring about it made me question for a second why I never did, and I found out that I may be some shade of… non-binary? I think? I don’t feel outright uncomfortable by being called with male pronouns, but I don’t feel especially connected to them nor do I really identify as what I think a “man” is, if that makes sense. Whenever I imagine an ideal version of myself, I see someone that’s somewhat androgynous/not immediately identifiable as a “Man” or a “woman” (and coincidentally very far away from what I think I’d be able to achieve since I’m naturally hairy and all).

For some context, I’m using “non-binary” here as an umbrella term for “not binary”, aka not a “man” or a “woman”. Specifically, I relate more to the term “agender”, but to reiterate, I’m still not wholly sure about it, which is why I chose to use a more generalist term.

Up to this point, it’s fine by me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to achieve that ideal, and frankly, I never tried to follow it or become that… and that’s where the problem comes in. I’ve been second guessing whether my feelings regarding to my own possible non-binarism are really “real” after I saw some posts and think pieces on Twitter (I know, not reliable) that went somewhat like “if you’re portraying yourself as a cis male socially, you’re not a REAL non-binary” or whatever. Personally speaking, I don’t think I’m treated as a cis male. Let’s just say I think most straight guys I’ve known immediately catched air of my… “fruitiness”, let’s say, and I’ve been called gay a considerable amount of times through highschool: faced dating allegations with my best friend, got asked about my sexuality, etc. So I think the “how you’re socially percieved” part is bullshit unless, maybe, you’re REALLY good at fitting in and making it look like you don’t have any gender-related turmoil going on. Yet, I still can’t shake the feeling that maybe they’re right, and I’m wronging non-binary people and their cause by claiming that I may or even am one of them because I look like a man and could possibly be percieved as one. I’ve only told a single irl friend about how I’ve felt about this and how I liked using more neutral pronouns, but I’ve never bothered to correct people about it. I don’t know, maybe they’re right this time around?

What do you think, oppar? Am I just letting someone else’s judgements cloud my mind here, and it doesn’t actually matter how I look? Or/and could I be rushing into a conclusion and a “label” too fast?

I had conflicted feelings about gender when I was a child, read more here (scroll to the bottom). Once I became a teenager I had more of a sense of “okay, male sexuality is definitely my thing” but I also felt so outcast and alienated at school by that point that I just sort of grew up my own way and didn’t even give that much thought to what constituted being a “man” or whatever. I always thought that people interested in being “manly” were just trying to drag me via peer pressure into sport (which was boring) or exercise (boring) or maybe doing some other weird daredevil stuff like fucking around with motorbikes (yikes) or skateboards (to this day I can’t even get on one) or smoking cigarettes (eww) or drinking (yuck) or drugs (ugh). So I quickly forgot about societal standards, everyone hated me anyway so I felt no pressure to fit in – they wouldn’t have accepted me, and I didn’t like them anyway. To this day I don’t worry about pressure to exhibit male traits… I figure I just am what I am, and let the chips fall where they may. I probably present more “male” now than I ever have (I had long hair in my 20s and didn’t work out) but none of that was planned, it’s just how it’s panned out. So I’d say it’s fine to be who you want to be but just make sure that the impetus to do whatever it is you end up doing actually comes from within you and not from outside. Don’t get trapped into obsessing over labels or living someone else’s idea of what you should be. Labels are just stuff others made up, it’s other people’s baggage. You’ve got one life so make it your own.

Have you ever found out songs similar to Yves’ New? It’s just so hard finding songs that sound like it or even has the same vibe.

No. The search continues.

QUESTIONS THAT ARE NOT QUESTIONS

Aint a question srry but this song has one of the worst guitar solos ive ever heard (i dont even think its a guitar – skip to 2:40)

It’s still identifiable as a guitar to me, slide guitar with wah and some very strange effect that’s doing something odd to the attack of each note. I mean I don’t like the song any way whatsoever but I don’t think the solo drags it down any lower than it already is. JAV Of The Month for this post is IPZZ-604.

Jesus, what a shit show. There are even company stans like in kpop fandom.

This is some weeb Vtuber controversy shit that I don’t care about. But fandoms are fandoms everywhere, you’ll find the same mental illness symptoms in all of them. JAV Of The Month for this post is SAIT-031.

Hey oppar,not a question but wanted to share a recent cute and funny thing in kpop with my new favourite k-pop boy and might just become my new favourite k-pop girl group and my very parasocial musings about it (which I’m dumping on you because I don’t wanna look like a weirdo irl and kpop sns is a place of horror).

K-pop fanboy Mr.Boo finally doing what his heart desires lol

Seungkwan,SinB,Umji,Imfacts’s Ungjae (now soloist Hello Gloom) and The Ark/Uni.T’s Suji (now actress/influencer) and the late Moonbin are all part of 98s and they always show up to each other’s Seoul events, it’s super cute and luckily most of their fans are relatively sane people so everyone sees it as cute. They have done a radio show and a couple of youtube show episodes together,Suji did a youtube vlog about them together, Seungkwan did a song cover for which he edited a video with clips of all of them hanging out they’ve spoken about each other a lot and Seungkwan looked very sad when playing gfriend on his k-pop lecture vlives (which got him the k-pop professor nickname) right after hybe disbanded them.

They also go help out at Moonbin’s family’s restaurant taking their group mates with them to act as waiters,etc. Also Suji is now married but her husband is an actor (?) also 98 born so now he also comes to their events with her. I’m a relatively new fan but from what I can makeout they have always been close.

The group started with Moonbin,childhood friend of SinB (they were neighbours and both did child modeling ,etc) introducing her to Seungkwan,his bestfriend and it grew from there. Seungkwan often used to point out to SinB stuff like, “Eunbi,eyebrows/expression” while passing by behind the scenes because he used to worry about her being perceived negatively,which is kinda funny because that’s a big part of her appeal to fans lol but I get him because other people in the industry wouldn’t always get it as evidenced by her getting evil edited by mnet. Honestly I used to think him and Umji were closer because of both of them being more sensitive and emotional types (although one time she texted something like I love you guys to their groupchat and he asked her if she was drunk).

But recently we have been getting a lot more interactions of Seungkwan and SinB on like music shows and stuff,one of which went lowkey viral at the time because he comes off as the more sweet/cute type as opposed to SinB being classic SinB without her fanservice idol mode While I really like it as someone who likes both alot (I think my bais might be Umji/Eunha tho as they are both closer to my type) and enjoys their dynamic I feel that them being closer might be because they were the two closest to Moonbin and hence feel his loss more than the others and have become closer because of that. Or maybe I’m the parasocial fool reading too much into it and them being more publicly close is just because they are now both now decade old veterans in their field with more solidified fambases so can interact more in public without worrying about fan drama/dating rumours and plus they are both are the type to not get dating rumours in their groups as opposed to other members like Umji which is why she seems less public about it.

Thanks for letting me ramble Oppar!

P.S In a variety show Seungkwan had to freestyle rap about idol leaders and he accidentally said “my girlfriend Sowon” during it. Despite of that instead of him Jeonghan from his group was the one who ended up getting dating rumours with Sowon lol.

I guess he stans Gfriend like the rest of us. JAV Of The Month for this post is START-375.

*Maybe* unpopular opinion I have is that the average kpop fapper (not just kpop fan, though many fans are also conscious fappers or fappers in denial, but people who are in it for the visuals specifically) is probably a bit more creepy and morally corrupt than the average… idk, “standard stuff” fapper. Not every individual but it’s a trend I’m noticing. There are a couple of key traits:

– They seem often turned on by what is “inaccessible” and by things I’d personally consider pretty mild. One example is people will talk in explicit detail about all the sexual fantasies they’re interested in seeing a particular idol do, but I suspect if the idol actually engaged in porn of these things people would lose interest (mystery is gone)
– Being interested in mystery alone isn’t creepy, but idol fans seem specifically drawn to things with “plausible deniability,” which in practice often looks like combing intensely through idols’ day-to-day life and zooming in extremely/doing close-ups, or reading into innocuous cues. (Not just visually but also psychologically. I mean this is a world in which voiceover boba kiosk!Felix is calling you “sweetie” when you’re just ordering your drink. I wonder how straight guys feel about this campaign.) Part of this is a scarcity model, like idols aren’t sexually accessible so small things are sexier, but also…
– This seems to go together with slut-shaming a lot of the time? Like when Yua Mikami was posted to kpopfap and people were like “meh not interested I prefer things like Ailee’s leaked nudes instead.” (For example; they actually named a different Western celebrity who had nudes leaked.) It’s like a variant on classy-sexy behavior but they want to be in the position of the “intruder” so to speak—it’s only hot if not on purpose. Of course you could seek out only idols who appear to be having a great time objectifying themselves and not run out of material but in practice I feel like fans are drawn toward “conservative” idols and reading into their behavior.
– I went to Waterbomb and felt similarly. Like, one of the performers (male) took off his shirt and women started screaming and literally pushing me out of the way to get closer to the stage. I was like… I mean you know, he’s built, but he was going to remove it anyway? His shirt was soaked through, you could see him regardless? Or they would ooh and ah over close-ups of an idol’s face on camera or whenever they stopped to drink water. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it. Similarly I think the camera and intrinsic voyeurism of its focus adds a lot. I saw Kwon Eunbi and while she’s an extraordinarily beautiful woman her dance didn’t strike me as more than I’d see in an American pop performance—it felt more impressive/athletic than super sexualized to me. (Don’t get me wrong, it was sexualized, I’m just saying that it didn’t feel all that different from the average kpop dance except she’s wearing less clothing.) But the next day of course all the most suggestive twerky moments of the performance slowed down go viral as if that was the entirety of the performance? I mean look, I know the point of Waterbomb is sexualization, but it feels weird to have these parts zeroed in on as if the *entire performance* was just a non-stop cleavage-fest. You can see cleavage anywhere any time, including at the festival itself—like at least 30 women I saw were dressed like Eunbi and had a similar physique.
– I guess what I’m trying to say is that it feels like kpop fappers (and many fans) make mountains out of molehills with relatively innocuous forms of sexual expression or even times when idols are not being that sexual at all, and it feels kind of obsessive to me. At its worst it feels voyeuristic and projecting of fantasies onto the idols they don’t want others to have. Like, they want the idol as stripped down as possible without being “a slut” but don’t want the idol to date anybody else or dance with the opposite sex. They get mad if the idol appears confident in their own sexual expression (e.g. Hwasa.) They’ll take slow-mos of water splashing from a bottle or unintentional nip/boob slips as if it’s “a treat” and be like “WOW FOR FREEEE?” And I think what does bother me at the end of the day is that they feel more interested in sexualizing day-to-day activity than in actually participating in explicit sexual activities with real humans. This does not mean idols are all being unwillingly sexualized—I’d bet many of them lean into it or are mostly neutral about it—but it feels like the fanbase itself has sort of pathologically repressive sexuality which involves plausible deniability by focusing on the most innocuous situations possible.
– Plus there’s that any time if you point out that a concept is meant to be suggestive you get bombarded with “OMG are you a freak?? You must just be fantasizing about my oppas all day and devaluing their amazing talent to just their dicks” even though kpop idols are not my type (same with general visual kei types) and there are maybe 3-5 guys in the entire industry I’d say are at all handsome to me. The girls that’s another story. But fans get all aggressively “death of the author” and “art only means what you read into it” as if the original content doesn’t exist and literally anyone who perceives suggestive concepts is reading it into the situation. While fans are simultaneously hypervigilant nevertheless to “wrap the idols softly.”

A lot of this is stuff that I’ve also observed over the years, and have made comments on in various ways. Part of the reason why I’ve stanned Yua Mikami so heavily and made her a feature in certain key aspects of Kpopalypse content is that she and her groupmates so perfectly exposed the hypocrisy happening on both sides of the k-pop “objectification” fence, probably while being blissfully unaware of all of it. On one hand the people who think fapping to k-pop is horrible, naturally really hate her because of her background in adult film, which is of course to be expected. However the twist that people didn’t expect is that the “k-pop fappers” don’t really like her either because of her background in adult film; to them she’s intruding where she doesn’t belong. They’re like “what’s the point of posting risque images of her on my favourite sub when she already makes adult content”, “she has an unfair advantage”, “the mystery is gone” etc. So it proves that “kpopfap” communities for all the supposed “controversy” they cause merely by existing, are actually quite tame in their tastes. If idols actually did the things that k-pop fappers wish idols did in the comments sections, they actually wouldn’t like it. If I was doing a gender studies thesis at Uni I’d definitely make the culture around r/kpopfap my research project because there’s a lot more going on there than meets the eye. This wasn’t a question so I’d like to take the time to remind readers that if you care about these issues you should probably vote in the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey if you haven’t yet, it’ll still be up for a little while until enough people vote, and also Jav Of The Month for August is SONE-786.

BEST QUESTION

Jeongyeon is fucking you from the back.
You’re inside Eunha.
Are you going forward or backward?

I don’t think it matters much. My first instinct would probably be to go forward further into Eunha, but I’m not a Mormon so I’m not going to just want to stay still in there, and I might already be in all the way, so I’m definitely wanting to go back out so I can go in again… so I’m going to be “running into” Jeongyeon too. I mean that’s fine, given what she’s had to put up with lately I’d be okay with her getting some compensation, she can perhaps get her aggression against JYPE’s stylists and video editors out. In DASS-487 it always seems to be the person in the middle who’s having the best time. whycantwehaveboth.gif

That’s all for this episode of QRIMOLE! This series will return next month! Oh, and do you have a question that you’d like to see answered in the next episode of QRIMOLE? If so, use the question box below, or if no box appears, click the Qri on the sidebar to open the box as a separate webpage! Kpopalypse will return!