It’s time once again for QRIMOLE, read on as Kpopalypse takes more reader questions!

It’s good to be back! Many people asked how I was recovering after the car accident last month, and the answer is, I’m mostly better. I’m still a bit sore every day, but then Kpopalypse is even older than Kahi so it’s hard to tell how much of that is the accident’s fault and how much is just me being an old cunt. Thanks for your continued readership and support! Let’s get on with this week’s questions!

Did you think Lee Hi’s new song is a cry for help for anyone to rescue her?

I don’t think they give her enough artistic control to actually make a cry for help.

Could you try making a compendium of all of Miss A’s title tracks? Just wondering.

I could, but I won’t. You could make your own compendium easily enough just by searching YouTube, why would you need me for this?

Was Pristin’s disbandment expected, or was something up?

Well, I certainly expected it. After very little action for a long time it was pretty clear that Pledis weren’t putting much energy into the group and something internal was going on that was unraveling things.

Hello Kpopalypse! How are you? I just have a question regarding something I released a while ago and you also said something similar on a curious cat answer. I’m talking about how the visuals are usually the youngest member and almost always one of the popular member. I always wondered why this has been the case for a while in kpop even though the youngest is/was underage when they debuted. What I want to know is why this is the case? You said something like companies plan this in the way. Can you elaborate more? I always found this interesting and a little creepy.

K-pop companies don’t give a fucking shit whether someone is underaged or not. Why would they? It’s not illegal to sing and dance if you’re under 18 (or whatever the age of consent is where you live) and if other people are perceiving the singers and dancers in a sexual way, then that’s their perception and something that companies will definitely wash their hands of (even if they may encourage it sneakily). However it’s also true that being attractive sells, and being more attractive sells more, and the people making these groups are aware of this, and they want performers who are going to appeal to the maximum amount of people. In the eyes of these companies, someone younger is theoretically going to be “young and attractive” for a longer period of time and therefore more able to compete with other young, attractive idols from other agencies for things like advertising revenue, where youthful people are often favoured to sell products because it’s the “lifestyle of youth” that is often being packaged along with the product. The high amount of competition, and the willingness of people to compete, is what creates these conditions. Sure there’s definitely some creeps in these companies, but most people in the industry are neither here nor there about underage people being exploited and just want to make money. It’s not immorality so much as amorality.

Hello again oppar! Sorry to hear about your accident. I hope you are feeling much better and healed fully. I don’t really know how to phrase this question so I think I’m to just explain the context and hope that a coherent question emerges by the end of it. I’m 25, south asian and come from a Muslim family. I myself am agnostic but my parents don’t know that. Telling them – at least while I’m still living with them – is not an option. It just wouldn’t be worth the energy and emotions because they wouldn’t really talk to me. It would just be shouting, catastrophising, claiming I’ve become a bad daughter, it was a mistake coming to this country, you get the picture. I’m just waiting for when I can move out. Issue is, all those problems were only if I was to come out about my beliefs. In terms of me actually being practicing, they never really cared if I was or not. But over the past few months my mother has been becoming more and more religous, and has been increasingly pushing me to become more practicing. It started off sporadic, but now pretty much every single conversation she brings this stuff up. I can’t have a single interaction with her without her telling me (not asking) to do some new religous thing. I can only keep deflecting so much. If it was just her that would be 1 thing, but my aunt and nan back in my home country also do the same. And they all resort to emotional blackmail as well. Saying that i should do it for them, if I don’t it’ll come back on them on judgement day. I only realised recently but emotional blackmail has been my family’s MO my entire life. I can’t even dress how I want to without religion being brought into it. It’s getting increasingly hard to interact with my parents, but due to some financial constraints I can’t move out yet. My family need my financial help, and I don’t want to hate them. I don’t blame my parents for emotionally blackmailing me and trying to control me because they probably don’t even know they’re doing it. I do love my family. I hate that I feel this hatred towards them at times. I don’t want to lose them, but it’s getting harder and harder to maintain that mentality. I know I need to create some distance and then be more open about my opinions, but how do I keep my identity and act as who I am while I’m still under the same roof as them? How do I stop my relationship with my family becoming more toxic? That got a lot longer than expected, and I wouldn’t assume you’ve had similar experiences. But it’s nice to know that someone saw this and gave it some sincere thought even if just for a second. So thank you

I don’t understand religious motherfuckers. Do people really think that if god was real and existed and (for some bizarre reason) actually gave the slightest fuck about what we do on this planet, that he’d actually care about shit like what people wear, how many times they pray per day, and all those other arbitrary rules? And if he DOES care about shit like that… then he’s a fuckwit, because he clearly doesn’t care about plenty of the other way more important fucked up shit going on in this world. God’s quite happy about the existence of famine, war, mental illness, Donald Trump’s wig and After School not having a comeback… all things that with his supposed omnipotent power he could change in an instant – but he’s gonna be mad if you pray four times per day instead of five? What kind of complete fuckhead is he? Are we all that afraid of death that we still have to subscribe to this completely obvious horseshit now that science has proven that there’s no “cloud guy”? I’m with Stephen Fry on this one.

But anyway – on the one hand financial security is the key to you getting out of there, but on the other hand it’s the very people you are living with who are eroding your financial security. Still, they’re happy to take your financial support, right? I’d say to them “it’s getting intolerable for me to live like this, either get off my back about the religion stuff, or stop taking my money – choose one”. You’re probably right that they don’t know that they’re doing it – so you have to tell them, because nobody else will. If they lose your financial support… surely their god will provide?

Yeah I know I sound like a mega cunt but I have super-low tolerance for religious people telling others how to live. If people reading this are religious, know that I don’t hate you and that I think it’s fine for you to believe whatever you want to believe (even if you’re wrong, which you are) – but using that belief to try to control others is crossing a basic line of respect.

Hey opparrrrr So… I’ve been a fan of kpop since 2013, but had never watched any concerts live, because 1. no bands I had interest came to my country; 2. I never had the money. And I was happy. I listened music, watched kdramas and enjoyed everything from far. BTS brought their LY Speak Yourself tour to Brazil this past weekend. And I decided to watch my first ever kpop show since 1. I had the money; 2. though BTS is great; 3. had a friend to go with me. However… I’d never thought this show would change everything to me. It was perfect. The stages, the songs, the boys… I never thought I needed this until I watched it. I cried a lot because being there was amazing. I even paid the soundcheck, so I really got to see the members real close. But as much as the show made me love BTS MORE, it also made me terribly sad because it opened my eyes to how distant I am to most singers I love. They rarely come to Brazil. I feel incomplete. EXO brought me to the K-world in 2013, and they’ve always been my favorite group. But now, since members are enlisting, I feel sad. I don’t think I’ll ever see them live. Not for the next 3 or 4 years. Concerts do change fans’s perspectives of their favorite groups. It really brings us closer, I think. And reflecting on it now, I really want more kpop group´s to come here. And I feel sad because it’s going to take a long while before this type of shows become common. So oppar, this isn’t really a question… I just wanted to share my feelings with someone haha sorry for bothering you ❤

What you have to keep in mind is that the feeling of closeness that you feel with the performers is an illusion. This is just as true on a live stage as it is when watching them on YouTube or wherever else. The “physical distance” you have from idols is one thing but there’s also a “relationship distance” there too.

When BTS (or any k-pop performer) say they love their fans, they’re not lying, but it’s not the same kind of love that fans give to them, because it can’t be – that’s just not possible. When I saw Blackpink I did feel like I got somewhat more of a sense of who they are – but I have to remember that it’s only the public persona that I’m seeing, so it’s only a partial picture. That persona is very strictly controlled, not in the sense that these performers are expected to be wildly different from their true personalities (think about how Seungri was often marketed as a sleazy “ladies man” – not coincidental), but more in the sense that anything negative is held back. When was the last time that you saw an idol be genuinely angry at someone or something, i.e not just playing around for a TV reality show or whatever? That’s who Goo Hara’s water-bottle throw caused such a fuss – she broke the rules.

So where I’m going with all this is that the feeling of “incompleteness” is very much knowingly manufactured. If you lived in the same city as these idols you’d probably feel the same way. It’s part of how the marketing to fans works – you are allowed to feel like you know them a little but you’re not quite close enough to really know them as much as a normal human relationship would allow, so you go searching for ways to fill those gaps (by buying things, attending events, fan activities etc) and each interaction brings you a little bit closer to a goal that you can never reach.

How likely is it really Bighit would really even consider an offer from the likes of SM, when it would be bigger than SM after an IPO? It’s currently valued at >$billion. Bighit is also the most profitable SK entertainment company. https://www.statista.com/statistics/983658/south-korea-leading-entertainment-companies-profit/ https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2018&no=340117 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-09/-hitman-worth-770-million-with-k-pop-craze-rocking-the-planet

I don’t know. I don’t really care either. Why do people care so much about company profit and who is doing better than who. Unless you have shares in the company and your direct investment is affected, just stop caring about it, really.

Hi oppar, I hope you’re completely recovered by the time this question is answered. I never asked anything on here because I couldn’t really think of any questions before, but I have finally come around to it now: 1) I enjoy writing, and writing is a skill that is required in my day-to-day life as I’m currently in uni. However, I consider myself to be a really shitty writer, to the point where sometimes I’m too embarrassed to write stuff even if no one else is going to see it. You mention often in your blog that you had to practice a lot to improve your writing, and one can clearly see by reading older posts that they’re getting even better with time, but I’m confused as to how to actually practice it. Some people have told me before that I just have to write regurlarly and a lot, but I’m kind of skeptical of that since I always use a method or technique for practicing a skill and not just “keep doing it until you get good at it… somehow… eventually…” Was the process like that to you? Was there anything in particular that you did that would improve your skills more efficiently? 2) I’ve seen you give advice to confused people in their late teens about their career of choice quite a lot here, and it usually revolves around forgetting about other people’s expectations and doing what you love, but what if you don’t know what you actually like to do? I’m 18 now and while that’s still fairly young, most people my age have at least kind of an idea of what they enjoy and what kind of job would be ideal for them. As I’ve had depression since I was 12 though, I spent all the years I was supposed to try out stuff and find what I like being too unmotivated to do that, and I feel like I just don’t know myself at all. Is there any advice you could give to someone in my situation? Do you think this is a common thing for people my age to go through and I’m not just actually really weird? 3) What do I do when I continue to feel stuff even when I know it’s completely irrational? For instance, at an intellectual level I know it’s really dumb and cringe to like idols that I’ve never even met irl, but I can’t help feeling really affectionate towards them. Why is this happening help 4) Your blog is amazing and I wish all the best to you, your girlfriend and your cat. I’ll continue to expect all upcoming posts fondly

I spend a lot more time thinking about writing than I do actually writing. I also spend a lot of time reading back over what I’ve written, thinking about how I could have written something better. People who criticise my writing often don’t realise that every thought they’ve ever had about my writing, I’ve had it too, although I’m only interested in my own standards of effective writing, not anybody else’s. I don’t think my writing style has changed radically over the years but if I were to rewrite older posts now, I probably would write them slightly differently. Not very differently though – I’m just as much of a cunt now as I was then, I think I’ve just gradually learned how to wield the weapons of cuntdom more effectively. If you want an assessment of how good you are at writing and how you can improve I don’t mind if you send me something. I didn’t know what I wanted to do at 18 either, except be in bands and rock, and also not be a virgin hahaha. Society kind of expects that you know what you want to do at that stage, which is a lot of pressure I think. Also trust me 18 years is still young enough to try out a ton of shit, you definitely haven’t missed the boat. I think feeling the way you do is hugely common, in fact I think it’s completely normal and you’d be amazed how many other people are presenting a veneer of confidence in their career and life path when deep inside they have no fucking clue but are just going with it because they don’t know what else to do. The fact that you’re even entertaining these sorts of questions at all is to me a good sign, so many people are just directionless and don’t even realise it. Emotions are a separate part of the brain to rational thought, that’s basically all it is. Just remember that it’s completely fine to feel emotions, because the rational part of your brain is the part that’s in charge and is going to dictate how you actually react and respond and live your life. Thanks!

hello in one of your previous articles you mentioned that even though you are a writer of a kpop blog you would have gotten bored of it and look at the alternative indie acts if you lived in korea is that the reason why on Korean charts there are more English songs like Anne Marie 2002

Billie elish bad guy

being streamed than idol groups

Probably. The idol pop thing is obviously massive in Korea, but there’s also a very large subset of the population that doesn’t give any fucks about that. Just like rap music is huge in the USA and you hear/see it all the time, but then there’s also tons of people over there who don’t listen to any of it. You’d be surprised how few Korean pop idols are household names in Korea.

I was reading June 2018 Qrimole, your last answer about idol-fan relationship and IU’s 23 reminded me a letter she read to her fans once: The relevant part is between 1:25 – 4:00. She basically reaffirms what you wrote about the relationship from fans’ perspective. I would normally post this as a comment in that page but the comments were closed. So, the first question is “why do you close the comment section?” My main question is about the idol’s perspective in that relationship. From her words it is apparent that being loved (or rather idolized) also creates an emotional burden. (Of course, you can say that this speech is also a trick to further manipulate the fans’ emotions, but I think she was being mostly honest there.) What I want to ask is this: How do the idols or the musicians in general cope with that burden? How do they overcome that feeling of lying to everyone? I know it’s their job, but I would assume there would be some psychological repercussions.

Often there are. People who are fairly sensitive and see how much their activity means to fans, know that they can’t possibly hope to meet the expectations of everyone who idolises them. Combine this with mental illness and the rigours of an idol and it’s a dangerous mix – I wouldn’t be surprised at all of that was at least partly a motivating factor being Jonghyun’s suicide. IU’s letter is probably as much about maintaining her own mental health as it is about projecting “the right” image of herself, and in the wording she’s carefully straddling a line between being “the perfect humble idol” and “emotional self-care”. IU is no joke and has a mind like a steel trap.

Comments automatically close on my posts after a few months. I did this just to stop dialogues getting rehashed on old posts, it becomes a bit unmanageable to leave all comments open everywhere once there’s over 200 posts. After a while the same things get repeated anyway.

So I’ve been in Australia for nearly half a year already. Why are there so many weirdos on public transport? I’ve gotten more death threats and random screaming in those few months than the several years I took PT back home. Oh, and a time when a bogan(?) shoved me in the stomach and threw his things at me. It makes me somewhat jumpy whenever I have to stay out late due to work or class. Do you have any tips on how I (a small female) can better protect myself or de-escalate the situation?

I agree, I don’t like public transport here much either, but I use it a lot because it’s cheap. Best advice I can give is to look like you’re someone who nobody wants to fuck with. Weirdos and creeps generally go for who they perceive to be soft targets, if you present yourself as someone who would be a hassle to take on, they’ll go elsewhere. Doing some self-defence classes might help just because it’ll get you into the right mindset, but even without that, you can just work on projecting a “don’t fuck with me” attitude and that will go a long way. Yes being small and female makes it more of a challenge but it isn’t impossible.

Dearest Kpopalypse, I’ve recently turned nineteen, and have decided it’s time to face my desires: I like (much?) older men. 30-50 years old. (ideal age is 39-45), and intellectual in some way or another.

I’m asking you for advice because if I recall correctly, you’ve mentioned dating women a decade or two younger than you, because you’re an older bloke (maybe not as old as my ideal age? idk), and because I’m sure you’d be less judgmental and more qualified to help me than my friends who seem repulsed at the very idea of dating “someone who could be my dad”. I don’t need criticism, just a minimum amount of help.

Anyways, back to the main subject:

Where do I meet these guys? How do I show them I’m interested?

How do I make sure they’re not absolute creeps?

Is there a way to avoid making them feel the generational gap? What are immature things people my age do that could make them uncomfortable? I realize an intelligent, mature man might be sort of freaked out in this type of situation, sigh, but I don’t want to wait five years, I want my sexual and emotional needs taken care of NOW. If you have any other advice it would be GREATLY appreciated. Best wishes, and keep blogging, it’s incredibly entertaining and educational!

Actually I’ve dated with very large age gaps in both directions. My first time was with someone much, much older, which was actually a very good thing because older women have experience and I think that makes the first time easier when you’re a young virgin and don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. More recently I’ve dated younger people, my current girlfriend is nine years younger than me and we’ve been going out for nine years at the time of writing.

Meeting guys and showing them that you’re keen shouldn’t be hard at all. There’s plenty of guys my age who are single and wouldn’t say no to a younger girl. It’s weeding out the creeps that is probably the harder aspect of this. What I’d say is don’t be too shy about doing the approaching, as most older guys who are actually not assholes won’t approach you just out of politeness, because they understand the age gap taboo and respect the fact that most girls don’t want to be approached – but if they see you’re keen and unbothered by this, they’ll then proceed if they like you. The older guys who DO approach you are probably the creeps, so my advice is – make the first move and choose from among the creeps, or you’ll be stuck with choosing from among the creeps who choose you, which is certainly a “suboptimal pool” in your situation.

With that new Lee Hi song out, I was wondering when you were going to post: “This Kpopalypse dislikes in music – reggaeton”

I don’t dislike the new Lee Hi song, and I don’t even know enough about reggaeton to write a thing on why I might dislike it. It all just sounds like pop to me. That’s one musical movement that has completely passed me by.

I love your blog, it’s intelligent, well-written, with dashes of delicious aussie humor. I don’t know who else to ask this sticky question, sorry.

I am literally stuck, I get just enough Social Security to survive, alone in my rented room, unable to move or improve until my sister pays me my half of the house we co-own. She says she’d have to take out a loan to pay me that much (I estimate my half to be $20,000 or so) so I’m not sure how insistent to be. It’s already occupied by a nice old lady we just want to leave there. My problem is, I’m already 64 years old, not sure how much longer my health will last, and I need the money to improve like seven different areas of life (moving to better place, getting a car, moving my storage stuff out of costing me $140 a month, a better computer, etc.)

So how insistent can/should I be?

Very. If you end up on your deathbed not having sorted out that shit, you’ll be regretful. Not sure of how insistent you can be legally, but I would certainly exert whatever influence you have if I were you. You don’t owe anyone else a comfortable life. The person living there will find somewhere else if she has to, but she doesn’t have to, so she won’t – until she has to. Don’t let people and situations walk all over you if you have a choice!

Oppar, I study in a university full of tumblr SJWs that really like to stick their nose in other people’s sexualities. I am openly bisexual, but I’ve only ever been seriously involved with guys (I’m a girl). The thing is, I’m only 18 and I’m a late bloomer so I’ve only ever been seriously involved with two people and they just happened to be guys lol. It doesn’t mean I’m not attracted to girls and I’ll date one when I feel like it, but people keep making snarky remarks and insinuating that I’m straight and just trying to be accepted in the group, and it’s really bothering me. I suffered a lot with homophobia when I was younger and it sucks to be called ‘a straight girl that wants to get along with the LGBTs’. What should I do?

Tell your friends to fuck off with their bullshit would be what I’d do. If one makes a snarky remark call them out on it immediately, don’t let it slide – most effective of all if rather than getting simply angry (which might backfire), you can flip it back to them as a joke that makes them look stupid and intolerant (which they are). Just because someone is LGBT doesn’t mean that they’re any more “tolerant” than the regular person. We’re all human and a lot of us are prone to the same mob mentality bullshit as other humans regardless of our gender, race, age, disability etc, which your LGBT friends are clearly demonstrating. People who don’t like discrimination, shouldn’t discriminate. It doesn’t sound radical, but it is.

Hi there!

There are several kpop mvs that contains movie references (e.g. AOA ‘Get Out’) so here’s my question

Are these references treated as free-licenced tribute/cosplay or the company actually asked for permission/paid for using well-known characters/plot devices in the mvs?

I can 100% guarantee you that Korean companies never, ever pay for this sort of thing. Not sure why they would anyway, it’s not an infringement to cosplay as someone… if it was, all cosplaying would technically be illegal since absolutely all of it is “copying” as that’s the entire point of cosplay. Every cosplayer ever would have to burn all their outfits. The only exception is if a “brand” is involved, and even then Korean companies still prefer to not pay and will just instead apologise a lot when caught.

Hey Oppar! So I was hoping for a little advice from you if possible. What’s the best way that I can try to get along with a particular fighting game community in my area? Specifically: I play this fighting game series competitively (Super Smash Bros) and I like it for the most part. Years ago we had a tournament organizer I’m friends with who was really great, I felt like he ran the tournament brackets well, he was nice but also knew when to be firm, and helped me out with a few things as well.

Unfortunately he had to leave the scene for personal reasons, and in his place are a couple of people who now organize the tournaments and overall community in my area who to me come across as acting way harsher and meaner. After the former tournament organizer left, the new organizers now seemed to act much stricter, and I get a vibe that they don’t like me and they along with the main community members don’t even want to include me in their community, even though I don’t think I did anything wrong and have no intentions on making any wrongdoings (besides probably having less than stellar social skills). The reason I get that vibe is because I faced a specific situation where my friend from out of state wanted to play a casual match against me. We both were at a convention and the convention had a tournament for the game going on at the same place and all of the game setups had to be vacated to be used for the tournament (before then people were playing casual games at the setup). I purposely disobeyed that to try to get a few games in against my friend cause I wanted to kick his ass (which I did) and because I knew I wouldn’t have the chance to do it again cause he was gonna go back to his state after the con but I felt the way the new TO handled that was a bit over the line. While I acknowledge I purposely disobeyed the rules, he just yelled at me harshly and super loud and said “I’m disappointed in you, you should know better” and shamed me in front of everyone else there. I don’t want to go to tournaments where the organizers are going to apply disproportionate retribution towards me for any “messups” I make, I wish the TO handled it differently. The other thing which wasn’t as bad to me but still kind of hurt was one of the main sportscasters in the community also seemed unfriendly and unwilling to talk to me when I tried to make small talk with him (That was before the rule breaking incident). Anyways I would appreciate any thoughts and advice about my situation. I want to be able to get along with my community but so far it hasn’t happened (I had a couple of other social blunders with them previously that may have soured their view towards me) and I feel like I’m struggling to do so. I honestly wish the previous TO would come back but I think that will be a pipe dream and that I have to somehow figure out how to adjust to these new TOs. I also have the bad feeling that they and the rest of the newer community don’t even stan LOONA like I do. Thanks!

Most of what you’re worried about seems to be to do with your perception rather than what’s actually happening. Apart from that one time you were yelled at (and with reason, even if they were possibly a bit harsher than they should have been), everything else here seems to be more about what subconscious stuff you’re picking up on, rather than anything that’s actually happening to you. I mean, sure you might be right, but also leave open the possibility that perhaps they don’t hate you as much as you think, and it’s the losing of your former friend in this environment which is perhaps jaundicing your view of what’s happening now just because you miss that connection with people who you normally wouldn’t be connected to. It’s possible that the sportscasters and TOs are a bit nervous about being approached in a friendly way because they don’t want to get accusations of bias, so they’re trying to maintain a “professional distance”. I feel like maybe you’re reading a few things in to the situation that may or may not actually be there, and that this will sort itself out in time.

As for them not stanning Loona – you should definitely check into that and shun them if they don’t.

Hello! I’ve two questions, and they’ve been bothering me for a long time, and I think that they will continue to be stuck in my head for a very long time. Lately, I’ve been struck with a dilemma: my exams are coming (actually I’m plowing through my Physics exam tomorrow so best of luck) and I have a notion that this exam won’t be my last, but it’d definitely have an impact on my future. That and the fact that this time matters more than everything I’ve ever experienced before. However, I’ve never looked at exams quite seriously as I do now, and it’s seriously freaking me out, because I don’t want myself to become a nerd who cares crazily for every single mark. Honestly, I’m scared that exams (this one, and the following ones) will define who I am, and though that’s not really my own definition, I’m still worried that exams will get the best of me. So yeah, that’s pretty much it. How can I not let exams develop a negative impact to my future, while retaining who I am? And what about the stress whilst dealing with these problems? There’s another thing. I’m not really that into kpop as fangirls or fandoms are, since I don’t really buy anything of that kind (concert tickets, shirts, lightsticks, posters etc.) and I’m only into songs. So when I read your posts, I was genuinely surprised by all the things fandoms are doing. Why can’t people just listen to songs and relax? Is there a psychological (or another word) reason for all the crazy antics? And may you have a nice day too!

You probably need to take a mental step back from exams. You define who you are, not a mark on a piece of paper. Remember that employers in any occupation are never, ever going to ask you how many marks you got in an exam, and if you tell them, they won’t care.

You second question is one that I’ve asked myself often. I can only conclude that the marketing is really good and people get suckered in. I think that for a lot of people who are “into music”, music isn’t really the endgame. If it was, the other stuff wouldn’t hold so much power.

why do you say that the left-right dichotomy makes no sense when talking about politics?

Because it doesn’t. It’s literally nonsense. Maybe there was a time when these terms did make sense, but they sure don’t these days.

Look at the way values like freedom of speech just sort of oscillate randomly between the left and right wing, depending on whoever finds the concept more convenient. Is freedom of speech a left wing or a right wing value? Maybe it’s neither, or both? What makes it one or the other, and why? Recently it’s been right-wingers championing freedom of speech, but it wasn’t that long ago when it was right-wingers like Mary Whitehouse in the UK who were trying to ban books, magazines and songs. Climate change denial is supposedly a right-wing thing, but it was the supposed right-wing republican party of the USA who were the first ones to take climate change seriously. Gun-control is supposedly a left-wing thing, but it was the right-wing party in Australia that brought in Australia’s extremely harsh (and extremely effective) gun control laws.

When you look at self-declared “left wing” or “right wing” people at what they believe, you have a lot of people who believe the same things, based on location. There’s no logical reason why almost everybody in the USA who hates gun control also wouldn’t like abortion, whereas in Australia almost everyone who is anti-abortion is also pro-gun control. What that shows to me is that people are “picking sides” based on the default positions of their political system at any given moment rather than thinking about the actual issues. It’s a mob-mentality way of looking at politics. You are being manipulated.

Hi oppar ajusshi. I’m a caonima in need of advice. I just turned 18 years old and I was never interested in doing music or playing an instrument until recently. My question is: Do I need to learn all that technical stuff to be able to create music? Or be a pro in every instrument and sing like a goddess? I’m often discouraged by seeing young musicians that started practicing since they learned how to walk and I’m no prodigy or anything, I have zero musical knowledge. I just want music to be an outlet for my negative emotions and to relieve myself from my demons and depression but I don’t know how to get started. Also, I don’t plan on doing it for commercial purposes, it’s by only means to satisfy my need to create art. Thanks in advance.

P.D. I love your blog.

The short answer is no, you don’t need all that shit. It’s certainly helpful – but it’s not essential. Don’t worry about other people’s progress, just worry about what you want to do. Comparing your life to that of other people is a sure-fire road to complete misery. Just think about what you want to get out of it, and then get started, the sooner the better!

Please help me not have gay sex with Yves. I am stuck. I’ve heard there is a carrot that I need. I have no carrot. Please help.

To find the carrot, look in an area where a carrot might be. If someone is blocking that area, what might make them move? There’s some good clues in the comments in this post.

I wanted to know more about the rhythm of this song (I know you’re going to post a more advanced post about rhythm but I can’t bother waiting) (from 00:00 to 1:40) Why does it sound so… Weird? At first I though both the vocals and the drums were off, but after giving it a careful listen I realized that the vocals were “on-rhythm” and only the drums are off… What do you call this thing? I guess it’s something similar to dubstep but it’s not dubstep…. Is it? Why is this rhythm “pattern” used at all, is it just to make us feel weird? Do you have any kpop examples of the same thing? I’m sorry for the many questions but this song makes me so confused

Well this fucking hideous j-trash anime garbage is using some of the sonics generally associated with dubstep, but it’s not really the rhythm of dubstep. The vocals at times are doing triplets over the top of it too (for no reason, but then it is j-trash) so that might be throwing you off as well.

The rhythm is basically a 16th beat funk thing, but with swing, kind of like the below, except with electronic drums and dubsteppy sounds rather than a live kit.

Asking why this exists in the way it does is like Stephen Fry earlier asking why there’s bone cancer in children. God is just a cunt.

Hi! I hope this question finds you well. I know that you don’t like to explain why you like or dislike songs before the end of the year, but I was wondering if you could offer a few sentences of clarification for me. When I originally listened to fromis 9’s Fun and WJSN’s Boogie Up, I was pretty sure that you would like Fun and dislike Boogie Up. Based upon your 10/6 roundup, I was clearly incorrect. But I like both songs so I don’t think that I can accurately judge what about each you liked/disliked. Since I’m selfish, when I’m wrong I like to know why I’m wrong. What did you hear/what were you listening for when you make your judgments? I’m sure some of it comes down to personal preference, but I’m guess I’m curious about what makes one song better than the other, in your opinion.

Well I’d say all of it comes down to personal preference! I do however have reasons behind my preferences.

Without wanting to repeat myself too much, I’d say that the main difference between the two songs is in the harmony (chord progressions). “Boogie Up” has some cool ones and “Fun” barely has anything like that at all, it’s just so one-note.

That’s your opinion, you don’t have to come for me . You’re just a problematic person looking for clout and tbh ? It hurts that it’s working, but, yk. it’s still your opinion, we all have different ones

I have no idea what this comment is in reference to, someone just dropped this one into me completely out of context.

One of these days someone has to define the modern Twitter definition of “clout” for me, because I’ve got no idea what the fuck it even means. Since I supposedly have it, I’d at least like to know what it actually is. Maybe I can redeem it for something useful, like cash, or a recent Puer Kim fancam.

Thanks to you and your no reason sidebar girl (no offense to Haseul, of course), I am now addicted to Bammi. I hope you’re proud of yourself. Btw do you know how to turn the sound off in the game? It’s kind of annoying that I can’t really play it and listen to music at the same time.

No idea, sorry!

Hey Oppar, Thank you for the Ghost recommendation! I’m not usually the type of person to pick up loud, hail Satan music and I never thought I’d say this, but: Thank you for recommending satanic music to me lol. And thank you for all the other answers as well. It was helpful to read the words of a random Australian dude telling me to get up off my ass and not feel sorry for myself anymore (even if you put it in a nicer way). Surprisingly, I am thriving. I’m assuming you know about the YG/BI drug scandal by now. As I’m writing this it’s still developing and I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.

I posted my opinion about BI getting caught on my modest decorative journaling Instagram account, basically saying that i was surprised he wasn’t busted for something bigger since he always gave me the creeps. A lot of kpop journaling accounts follow that account—something that slipped my mind as I was posting it—and a few people contacted me angrily saying (and i quote) “HANBIN didn’t do anything wrong ? he didn’t actually do drugs and he only left because he needed some time to be alone!” And a few other things.

I responded with “sorry”, because I didn’t really know how to combat that kind of thing. I was wondering if you had any advice on how to deal with these kinds of encounters, since you interact with crazy obsessed kpop fans all the time. I can’t get into an argument with them because I’d be shunned and can’t afford something like that with the rep I currently have.

It makes me uncomfortable to think that people who believe YG is an amazing company and can do no wrong follow me and like my posts, but I can’t tell them what to believe and can’t stop them from trying to force their (oftentimes) misguided opinions on me. Thank you 🙂

You shouldn’t apologise if you don’t have anything to feel legitimately sorry for. Why are you so worried about your reputation?

Tons of these k-pop people are doing all sorts of crazy shit. B.I knows he’s guilty, YG dropped him with lightning speed, he wouldn’t do that if he didn’t have to. That kid was up to a lot more than it appears.

The devil has the best tunes.

Do you know what the sort of harsh synth (sound?) in the background of Nine Muses’ “Wild” would be called? It hits you right before the first line. Or like also in many of Monsta X’s 2017 songs (a song that comes to mind is “Calm Down,” you can hear it everywhere). Not sure if they’re different, but they seem to be similar styles, and I wanted to look more into it. I enjoy the sort of drilling, polished harshness of it 😮

It’s just a “synthesiser lead” type of noise. Synthesisers can create all sorts of variations of this type of noise and they don’t have specific names (apart from whatever the actual synthesiser calls them).

My parents have been fighting a lot lately, do you have any calm, happy songs that you recommend I listen to when that happens?

Not really, when I want to feel calm and happy I usually listen to something that sounds like this:

Maybe I’m not the best person to ask.

Hi Kpopalypse, How are you doing? Hope you’ve getting better after the accident. I honestly have no idea who to talk to about this right now. Sorry for the incoming wall of text. I’m going for therapy and I’m under medication for depression. I’ve had this since I was like 10. I thought a lot of what was happening was normal until 4 years back when I had a depressive episode at college. Anyway after 4 years, around March this year, I decided to get therapy (who also recommended that I see a psychiatrist based on what I told her). I’ve also taken this month off from work. My workplace is really supportive about this. I have friends also who are extremely mature and understanding. My family is also not being very fussy about me staying at home and not being “productive”. The thing is, I’ve constantly being withdrawing into a shell. I’m finding it harder and harder to talk to people and leave my room. The psychiatrist just increased my medication today and I guess that will help, but all I feel is empty. I struggle to feel content, happy or motivated. I thought taking a break would make things better since I wouldn’t be stressed and anxious without work. It felt good for a couple days but now I feel empty as before. I think what head really scared me is that I would love taking to people. Even if I felt like shit, talking to my closest friends would either distract me or I’d feel comforted even if they couldn’t “do” anything. Now the only person who I feel comfortable talking to is my therapist. Talking to anyone else (text, chatting, calling or in person) makes me really scared. And I feel increasingly lonely. I know I’m consciously staying away from people because I get way too anxious trying to talk to them or while it’s happening. After it, I feel this yawning sense of loneliness. I feel so detached from people and groups too. But staying away also isolate me further into my head. Both situations don’t seem to be helpful. sigh. I also feel like I have nothing to live for. I feel like I’m constantly being suffocated and I don’t know what to do. I have no idea how I can help myself get better. I know this is an illness, but I’m struggling to separate a lot of things from my personal emotions. sigh. I don’t think I’d do anything drastic since the anti-depressant has made things better. I just feel so dead and I wish I could feel alive and excited and motivated at least in short bursts. For like a year and a half I’ve been increasingly feeling like dead weight and all I want to do is stay in my room and melt into nothingness under my blankets. sigh. Thanks for reading that. I think I’m writing this more for myself than to ask you anything specific. Thanks again. I’ll speak about all this with my therapist again when I meet her next and see what I can do. sigh. Have a great day ajead!

Knowing people very closely who suffer from similar conditions, all I can say is – you might want to look at getting your medication reassessed. Medical science in terms of mental health is still in its infancy. The doctors will give you one thing, and hope it works, and if it doesn’t they’ll give you something else and they’ll keep going until they finally find something, it’s a bit of a lucky dip as different people react to the same drugs differently, and nobody really knows why exactly. I’d definitely consider mixing things up a little somehow. The doctors basically rely on your feedback to know if things are working, so I’d explain the effects that the current situation is having and see if they can’t help. Also – and I say this to everyone on depression medication – get your vitamin levels checked.

Aaaand here comes another person with their goddamn life problems.

I don’t like the way my gf has been treating me recently. We had arranged a date and the day before, I messaged her to remind her about our meeting, to which she answered: “oh, but i’m going to an exhibition with [friends from her school who aren’t even aware she is in a lesbian relationship]. wanna come with us?”

Well I did go in the end; but, gotta say, I’ve been feeling extremely upset since then and she’s been avoiding me because I’m cranky. When I message her – even if it’s something positive – she sends me short replies (usually keyboard smashes) or doesn’t bother to reply, but at the same time, she’s mad at me for not trying to communicate with her.

I know it’s partially my fault for not telling her I have a problem with what she did – I have a hard time explaining my emotions – but doesn’t she understand what the problem is?

Even before we started dating, I’d always offer comfort when she wasn’t feeling okay and give advice when she asked. Now she’s not doing the same for me.

I’m feeling lost and I don’t know what to do. Am I being jealous and possessive or do I have a reason to be mad at her?

Help me oppar.

When you’re someone who likes routine and the other person changes plans it can be annoying. I have this struggle sometimes – I like to plan everything out, whereas other people sometimes change things on a whim and it gets frustrating. Still, I don’t consider it that big a deal that I’d remain upset at the person. Forget the phone, I think you need to have a face-to-face chat with her about this kind of thing… just to explain what was going through your head… and maybe also try to dial yourself back a bit, because you’ll definitely push her away if you make too big a deal out of it all.

You explained what it means to produce a song before, but people also talk about producing an album, which seems to indicate a different thing than producing all the songs in the album. So, what does it mean to produce an album? Doesn’t the album making process deserve an independent technical post?

Not really, because it’s such an incredibly rare thing in k-pop. Most k-pop albums aren’t actual albums in the same sense that a western group’s album is an album. That’s why so many of them are complete and utter dogshit and I don’t even bother to check out the tracks. Even when they do have good tracks the “collection in context” has no value. It’s also why I find questions about albums and album tracks so incredibly boring. I talk more about this in my albums post.

Does promoting at the same time as a big group actually affect how much attention people give to nugu groups? Thanks, oppar.

I’m going to be honest and say that I don’t quite understand what you’re asking. I’m going to guess and say that what you’re asking is “if lots of groups that are well known do stuff in the same week, does that mean it’s harder for a new or unknown group to debut at that time”, and I guess the answer might be yes because more slots on the shows will be filled with known groups, but it might also be no because there’ll be more people watching the shows where they debut… but then it might be yes because perhaps those extra people are just the rabid fandom who don’t care about other groups, but then it might be no because maybe some of them will hear the new group and think that sounds cool…. so in summary, I’m not really too sure about either your question or my answer. Sorry, that was probably not helpful.

I read something in your blog some time ago about how building relationships IRL help with getting emotionally detached from idols and the kpop industry in general. Turns out you were right, after I started getting treated for depression and social anxiety and thus improved my relationships and life in general, I feel much more detached from the idols I used to stan before even though I still like the music. Just thought I would share. I think obsessive behavior towards celebrities is a strong indicator that something is wrong with young people’s emotional well-being.

Yes, agreed. Glad I could help even if it was only a little!

Hi Do you by chance know a certain YouTube channel called Dead Farang? It’s run by this anonymous australian guy that travels around a lot and makes videos showing the nightlife in various southeast asian countries. Just thought I’d recommend it for you. Best wishes

Yeah I’m aware of this guy, I’ve seen his video about Thai ladyboys before. Honestly, some of them MRS.

First of all, thank you very much for your reply. It’s the guy who ranted about some crazy TWICE fanfic*. Other than simply seeing it as part of the job, I actually think Tzuyu and Momo might want to hire a lawyer and sue whoever wrote that garbage for libel…… (judging from the fact it’s written in Traditional Chinese, I concluded the fanfic’s author is a Taiwanese, which means it’s not particularly difficult for Tzuyu to file the lawsuit.) Also, considering the consistently poor quality (hell, the author doesn’t seems to know how to use quotation marks properly), do you think there is a possibly that it’s trollfic (like the infamous My Immortal), a work of satire, or a false flag operation by someone who hates TWICE with a passion? Also, what do you think is the reason behind all these stupid fanfics? My personal theory is because such people, be it male or female, are really desperate for a partner in real life. (In case of the guys, they probably need a whole army of them, as evidenced by harem genre works like Infinite Stratos.) One final question, and it’s a hypothetical one: Are you willing to be stalked and kidnapped by a rich and beautiful women (just think of it as a gender-reversed version of 50 Shades of Grey), if you’re promised a USD$5 Billion compensation afterwards and you would be rescued by a SASR team in 3 months, plus your family would be under the protection of ASIO? * For those who didn’t read the last QRIMOLE post and can read Chinese, here’s the link.

It’s still fiction, right? So I don’t think you can sue over fiction. If k-pop people started suing fanfic writers, all hell would break loose. Imagine the legal minefield.

Why do people write – I guess it’s just a way for them to explore their passion. That’s why most of it isn’t any good, because that “passion” gets in the way of the actual writing.

Yeah I’d take the $5 billion as long as I could absolutely 100% guarantee its delivery, $5 billion over 90 days is a pretty good pay rate. I encourage anyone considering this to donate the $5 billion to my Patreon, I don’t mind if you do it in smaller chunks but I don’t consent to the kidnapping until I have at least the first $2.5 billion. 50% now, 50% later, that’s how most organised crime deals work. Just no Venezuelan currency please.

Could you give me some advice, please? Basically, my best friend “J” set up a trip to the cinema between our mutual friend “C” and her crush “O” .To keep it low key she also invited me, one of O’s friends “T”, and my crush. Unfortunately, T also likes my crush and J is on the fence about him (she doesn’t know I like him). What do you advise, wise oppar? Should I go to the cinema or avoid it altogether? Should I go for it or leave it for J? Cheers, oppar xx

Holy shit I had to read this about 10 times just to work out what the fuck you were asking. In fact I’m still not sure. But my advice is that “go for it” is almost always better advice than “leave it”, in almost any situation, especially this type. If some shit goes down and you missed an opportunity because you weren’t there you’ll regret it. Failing that, get “C” to hit up her mutual friends “U” and “N” who can act as a wingman for “T” and direct them away from your crush.

Dude, what happened with your burning buildings banner shit?

It’s Pride month and a few people suggested that I swap it out for something more fagalicious to support the gays, and I thought that was a cool idea so I did. It’ll get changed back soon, possibly by the time you read this depending on how much you visit here.

What do you do on r/The_Donald?

Observant caonimas will notice that I have a posting history on r/TheDonald. I’ve made a total of one post there, which is a repost of this Asian Junkie article. I can’t remember why I did this, I think it may have been in response to someone daring Asian Junkie to post it there and him not being keen on the idea.

I enjoy reading your blog, so I started writing one on kpop music reviews, do you have advice on writing them and just writing a blog in general?

Addressed in the next answer.

Hello Mr. Kpopalypse oppar sir, I’ve been following your site for a little over a year now and I’ve learned a a lot about k-pop, the industry, idols, etc etc. from you and I firstly want to thank you for keeping this site running and educating idiots like me on the finer things of K-pop in general. Because I’ve been a lurker for so long on your site, I have a lot of questions and thoughts on my mind so I apologize in advance if I bore or agitate you in this long response. I’ll try to save some of my thoughts for the next Qrimole if possible but I’ve even been wanting to write to you for a few months now and cause school got in the freaking way, I couldn’t. Anyways, I guess my first thought concerns idols. Currently, I’m trying to do my own research on the parasocial relationships between idols and their fans with a focus on mental health. I’ve struggled and I’m still struggling with my mental health so I find this topic really interesting and a bit personal but I wonder if it’s a viable topic? I guess what I mean is, is it worth pursuing because will I be able to gather results that make someone care? I’m actually studying abroad in Korea this coming fall so I’ll be there for a few months and I plan to do part of my research then. I’ve been there before last year and so I hope to visit sites again that fans gather (usual music shows, entertainment buildings, etc.) to interview and survey them. It’s still a work in progress but I hope the major details will be fleshed out by the time I leave. I plan to do the surveys online. I used Google surveys before but if you have a better suggestions please tell me, I’d appreciate it. Any advice on how to approach this research is greatly appreciated as well! Another thought I’ve been having lately is that I feel as if I’ve grown a very cynical attitude towards idols in general. This is quite paradoxical from what I discussed before as I’m not only concerned about the mental health of fans but idols as well (though I realize I can only go so far with that before I hit a dead end). It’s just that lately, I’ve been watching quite a few videos on YouTube and V Live of idol groups I like and a lot of them are vlogs that a member is usually just talking to fans about a variety of topics. That’s all fine and good but when they start trying to appear relatable or give advice on school for instance, I can’t help but be like do they really have the right to talk given their position? Specifically bigger groups, I can’t take them trying to be relatable to us plebs seriously given their position in society. They only know the idol life and some have been in the industry for most of their lives. What do they know what we go through? Some too have never even finished college or went to one that wasn’t online. I’m currently going into my senior year of university so I instantly pay closer attention to whenever they discuss school. Though who knows? I still haven’t figured out my life or what I want to do DESPITE being in my last year so if I’m this lost do I have any place to say anything either? It’s almost to the point that I feel like most of what they say in these videos is just some way to emotionally manipulate fans especially if they go on and on about their hardships or talk about bursting into tears at concerts cause they got an injury so they couldn’t perform (which sometimes I think “Ah, that’s just acting, it’s fake) even if the tears look genuine. But again, even if they are being honest in these cases, it’s still emotional manipulation in ways cause fans are sooo easily swayed when it comes to their faves and idols know it. This may be entering someone like AustralianSana’s territory considering this regards BTS but during my initial research, I came across a reddit thread discussing how BTS affected the mental health of their fans. I don’t know how people do links in these but I’ll post the link to the thread here for anyone that cares. I specifically think the very first post is a concise though long answer that I agree with. I know you’re busy man so I don’t expect you to read it though I feel you’d agree with some of the points presented by the redditor. To sum up some points, the person basically says surprisingly that: No, BTS hasn’t helped his/her mental health though he/she is a fan, the way K-pop is marketed to get fans emotionally attached to the point that it seems like it’s cult worship is something that doesn’t sit well with him or her. One line that caught my attention was: “Celebrities aren’t normal people.” And due to my cynical attitude I’ve been looking at them more as idols than people. They’re aliens, they’re robots, they’re puppets or even more insultingly, monkeys that say or do things that they have been trained to do…are the types of thoughts I’ve had recently. It was actually reasons similar to this that I didn’t get into K-pop for a while either and though K-pop and especially the fans fascinates me to no end, I do sometimes have doubts and regrets for getting into this considering K-pop sometimes seems to hit my mental state harder than I’d like. Which leads me to my final point though thank you for staying with me this far. For me, I’ve been thinking about doing something with K-pop for a while but I’m good at nothing. I can’t draw, sing, or dance well. My writing is mediocre at best but I’ve been thinking what if I did a blog of sorts? Especially since I have thoughts that I want to get out that I’ve tried conveying to some of my friends but of cause they don’t get it cause ARMY~~~!!! No, not really though that’s part of it. Anyways, your blog has been quite inspiring for me but I don’t nearly have the technical know how or general knowledge to even get started. Though I know you’ve discouraged people before from making blogs but I can’t remember the exact reasons. I’ve also had major doubts as to if I could bring anything new to the table and because of these doubts I’m stuck in a rut. I’m just a fecking college student who only got into K-pop just a few years ago so I’m still learning a lot, not just how the industry works but about idols and how the fandom works as well. Hell, BTS is technically the first K-pop group I truly got into and it was only a couple years after they debuted that I finally got into them when people my age were into groups like SHINee and TVXQ when they first came out. I thought about reading research papers to at least learn more and educate myself then I could make think pieces about them on a blog. I’d also love to do my own fanfics (not the fluffy, sickly sweet types you see on Wattpad…though due to friends I’m guilty of that) but something along the same lines as yours. But ultimately I don’t know… I’m not saying I want to be you (I’m just a stupid American and have neither the wit nor charm you have, my good sir), I can’t do journalism like Asian Junkie and I don’t have the smarts, charm and connections like AustralianSana…so I’m lost. I guess I feel so strongly about this cause I still don’t quite know what I want to do but I like writing and K-pop and learning and so I feel these things may fall into the line of work I do one day. I’m even learning Korean so I hope to make some blog posts in Korean as well (maybe translate some of yours one day if permissible?) Though honestly, though there are days when K-pop does make my mind sink to a darker place that I have to take a break but I’ve always had problems of comparing myself to others, and self-hate. Haha, one of my goals is to die before I’m 25 yet I can’t actually tell myself if I’m sincere or not with this goal. Guess it’s a good thing I’m such a coward. But I really don’t feel like I have much self-worth. I know a stranger on the internet probably won’t or can’t help me much but it’s nice to I suppose let it out here. I feel like I wasn’t quite as concise as I’d like to have been but this is long enough already and I have to thank you many times over for reading this far if you did. Maybe I’ll ask more in another Qrimole post if you allow me too after all this mess. I know you have articles and I’m sure you’ve helped someone like me before but I forget easily—my apologies. Please have a good day and life. Take care and I’m glad you enjoyed the first female concert in years. I enjoyed the post a lot.

You should probably hit up AustralianSana for some help on your research topic as she has direct experience researching similar things. Why don’t you drop an abridged question about the research stuff into the AustralianSana & Kpopalypse question box? You’ll find one under each AustralianSana & Kpopalypse post.

Idols giving advice on things they may not know about – well, I can’t really throw stones regarding that, here I am earlier in this post giving lesbians dating advice, I don’t know anything about what it’s like to be a lesbian really… however I do know what it’s like to appreciate women! So my advice probably has some value, but obviously the reader who asked that question needs to put it in context of who it’s coming from. I wouldn’t say my (or their) advice is necessarily useless but what I would say is just take it with a grain of salt given the source. It’s right for you to be critical of such advice coming from idols who obviously have pressure to appear to think and act in certain ways and may have trouble developing as human beings due to being in an odd environment, but that doesn’t mean that just hearing someone address those topics can’t be useful in some way. Obviously agencies should be cautious and they’re probably cautious to a fault – but imagine the flipside, like some idol with depression encouraging fans to kill themselves, a whole bunch of them may actually do it. So all I’d say is it’s up to each individual consuming the content to put it in context, and if they can’t do that… then maybe they need to distance themselves from those aspects of k-pop in general until they can.

Of course idols are people – it’s not that a full person doesn’t exist, it’s that you’re not allowed to see all of what’s there (especially the negative side). Celebrities are definitely, absolutely “normal people”, it’s the situation which is abnormal, and this situation (deliberately) alters both your perception of the idol as well as their own perception of themselves, and of you, and in many cases, their own personal growth and development as a result. Watch IU’s video above if you haven’t, she openly addresses a bunch of this stuff.

Don’t die at 25, you’re missing out. My own life didn’t even begin to get good until I was about 30. Now it’s awesome. Sadly several of my friends didn’t make it that far, while I was in Melbourne for the Blackpink concert I actually found out a good and very close friend of mine was dead. He was a cool guy, a great guitar player (I was in more than one band with him), a black belt in four different martial arts, he would even do professional cage fighting and I never saw him lose… but he also had a darker side which involved street violence and drug addiction, a side which he deliberately kept away from me as much as he could. For most of the time I knew him he was off the drugs, he even had a tattoo on his arm which he told me he got as a reminder to stay away from them. A while back he went to jail for a few years (I’m not sure why, he deliberately didn’t tell me) and six months after he was released, he overdosed. Not sure if deliberate or accidental. Don’t end it like that guy. Forget about comparing yourselves to others, that’s a meaningless activity, there’s always going to be someone both better off and worse off that you in all things. There’s no time for self-hate either, I’ve got entire k-pop communities lining up to hate on me every day – do you think I also have time to hate on myself? Aspire to be an old cunt like Kpopalypse and annoy as many of these people as possible. You have to live your life for yourself first and foremost, other people can be inspiring or encouraging but ultimately nobody else is going to make your life great except you. So do that, by doing awesome things with you life. Translating my posts into Korean would be cool and definitely appreciated (I don’t mind if anybody does this – just translate well, credit and link the source and we good), I’ve wanted someone to do that for a long time – but you can probably do much better than that, you’re a college student studying cool stuff and with the world at your feet so make the most of it.

On a related topic, I don’t “discourage” people from blogging, but what I do say is – don’t just try to write what I’m writing, nobody needs another one of me (in fact a very large percentage of the k-pop fandom would argue that just one of me is one too many). I think the main reason why people gravitate to what I do is because it’s fairly unique, but if someone else does it, then that’s not unique – it’s a wasted opportunity to do something better. Especially if you’re going TO Korea, holy shit, the stuff I would be able to write about if I did that! If you actually go to Korea and start blogging, and your blog turns out anything even slightly like mine, that’d be a massive failure, because part of the reason why my blog is the way it is is because of the very, very extreme physical and cultural distance that I have from k-pop, I write the way I do partly because I have no choice to write any other way. It’s actually a constant obstacle, which you won’t have. By all means start a blog, but make it something different and unique and relevant to YOU, that you’re not seeing anywhere else.

The common thread here with all this advice is that you’re comparing yourself to others and modelling yourself on others way too much. Forget about me, about Asian Junkie, or whatever else you see online – you won’t be able to create something truly cool unless you look inside yourself and realise that you do have intrinsic value and worth and something unique to give that isn’t necessarily related to anybody else’s thing. Young people should always be doing cool stuff that makes me look back on my own life and say to myself “I wish I wasn’t such a fuckwit when I was younger and realised back then that I could have done cool shit a lot earlier”. There’s no reason why you can’t be that person who is achieving great things, so make a small start towards it today (even if it’s something super-basic), and a bigger start tomorrow, and keep going. Achieve the possible and move slowly toward the impossible!

Here is the indisputable best kpop song ever recorded for your listening pleasure. My favourite part is at 2:15. Good luck finding anything better. I gave it another listen, and I amend my previous statement. 1:21 is the superior section.

John Cage is shook. You did make me want to listen to the original more however, so here it is.

That’s all for QRIMOLE! This series will return in a month, in the meantime don’t forget to Try Not To Have Gay Sex With Yves!

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!