[unsolicited j-pop]
Morning Musume '21 - Aishite Nan ga Warui!?Just Monday vibes
Morning Musume '21 - Aishite Nan ga Warui!?Just Monday vibes
the 16th album was my car bop while I ran errands today and this is the song that decided to inhabit my head for the rest of the day
....THEY HAVE SO MANY MEMBERS.
(i figure i post so much unsolicited kpop it's only fair to watch unsolicitied jpop when it gets posted, haha)
lol SO okay morning musume usually tries to be around 10-14 members because they do "formation dance"
the overhead shots are there bc they're often making images with their placement
RIGHT, that makes sense.
the song is a bop.
in practice there's like. 3 primary singers, 4 solid dancers, and a handful to be cute/charming/funny on tv
though there was recently a shakeup bc one of the dance girls got a solo and proved that she could also sing well
plot twist!
and the whole fandom erupted
lol AS THEY SHOULD. unless it was the bad kind of fandom eruption...
oh momusu has been around for 25 years there's always some toxic fandom shit happening somewhere
man you'd hope a long-standing fandom might learn some CHILL but i guess when the members come and go (which i'm assuming that's the case with momusu) there's always a fresh level of delulu to be excavated.
like idk if you were into kpop when snsd exploded in controversy but sometimes momusu fandom gets like that
NO I FELL DOWN THIS RABBIT HOLE just during covid — tho i'm familiar with what you're referencing because naturally i'm a "read all the historical receipts" kind of human.
and haha yeah momusu runs on the generational system - right now members are from Gen 9 through Gen 16. and the Gen 9 girls have been around for like 11 years so we're all very worried they might abandon ship soon
11 is SO LONG. or at least it is in kpop; idk what's considered long in jpop.
(i should say i am new to kpop but in high school i dabbled in some jpop/jrock. you know. the usual suspects. gackt, miyavi.)
but the leader is also a hardcore morning musume Stan so we think she'll be around until management forces her into retirement 
idol shelf life is usually like 6-8 years? depending when they start
SHELF LIFE IS SUCH A TRAGICALLY CORRECT TERM.
usually by the time they hit 24 they move on to other things, but most of the ones who leave go when they decide they want to do college or like. have a boyfriend without losing their job about it
ugh, yes, right.
there was a girl last year who was in a different group from the same agency, and she had to leave because of the scandal it caused when she was seen doing laundry at her boyfriends apartment complex
they didn't even see them together or holding hands just "oh no laundry!!!!"
just "oh no laundry!!!!"
OH NO, LAUNDRY.
major eyeroll.
she started a YouTube channel and opened up a conversation about how weird it is to be 23 and have basically 0 life experience
YES....
though I think kpop goes harder in regards to that
they have those agency houses right?
I MEAN, it really varies these days.
(as far as i can tell. like i said, i'm a recent fan but i've consumed a lot)
oh thats a relief! all my kpop knowledge is from the like. big bang/t-ara days
i feel like older groups get a lot more leniency from fandoms.
like there will always be the delulu crowd but you tend to see a real like...
loosening of those expectations for idols who are 25+. either because their fans have aged up a bit too.
I think akb has gotten like that recently. one of the girls in that group is 31 now, I think
and you probably can't trust my opinion because i'm a BTS stan but i genuinely think some of that treatment was disrupted by newer labels surpassing the big 3 companies.
(i.e., my opinion is coloured by the fact that bts's company is MUCH LESS STRICT on their trainees & idols)
that's good though!
YEAH. like. you got groups like mamamoo out there where the members are 27, 29, 30 and still going strong with careers.
and like. SHINee will seemingly go on forever lol.
BUT THE GENERATION THING IS INTERESTING. i haven't actively followed a group that has that kinda vibe...or really much of a member shake up at all.
there was a similar loosening at morning musumes agency. back in 2002 they started a "kids" division and picked like 16 girls between 8 and 12 and thrust them into idoling. and like 15 years later when the groups were ready to disband a few of them went to work for the agency as talent relations
so now there's usually someone on hand to make sure that someone's looking out for the health of the girls
GOOD. honestly, it makes a lot of sense to feed experience back into that kind of role.
RE generations though - it was actually based on Menudo, of all things
HONESTLY, i've been thinking about this a lot lately...
not generation groups specifically lol but rather
the unfair romanticism around bands, artists, etc., and the implication that it Must Be Something More Than A Job to be valuable.
and a group that has graduating members, newer debuts, etc., just gives the (ENTIRELY FINE, IMO) impression of a work team.
sometimes, coworkers move on to different opportunities. new coworkers join.
it's weird to expect other humans to make a living via performance or music but then also see their craft get derided for being too much like a workplace haha.
(THAT WAS A TANGENT BUT OH WELL)
i think about the official role of the "team leader" in kpop groups — often literally the member who is the liaison between the company and the rest of the group, and i'm like. heck yeah, that just makes sense.
oh yeah there's a lot of that with j-idols too I think. because part of what they're marketing is a flawless friendship, right?
and if you're like "actually no they're just punching a clock", then that kills some of the appeal
Berryz工房 『普通、アイドル10年やってらんないでしょ！？』 (Promotion edit)
YEAH — like i get that optics and media presence is PART OF THE GAME but i was really interested to see a lot of twitter/insta/whatever posts from some of the BTS members since starting to follow them where they're literally like
posting "leaving the office!"
^ that's from one of the groups I was telling you about that ended up working in hr mostly (except for the little one with the pigtails - she's a kindergarten teacher and continues to be adorable)
"heading home after work!"
and it's just like. yeah. normalize the fact that it's work.
that song has English subs but the vibe is just so like. "lol it's weird we're still doing this right? fuck you for thinking we should quit"
LOL.
i already got through the first few lyrics and i was like "yeah okay i'm here for this" haha
the lyrics are reminding me SO MUCH about the discourse and reasons behind bangtan's "HIATUS" right now and how........weirdly politicized it's getting.
(or maybe not weirdly. idk. maybe you can't avoid being politicized when your group literally contributes as much to your country's GDP as, like, their national airline.)
OKAY BUT WHY ARE THERE HORSE NOISES.
or is there even a reason for the horse noises.
I. cannot answer your question about the horse noises. berryz koubou is kind of weird
haha — that's totally fine. there doesn't need to be a reason.
they would do weird shit sometimes and then randomly drop a single that's like "you know what? diet culture is fucked up. eat, girls."
kind of like psy in that way?
my old ass coming in here like holy shit morning musume is still a thing......
rebreather: YOU KNOW MORNING MUSUME 
recently i've been obsessed with this one TINY 10 SECOND CLIP from a mamamoo performance which is like
starts out with the members dressed up like dogs and being ~so cute~ and then...well let me just show you the clip (turn on subtitles!)
MAMAMOO? MAMADOGS! - Waggyㅣ쟤가 걔야 [Yu Huiyeol’s Sketc...
I'm a hardcore wota since like. 4th gen / Mr Moonlight-era
I DO
oh my god Aly those outfits
or rather did
LOL.
LOOK MAMAMOO IS ICONIC.
I was never super hardcore into them because my interests in jpop was more in solo acts than this big groups (tho did dabble in the hell that is akb48 rip)
that mamamoo clip reminds me of this song from tegomass
J POP TEGOMASS nekochudoku (cat posioning)
J POP TEGOMASS nekochudoku (cat posioning)
but I remember when. like. kago ai was still a baby
before she had the audacity to grow up and rebel
kago ai now has a YouTube channel where she covers her baby songs and is delightful
earlier this year one of the mamamoo members put out a solo track with an overtly wlw music video/lyrics and it was just.
aw that's so good
[Special] 문별 (MoonByul) - 머리에서 발끝까지 (feat. Seori)
also would you believe goto maki is currently touring
I'm glad she's doing well. I always felt she got done so fucking dirty because idol industry do be like that
omg I actually can believe to learn that
that sounds right lmao
haha oh no THESE COSTUMES.
加護が歌います Vol.95【チュッ! 夏パ〜ティ / 三人祭】this icon
I was and remain a low-key koda kumi stan tho
who got rejected from morning musume lmao
and OH yeah kagos had a REALLY hard time of it. around like 2018~19 she paired up with a rock band that sang a lot of like "everything is awful and people who love you want to kill your soul" stuff and did some dark shit with them
oh jeesh
monday musume
kumi auditioned for gomaki's Gen! (omg I'm so sorry I am also an admin on the hello project wiki I know too many things)
ye! she did!
but they felt Kumi was too mature sounding, which fair
considering the ~ero-kawaii~
『I WISH』W+モーニング娘。'19here is something from your era
me out here fighting slut-shamers left and right
kago officially got re-accepted into events during the 20th anniversary celebrations
man okay if you don't groove to Want Me Want Me I don't know if we can be friends
wait shit that was kumi right. it wasn't namie?
name? occupy the same place in my brain because they were trying to serve the same audience for a while
EITHER WAY "wasurenai de ne Trojan" is iconic
omg I feel archaic /waves glowstick
want me^2 was namie tho!!
damn it which one was kumis fuck me song from the same era
SELFISH
I was gonna say UH WHICH ONE THO
KODA KUMI SHAKE IT MV (ENG)
cries I love Kumi and her endless horny
yesss
she knows what she wants and what she wants is to get laid
oh but sad news yossi has been expelled from acknowledgment
she was drunk driving and hit someone on a bike (they're fine)
but the entire entertainment industry went "YOSHIZAWA NEVER HEARD OF HER"
oof
but Tsuji is married with I think 4 kids but she is continually popping out more and it might be 5 now
tbh idol/entertainment industry in Japan is so harsh. like, not to minimize what she did, but it's like anything can just get you blacklisted for life
she and her husband are basically couple instagrammers who are stupidly in love and I hate them while wanting to be them at the same time
like there was this actress I really liked and I remember she basically killed her career because she had the audacity to not be really feeling a press tour for a movie she was in??
the "betsuni" that destroyed an entire career
ended up recently destroying it with substance abuse, but like. gestures to the industry
oh YEAH I remember that
sawajiri erika
ハッピーウェディング前ソングを夫婦で踊ってみた/辻希美featuring杉浦太陽they're perfect. I hate them but mostly because no one will ever love me like they love each other
oh gdi plurk formatting /fixes that link
omg gross so sappy
right it's awful but I will park on their socials and be disgusted for hours
when you said wlw I thought it would be one of those pandering kiss-tease songs
LOL. NO THE LYRICS ARE LEGIT TENDER AND PHYSICAL
it kind of reminds me of
【和田彩花】あなたが選んだもの、あなたが選ぶもの 【MUSIC VIDEO】
【和田彩花】あなたが選んだもの、あなたが選ぶもの 【MUSIC VIDEO】
which I don't think has subs SO CONTEXT is that this girl was an idol in the same agency as morning musume and she quit to go to college. but when she graduated with a degree in gender studies she was like "holy shit I have all this new language to express my feelings"
and put out that song, which is like "you are my chosen thing, I choose you"
this song has such a like 90s alt-pop strum haha
love it
and she came out with these stories about how there was a girl at the agency that she was in love with, and how it felt to be discovering love while being surrounded by people trying to proscribe what "being lovable" was supposed to look like
ugh, omg. i'm glad she was able to find an avenue for that voice in time.
and i'm sorry it took a whole ass degree to make her feel safe and capable to say as much.
(fandom triangulated and we think the girl she talked about was a former morning musume who always identified as being really into Manga and still shows no signs of having a boyfriend even though she would be allowed to do that now)
we still ship them but like. respectfully in a way that's mindful of their privacy
and haha YEAH her solo stuff is very Jewel
YES, that's always the trick. and ultimately although i'm personally pretty ship-disinterested when it comes to groups i follow, i do acknowledge that there's a certain level of...
fiction even in a member's public persona that as long as people aren't being huge problems about it....
i don't know where that sentence was going to end haha
I mean real-person fiction has always been and will always be weird
my ex was like "you're just writing fanfic about the character they're portraying for the public" and for a while I bought into that but in the years since I decided that no, it's still weird
but when you think two girls might quietly love one another in a society that isn't open to conversations about that love, no harm in supporting that from a different continent
YEAH, like — the way i conceptualize it is that it makes sense that our brain plays the trick on us to make these public characters feel more "shippable" but that doesn't mean we as fans can't stop ourselves from objectifying/commodifying it for other fans that into something....more than support, like you said.
FANDOM DYNAMICS ARE WEIRD. up until literally, like, 2ish years ago i would have considered myself relatively immune to parasocial relationships
this is a world I know so little about because I am the wrong kind of weeb but I appreciate the exposure and education... also this sure is A BOP
it's the same element that plays on the "they're friends, not coworkers" situation
that closeness is the commodity that they want to sell you
and some fans buy in way too hard
LIKE literally in their "we're going on hiatus" video, the bts members were like "THIS MIGHT COME AS A SHOCK TO MANY OF YOU BUT.....we actually have not been living together in the same dorm for about a year now."
and some people were legitimately shocked.
that happened with one direction too, didn't it?
I WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE SHOCKED IF THEY STILL WERE, but that doesn't mean i'm immune to the broader fiction that's being sold to me lol.
tweens blown away that five randos who were in the same reality show weren't bezzie mates for life
LOL.
and like!!! honestly.
let's not underestimate the fact that being coworkers is in and of itself a pretty strong bond
man THAT'S true
just because it's not like OMG, BFFS FOREVER does not make it any less influential or important to a person.
necrofancy: YOU ARE ALSO WELCOME, CHRIS. this is what I talk about when I identify as a weeb who doesn't care about anime
especially when you're the kind of coworker who's literally on the same tour bus, flight, hotel, green room for hours days weeks. like.
IT'S FINE AND EXISTS but also let me tell you about these teenagers in miniskirts
it's not my place to say whether some of these idols ARE or ARE NOT besties. but some groups certainly must be bonded to a certain degree. just not necessarily in the fun fun fanfic ways pfft.
they have to at least be able to tolerate each other long enough to get the work done!
TO BE IN SYNC, DANCING.
morning musume oooh
but also what folly for some fans to assume they don't also have rich social bonds outside of the group too haha. and i'm not just talking about SECRET DATING.
because omg i hope for ALL THEIR SAKES they have friends outside of their coworkers. what a nightmare if you had to hang out socially with the same people you had to be professional with.
only had to*
IT'S A VALID IDENTITY.
ALSO SORRY FOR DERAILING YOUR PLURK WITH INDUSTRY CHATTER rather than just unsolicitid music fun omg.
unsolicited*
I am also a weeb who doesn't care about anime but it's because I care about Japanese video games, THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT FLAVORS. I am so fascinating by the J-Pop and idol industry as an outsider though, I know it is all built around selling a personality and a product but I've never been in the thick of it so I am learning SO MUCH (as I often do when you
venture into j-pop territory)
novelties: NO NEVER APOLOGIZE I just needed to take a minute to bring my groceries inside instead of just enthusing about idols in my car while my ice cream melted
COLD THINGS ARE STOWED IN THE COLD PLACE it's good again
LOL oh man but now i need to know
what kind of ice cream??
and in the meantime let me share this youtube short (?!) which is the only easy source i could find for the leader of BTS talking about the sad reality of the korean idol system:
Namjoon talked about the sad reality of K-Pop Indust...
Namjoon talked about the sad reality of K-Pop Indust...
oooh that looks good. i could go for some ice cream right now.
but wait okay is the leader coming out about it why every youtuber was making a video about "korean slave contracts" a couple of weeks ago?
as if it was news and not something that people have been talking about for decades
LOL I MEAN — that i don't know.
and like HIS COMPANY DOESN'T EVEN HAVE THOSE CONTRACTS.
in both kpop circles and gaming circles because they have those work-dorms for Starcraft teams and shit
he's literally just talking about the pure commodification of persona and how that stifles personal growth.
OH MAN that part of being like. "sometimes I need some time to myself"
AND LIKE IF YOU'RE STUCK GETTING UP EVERY DAY AND PLAYING A CONSTANTLY RECORDED PERSONA, yeah you're gonna be like "who am i actually?"
a momusu girl took a hiatus for like six months just to take stock of herself
like the whole 45 minute video that clip came from was...well not scathing, exactly.
but the members were crying.
and effectively saying "we used to have a message to share but that got lost and we really don't know who we're trying to be anymore"
"so please let us go work on some solo stuff so we can actually...say something relevant next time"
she was like "we perform at such a high level that if you stop thinking about the songs or the dances for a minute then we fall behind. And if you fall behind, someone is always dancing in the back row and can replace you. so you focus on getting your spot and keeping it but then there's no room in your brain left for things like homework"
presumably instead of their less substantive english language hits
YES. like it's an ALL CONSUMING thing.
and she was the token "speaks english" member, but they did a concert in America around that time and all the American fans wanted to have conversations with her and she realized her English wasn't as strong as she wanted it to be
it was kinda funny tbh to watch bts basically say "we didn't want to to those english songs but ehhh"
so she had to take a break from her job just to study so she could continue being the person who's good at English
OH NO THE TOKEN ENGLISH SPEAKER.
EVERY GROUP NEEDS ONE
in that SAME video, namjoon went on to talk about the pressure of being the one member fluent in english and how he really felt like he'd just turned into a corporate mouthpiece for the band.
oh man Marcus from Sexy Zone used to talk about that a lot
when they would have the group on with foreign acts he would end up being the de facto translator
(namjoon is the second highest credited songwriter in the korean songwriters' association, i'm pretty sure, and is probably the main lyricist for the group so he has ~artistic feelings~ about losing that part of his identity)
YEAH like that's such a huge pressure to put on one person.
especially if they're fluent but not necessarily, like, PR FLUENT.
yeah and also like, what? SEVENTEEN?
like i'm fluent in french but like hell would i want to be out there representing my workplace in french lol.
ALTHOUGH I WILL SAY
this does mean we end up getting some pretty amazing like...
passive-aggressive English interviews from Namjoon when you can tell he's had ENOUGH of western media's interviews
that sounds amazing and I would love to see one
if you have it queued up
I WILL HAVE TO FIND A COMPILATION.
then there's stuff like
Coconuts Musume1999.09.10
so Coconuts Musume was like the agency being like "morning musume is popular here but it's not english so let's get some english-speakers to do covers and get international attention with them~"
but they only promoted the group in Japan even though only 1 of the girls was fluent in Japanese (and one other tried real hard)
so every interview is the most UNCOMFORTABLE thing
OH MY GOSH what a set up for failure
just BLANK STARES while they waited for poor Ayaka to let them know what was going on
OH NO THIS IS SO AWKWARD THESE POOR GIRLS
RIGHT
every interview is like that
because the agency didn't shill out to have a translator stand behind them and help
how thrifty of them. eyeroll.
yeah that group didn't last long
i'm not coming up with any good compilations right now (they're buried in other compilations about other things) but the moment one comes across my algorithm again in future i'll tag you haha.
IDK about jpop but it's actually become pretty standard to try and build groups with diversity of language fluency in mind in order to support international promotion.
in kpop*
like. Longer than it should have? but that's mostly because the girl who didn't know Japanese but tried hard ended up getting popular in Minimoni, which was a kiddie group
jpop SAYS they want to work on their globalization, but it's mostly lipservice
idol twitter has a meme that like "they say they want an international audience until it comes time to put something on Spotify"
the RIAJ still makes it hard to distribute Japanese music outside of Japan
ONE MOMENT that does come to mind is BTS was in an american interview and the dude was like "i heard you like justin bieber. IS THAT A DREAM? TO COLLAB WITH BIEBER? DO WE MANIFEST THIS?"
nd namjoon was just like "it's not a dream. we're at the same company. we're company friends. friend, call us. or better yet, come to korea."
because their parent company, hybe, literally bought bieber's record label like....6 months prior.
NOT THAT I AM AT ALL INTERESTED IN A BIEBER COLLAB but.
it was a mic drop moment to just be like "wtf dude bieber should wish he could collab with us not the other way around"
like how selena gomez's collab with blackpink did way more for her than for them
WAIT i didn't realize that jpop had a distribution friction point like that
dang.
OH yeah it's a whole thing
saba⁷ 🧚♀️ on Twitter
it keeps prices high (this is why jpop albums usually run like $50 to import) and restricts secondary sales of physical copies
OH MY GOD
THIS IS A MAN WHO GIVES NO FUCKS
he's hungry and this shit it keeping him from lunch
he's a petty creature.
and i'm here for it.
OKAY THIS ONE TAKES A BIT OF EXPLAINING
once upon a time BTS was on ellen.
this is the original clip:
Bts talk The Ellen show ' hook up Army'
but what i want to share is a follow up comment that happened.
BTS & ELLEN DEGENERES TALKING ABOUT HOOKING UP AT TH...
Why Japan is resisting the streaming of music | Inc....
here this article seems pretty comprehensive
ellen is the final boss of so many storylines, i feel like.
GONNA READ THIS FOR THE LAST HALF HOUR OF MY WORK DAY INSTEAD OF WORK YEP
OH MY GOD THIS ELLEN
"We ARE doing it right now 8D"
fucking PRO STRATS
(also shout out to his little "good job!" when another member tries to answer in english)
DANG, look physical sales can still be WAY WAY UP even with streaming.
oh my god Ellen has no idea what kind of larger conversation she's tripping over in either of these clips
namjoon is a petty bitch and i love it. despite the fact that he's also capable of making me cry. oh the duality as the kids say.
THIS IS SO INTERESTING.
re: the streaming music stuff.
because like....i would imagine a music industry that has a robust idol system in it wouldn't feel too too threatened by the prospect of streaming because those fans will still often by physicals just for the add-ins.
YEAH and like japan was really resistant to transitioning. around like. 2011? 12? the major j-labels did a copyright claim for all their stuff on youtube and pulled all the videos
so now if you're an older fan who wants to just vibe with some nostalgia jams from 15 years ago when things were simpler, there's a lot of stuff that got lost
DAMN. do groups put out their own music videos on channels for streams at all or...??
NOW they do, but it depends where they're signed
some labels will upload to youtube on official channels but region-lock the content so it can't be accessed outside japan
dang.
so yeah, definitely not that interested in globalization....
one of the gaijin idols I follow on twitter went on a TV program about foreigners who like jpop and she was like "THERE'D BE MORE OF US IF YOU MADE IT EASIER TO GET"
Miyno (ミノ) on Twitter
I die when she's like "WE WANT TO GIVE YOU OUR MONEY."
EVEN JUST HALF THE SONG lol
oh yeah that's a thing - because it's still really common to sell the videos on blu ray
so some places will only make half of it available to stream
oh dang i thought she was being hyperbolic aaah.
lol nope
there was recently a shift in Johnny's Entertainment (you probably have heard of Arashi or SMAP) where Johnny died and so his old man strangehold was pried away
i mean. it's fair, tho — kpop does not have near as much of a barrier to entry as that, but even then i'm like "dang, if only so-and-so made their merch more available to buy outside of korea or the us, i might actually consider getting some"
and like a week after the next guy took over half the groups in the agency had official youtube channels
since the shipping is like $30 to anywhere else.
THE SHIPPING
LOL. THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.
dude, hybe (bts's company) is like 70% a tech company and 40% an entertainment company as they own, build, and maintain their own fancafes and live-streaming services. A DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE IS KEY IN TODAY'S INDUSTRY.
I finally had to join the Morning Musume fanclub (ticket drama, I WILL GET BACK TO THAT BUT) and it was like a $50 membership that cost me $110 to access through a proxy service
WAIT YOU NEEDED TO USE A PROXY JUST TO JOIN THE FANCLUB.
they require a japanese zip code =*)
omggg.
(omg found another bit of namjoon snark.)
BUT ALSO so like. the last couple of times I went to Japan I just strolled into a ticket scalper shop to buy whatever concert I wanted to go to. And scalping is weirdly okay and classified as like a pawn shop and I had no problem getting to see the acts I wanted to see
(shortly after the grammys, bts had a couple sold out concerts in las vegas. those shows sold out, like, in hours. and only to the fanclub. like it literally never opened to the general public.)
(but a bunch of western media outlets were like BOTS? ARE BOTS TO BLAME?)
Sari Setiogi Griberg on Twitter
BUT THEN THE AGENCY was like "lol nope" and started requiring people to upload photos to their fanclub profiles which were then printed onto the ticket
oh jeez.
that sounds like a lot.
LIKE OBVIOUSLY I AM ALSO ABOVE TALKING ABOUT like. needing a fanclub membership for tickets but at least you don't need a proxy to do that omg.
(you just need a fast internet connection and some kind of deity on your side)
so basically it's impossible to resell tickets now and I'm over here staring at Japan waiting for it to open back to tourism and getting all the complicated shit squared away while I wait
damn.
but the idea that tickets are restricted to just the fanclub, which itself is restricted to the boundaries of Japan is just so normalized?
HONESTLY it's exactly the kind of complication that would make me give up before i even started no matter how big of a fan i was so GOOD FOR YOU.
oh yeah every time I showed up at a handshake event the idols I went to see were like "..........HOW DO YOU KNOW I EXIST."
YEAH, like restricting it to the fanclub is one thing. but what's the harm in letting MORE PEOPLE join that fanclub, exactly?! surely that's a good thing. y'know. profit, stonks, capitalism, etc.
idk probably "tradition" or something
waiting for a few more execs to die off maybe?
ah, tragic but true tbh.
and i suppose is the status quo is working just well enough for those who have already made it big....
and for "those who have already made it big" i'm talking about the entertainment companies, not the groups themselves.
yep\
"why change what isn't broken" as they ignore foundational cracks
and kpop continues to eat their lunch
the hallyu wave is OVERWHELMING.
like, i got here via dramas
because kdramas are ON NETFLIX
i watched a few dramas. then got myself a subscription account to a service that specializes in dramas from asia.
not netflix-but-with-a-vpn
but actually accessible overseas
oh what's this? an idol survival reality tv show on this service? let's try!
oh no now i'm endeared to these contestants and the inevitable group they become!
oh man those survival shows are BRUTAL (I say, still crying about how much I loved Last Idol)
who was that judge on that one episode? oh no, now his music is in my play list.
hahahahaha been there
it just so happened that the idol survival show that caught me was run by HYBE for their next boy group so inevitably the challenges kept being bts songs and THAT'S HOW IT HAPPENED
me: huh, that choreo looked pretty intense i wonder what the original version is like—HOLY SHIT.
but it would have been UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE without access, yeah.
THAT SAID IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN JDRAMAS TOO, rakutenviki has a lot.
idk if they have japanese idol survival shows too.....
OH THO hybe currently has an audition show for a group they're going to be debuting in japan
i know because some of the guys who failed to debut in the one i watched were still REALLY GOOD and are being debuted in a group in japan.
omg continuing the grand japanese tradition of stripping down every non-japanese person to just one name
but man if you want a really wholesome drama about how idols help people, "Mayonaka ni hello" is rly cute
&AUDITION 'The Final Countdown' Dance Practice
omg the autotune hahhaha
oh but if there's anything you want to see but can't find, Chinese pirates are REALLY accessible
it feels a little rude tbh to be like
"these four DEFINITELY will be in the group"
oooh hoo. i mean.
all the text is in chinese, but you can search for just about ANYTHING by copy/pasting japanese or korean titles
i'm not afraid to sail the seas
BUT FIRST I MUST DRIVE HOME haha. what an unproductive day i've had haha.
and they don't give a fuck about copyright laws so it's like "every concert you've ever wanted to watch"
omg. good to know....for reasons....
we had a VERY productive day, Aly
looks like 防弹少年团 is the chinese spelling for BTS
I don't go here but this is a bop
btw jessie did i tell you i was supposed to be in nyc this October but my boss preemptively cancelled our team meeting in person after everyone has cursed travel last month
but I was like 👀 I'll still go sometime this fall. fingers crossed
rather i told him I'd still go haha. if there was a reason.
oh shit Aly IT COULD BE OUR TIME