It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month!
Likelihood of Simon Jackops stepping down as XG agency CEO is just an “on paper” move, in your opinion? Eg like maybe he still produces under an alias. (I suppose we’ll know for sure if the writing quality of the raps is lowered in future releases.)
Yeah I think time will tell but I’d consider it pretty likely, because why wouldn’t they want to keep him, he’s gotten XG this far. If the new XG sounds much the same as previous XG and has much the same positive and negative points (both of which are quite easily identifiable with XG) then we’ll know he’s probably still working from the shadows somewhere.
What do you think of ppl who deliberately buy Coke drink in glass bottles? Do you think they’re trying to do wealth flexes? Maybe win hipster contrarian cool points?
That’s quite an assumption. A Coke is hardly a luxury item. Perhaps they’re environment conscious, after all glass is more easily recyclable than tin or plastic, and also degrades a lot faster than most plastics, so it’s better for the environments. Or perhaps they just like the sensation of drinking out of a glass bottle more. I know people who prefer Coke in a tin can rather than a plastic bottle even if it’s the exact same drink. Or maybe they just think the bottles look cool, or they’re nostalgic for the times before the dominance of plastic bottles. I know this is hard to believe because we’re used to dipshitted keeping-up-with-the-Joneses Korean culture, but not everything is a “wealth flex”.
Only the most important questions around here: Short hair Eunha or long hair Eunha?
Short.
If there’s ever a better indication that Viviz is dead, it’s the idols getting delicious-looking food like this. But, god, it’s such a loss to the world that we won’t get to see Umji (and the other girls of Viviz and Gfriend as a whole) at a healthier weight. That actually is something I’ve never understood. Why does the industry make the girls starve? Given their level of physical activity and if they could simply do some resistance training to build up necessary muscle, they could maintain the low body fat that image requires while having an actual diet.
Partly Korean beauty standards being insane. Partly television requirements and the illusion of the camera lens. The old saying “the camera lens makes you gain ten pounds” isn’t poor self-esteem talking, it’s scientific fact to do with how camera lenses distort depth of field. The beauty standard across the globe favoured heavier people (because it was a sign of wealth) until television became popular and then skinniness was preferred because it looked better on the televisions that were suddenly in people’s living rooms.
I got into a spirited debate with someone who claimed that H1-KEY’s To. My First Love was not Christian Horse Girl Kpop because it had lots of guitar in it and was should be called pop rock. When I asked them whether a song like Gfriend’s Rough would be disqualified from being called CHGK by that describer they said that Gfriend’s songs have a lot of orchestratal instrumentals like strings and violins which is the true descriptor of that genre. This line of questioning feels wrong to me I admit that I don’t know how to actually qualify what makes a Christian Horse Girl Kpop song it’s really a case of me calling it based on vibes and at least 40% of it lies in whether they’re wearing a school uniform or dancing in a field in the mv but what would you say to that?
To be honest we’re all just making it up as we go along. My opinion is as valid as theirs. I would say Gfriend’s “Rough” probably does give more of that vibe and yes it’s because of the orchestral elements, I’m not about to look a gift Christian horse in the mouth. We’re starving for good music over here!
No idea. I don’t recognise her but there’s no reason why I’d assume she is. Just looks like a cosplayer to me. Plenty of extremely attractive cosplayers in Australia, I’ve met a few.
People aren’t too bright with context these days, as the video about American Psycho you linked demonstrates. (It’ll be demonstrated when Girls909 comes out too, if the k-pop dumb dumbs get hold of it.) Media literacy is important and it’s lacking among young people. Mind you, it always was. I was a dumb fuck when I was young too. The difference these days is young people have more voice on the Internet so you’ve been seeing that learning process happening in public, whereas my generation weren’t actually online so you can’t read our shitty thoughts back when we were young know-nothings still trying to figure out how the world and language and context actually worked, it was only our schoolteachers and paresnts who had to put up with our ignorant asses, and it was definitely for the best that way. This is one of the reasons why a social media ban for under-16s has actually been a really popular policy in Australia. I personally don’t like the ban, but it has broad support from everyone I know.
hey. i want to know your thought on the whole bts album thing. ive seen a lot of people go there use of aave in this is so bad where did this come from while other go this is a return to debut style bts. aava has always been in kpop and i think this bts album being so bad people now just seeing it is lowy kinda funny but also so werid when you know thst kpop is so linked to black culture. it gets joked about when you bring up nct a lot but this whole bts thing is mind blowing. i think people ignore it when the music is good but because this new album is so wank people are waking up. also naming it after a idea in your culutre then filling it with aave seems so strange to me. its just a gimic.
this whole album seems very lazy which i guess when your fans will eat anything up you can do that. it remind of of the new taylor swift album that came out last year. its kinda the same issues.
also with nct when they do somehting werid you know hat they are trying. it might be bad but theres been a effort made. i feel like bts havent put any effort in for years. also the stuff coming out saying the members didnt agree with the direction of the album was interesting. they knew it wouldnt work before it came out.
anyway i hope your doing good.
The English language is already built up out of AAVE. As AAVE has been considered “cool” (itself an AAVE term) notably since the 1970s but probably far prior to that, it’s always worked itself into regular language. Too late to get worked up about it now kids, the horse already bolted back in the days of bell-bottomed flares. Might as well consider it a compliment, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all. Nobody who is genuinely racist against black people wants to sound like black people do anyway, in fact the opposite is true, real card-carrying racists are positively disdainful about AAVE terms and avoid using them completely unless it’s to very directly and very obviously ridicule. Real racists are not subtle in my experience.
As for AAVE in music, AAVE has been in k-pop ever since k-pop was a thing. It’s not going to change. Again making a fuss over BTS doing it seems silly. April Fools jokes aside I haven’t heard the new BTS album and am not likely to for quite some time, but typically the latter day BTS serves up some of the blandest most watered-down versions of hip-hop culture I’ve ever heard and I find it hard to imagine anyone getting offended over the musical equivalent of a freshly painted beige wall. Maybe I’m wrong and the album is kick-ass though, guess I’ll find out when I finally get around to listening to it, although I’ll probably just end up listening to Lovebites again.
Kpopalypse, what are you thoughts on PinkPantheress’ Stateside ft Zara Larsson or your thoughts on PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson in general. I ask this because PinkPantheress is a self proclaimed kpop stan (and here are some of her biases) and plenty of Swedish composers have worked with kpop companies, so it’s a relevant question for a kpop blog
Don’t give any fucks about Zara Larsson, no idea who that even is really. I do like PinkPantheress though, she has some decent songs (pretty much solely responsible for giving NewJeans their careers) and she also mrs. I don’t think Stateside is one of her better songs though.
Zara Larson has said that her favourite song of all time is Beyonce’s “crazy in love”…. does this fact help you appreciate her artistry more now?
Again, I don’t give any fucks about Zara Larsson. Found out who she was literally when the previous question was asked. I am not westernpopalypse. No opinion.
have u heard the Lara zarson version of pinkpantheress’ “stateside”? it’s gone super viral but honestly I feel that the original (without Lara) is better…
Holy fucking shit am I suddenly Zara-Lara-Zarson-popalypse, god fucking damn…
Hi Kpopalypse. I need some girl advice…. this might be long. I once ranted about my situation during a moment of coincidental frustration in a past survey, but I’m honestly so directionless at this point that I think I need a third-party perspective, and maybe other readers can take it as a tale of entertainment.
Picture me, 2024, a guy fresh off failing my final exam for that year of university, set back a year from all my friends and colleagues. My mental health couldn’t have been worse. I cut everyone off, withdrew into a shell of perpetual studying, adamant that I wouldn’t let it happen again. Being set back a year meant that I was with a new group of students, all of whom seemingly unfamiliar… but not all of them. I vividly remember day 1 of the new year, I remember seeing a girl walk in and a little itch in my brain trying to tell me “you know this person”. No matter. Fast forward a week, the girl approaches me! Turns out, 5 years beforehand, we had maths tutoring together, but I’d just forgotten. “Whatever”, I thought, “just another person to ignore”. Little did I know, she would be the one friend who managed to break through my self-imposed shell of solitude. Two months go by, we’re on placements together, she tells me about her love of k-pop, and her love of games. Without meaning to, I begin to slowly fall for this girl.
Thus begins a TWENTY-FIVE month long…. situation? For the first 12 months, I saw her almost every day, I would wait earnestly for time I got to spend with her, and it was actually quite motivational for my studying (a nice side effect). The problem? Texting. I would text her, she would read the message, leave me on read for upwards of a week, but then she would reply with the same enthusiasm. Historically, girls being bad texters wasn’t something I was unfamiliar with, but it usually had both; 1. delayed replies, 2. low effort replies. I was now confused. On top of this, I vividly remember she once told me a story about a guy who was once friends with her, asked her out, and then ruined their friendship. I remember sheepishly laughing at this story, thinking “ohmygodisshetryingtotellmesomething”. Believe it or not, this strange relationship we had persisted for the remainder of that year, and then in 2025 we didn’t see each other as often, but the pattern of texting continued. It came to a head recently when it was my birthday, and she got me an amazing gift which seriously blew me away (especially as someone who doesn’t really celebrate birthdays). The gift wasn’t affectionate or intimate in nature, but it was just an expression of how well she knows me.
At this point, more than two years into this ‘friendship’, I’m fairly convinced that she doesn’t feel the same way for me, but I can’t shake my feelings for her. My other friends (who, thankfully, we’re still happy to be friends with me after my fail-trauma-fuelled isolation) tell me to just slowly cut her off and stop talking to her, but I struggle to bring myself to do that because she’s now one of my best friends.
So, I hope you enjoyed my tale of unrequited love. If you were me, what would you do?
I’d just let it go. Dial back the contact. Not formally, no need to say anything or make a big thing about it, just you know… still be friendly, but don’t make her a priority. Leave her on read for a week like she does to you. She’ll get the picture. If she wants something more to happen, don’t worry she’ll notice and start making some noise about why you’re ignoring her and then you can have a conversation about what you both want. If she doesn’t – then she doesn’t. It’s a win either way.
What is happening when people take samples of natural sounds and make a track, for example here. I’ve seen a few of these clips and I don’t understand how the finished work relates to the original sound that was recorded.
Well he hasn’t changed the original glacier sound, he’s just added it to some synth type track that he recorded earlier. You can see him pushing up the fader to add it in.
hi oppa what do you think of this song?
please also attach a photo of your cat, whose face card, as they say, never declines. kind regards
Not terrible but the arrangement feels overloaded with crap. Lovebites outsold.
your thoughts on his perception on the amount of groups debuting annually?
I don’t think he’s seeing some of the nugus that I’m seeing if he’s saying that groups now debut with a budget, that’s where he lost me. He was good up until that point. It could just be that he isn’t noticing the ultra-nugus because I see quite a lot of them and trust me, there are plenty of groups with no budget! But he’s definitely correct that the amount of debuting groups hasn’t increased since the early 2010s when the Hallyu wave kicked into top gear.
I wanted your educated opinion on a shitty situation with a guy that i recently got out of. I know you probably can’t give me a definitive answer, since you couldn’t have known everything, but still. This ask will be a bit all over the place.
1. Is being in pain from blue balls, after making out for a long time without release, REAL or was the guy I loved and hooked up with manipulating me? He was kind of a weirdo who said he didn’t jack off afterwards cuz it would be “disrespectful” to me and he didn’t wanna jack off to porn or memories of us either, since if I’m not there it would be like “objectifying” me without my knowledge. Idk how his brain worked.
Apparently making out for hours on end would give him the male equivalent of period cramps, but that never stopped him from wanting to do it again, was enthusiastic as always. I told him lets not do it if it gives you pain, cuz we both agreed to never go beyond making out + him giving me oral so he wouldn’t get to orgasm anyway. He agreed since his culture values virginity (both male and female) till marriage and I was a virgin, so nothing penetrative. He said he would usually just sleep it off or wait for it to go away. He’s horny like any young guy but from a pretty conservative upbringing so maybe that has something to do with it.
2. He said he had mostly given up watching porn due to the “respect” he had felt for an ex crush whom he idealised to the moon and back. And perhaps he continued that new norm with me. Difference was that he respected her too much to think of her sexually at all (he told me that before we became a thing) , yet here he was getting freaky with me, which made me feel disrespected cuz wdym you can think of ME sexually then.
3. He didn’t want people to officially know that we are seeing each other. Apparently it’s cuz our campus shittalks and slut – shames girls in gossip – but that never stopped other campus couples (though they’re not serious long term relationships) from being out in public.
He said if people figure out or suspect we’re together that’s okay, and we did hang out a lot publicly, enough to make most poeple suspect. but no holding hands and oher couple stuff that the other pairs did. Just hanging out and then making out in secret, not even in his room.
Anyways, I initiated a messy breakup cuz I felt devalued as compared to his ex crush, whom he would still bring up with sadness a month into our thing (she rejected him, broke his trust and turned out to be the opposite of the good hearted girl he thought she was lol). He had even thought of waiting to marry her back when he liked her. He had been in love, or atleast strong infatuation, and I felt like a rebound or ego boost or consolation prize. He said that he didn’t know if he could love me fully after that wound, that it would take time to heal.
Maybe I should have never gotten involved with a guy like this. I felt what if I’m being treated like a secret and not someone to be proud of having? Am I not good enough or pretty enough to be showed off? To be fair, I did say at the outset that I don’t believe this will last beyond college.
I was interested in your opinions on this cuz I wanna turn into a smarter girl who doesn’t get manipulated into pitying men for no reason. I was too much of an emotionally dependent softie with him lol.
Blue balls is a real thing. I’ve had it happen when I was dating someone who was just an incredible tease but didn’t want to go past a certain point. I’d say he’s probably not making it up, especially if he also isn’t masturbating in ANY context. What a torturous way to live. Dude, God gave you hands that could reach down there for a reason. If he doesn’t want to watch porn that’s his biz cos it’s not for everyone but not jacking off whatsoever and then putting it on you for the blue balls is a bit much – it would actually be more respectful, not less, for him to take care of himself sexually in this scenario, porn or no porn.
“Respected her too much to think of her sexually at all”, geez how pathetic. Maybe not entirely his fault though, this is the kind of mental damage that a sex-negative culture does to people, and this is why I rail so hard against sex-negative k-pop fans, many of whom probably also have similar attitudes. If a guy believes that thinking of someone sexually is equivalent to “disrepect”, and that “true love” is somehow an opposite of sexuality, that is like the biggest red flag I can possibly imagine though, that’s literally training yourself to be a rapist. If you were still with him I’d be screaming at you to get the fuck outta there.
You did the right thing by breaking off. There are plenty of guys out there who don’t have bullshit baggage like this. He probably does deserve some form of pity, but he certainly doesn’t deserve a relationship because of it. I think what this guy really needs is sex counselling (by someone who isn’t a hyper-conservative fuckstain) and he should do that before he’s even allowed to date another woman.
So, Shannon Williams has (had) among the best vocal skills in all of Kpop. Of course, her unfortunate failure in Kpop (thankfully, being a streamer’s a far healthier and more lucrative occupation anyway, so no major loss there besides her dreams getting crushed) proves that Kpop fans have never actually cared about vocal skills. She was trained for Les Miserables, and obviously, being in a musical was the actual source of her skills since you actually need to be able to project and control your voice in the theater, especially with their work schedules, holding so many practice sessions and productions in succession regularly.
So, my question is why don’t when Kpop fans make their stupid debates about vocals point to musicals and theater experience?
K-pop fans don’t actually care about vocals, because if they did… well, they wouldn’t even listen to k-pop at all, they would be into opera, or musical theater, or acapella doo wop or yodelling or Tuvan throat music or any of ther other dozens of styles that rely on vocals more than k-pop does. Korean pop music fans are only interested in vocals as a vehicle to prop up their faves or a weapon to drag others down with. Most of them wouldn’t even know if a vocal performance was real or not, and that includes k-pop fans who are singing teachers and so forth. The fact that some people still believe that “MR removed” videos have any useful function or any information to impart of any type whatsoever is proof enough of this. They are all faking it. How do you think BTS’s Jimin has had such a long and successful career in k-pop when he literally can’t sing. It’s because in k-pop, you don’t need to sing. Sure, it’s nice if you can, and there are niches for good singers, but to be an idol – let’s face it, it’s an optional requirement.
What do you think of Alter Ego by Doechii?
I don’t mind it. Doechii still hasn’t topped “Denial Is A River” though.
Why is it that so many people encourage the AESPA girls to be sexy and imagine having sex with them, but then the moment someone actually does, they’re so angry? Be consistent. A woman can’t both be having sex with someone and not having any sex with anyone.
Misogyny causes brainrot, what can I say.
Using your own knowledge on acoustics, what do you think of the design in this video?
Flat response speakers are very expensive so if you can DIY it like this and have the skills and tools and time, it’s worth a try and might save you money (or it might not if you don’t already have the kit to do this). Mind you most listeners don’t actually like flat response speakers, people tend to listen with the bass and treble both boosted. Nothing wrong with the techniques used as far as I know, but my field of acoustics isn’t really in speaker design, more stuff like live venue sound and room acoustic treatments. I’m an audio engineer, not an audio product engineer.
Kpopalypse, I have a question. How can I be more comfortable being a cunt?
For context, my university degree cohort has an annual ‘pubcrawl’, wherein everyone from the degree (from 1st year to final year) band together and walk around in an obnoxious group drinking copious amounts of alcohol. In the early days of the degree (as a less mature human being) I loved doing this, but now approaching the back end of the degree I really couldn’t think of anything worse to do. As such, I didn’t attend the last three pubcrawls, but for the final one I have a friend who is really keen on going, and has spent weeks trying to convince me to go since it is the last one we’ll be able to do. After his weeks of convincing I eventually folded because of how upset he was becoming that I wasn’t going to come (and the reality is while I wouldn’t enjoy it that much, it’s not really a net negative for me to attend but my presence would probably be a large net positive for my friend), but after I did I just sat and thought to myself “why can’t I just be more of a cunt and not care about his feelings?”.
Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m less of a cunt, but a part of me also feels like life would be so much easier if I could just choose to do what I really want to do without caring about other people’s feelings. Do you have any advice for me?
Keep reading this website, it will help. Also as you experience more of life you will get better at it. It’s one of the good things about getting older – you really start to give a fuck about less stuff. Caring about feelings isn’t a bad thing, but it’s a nice ability to be able to turn off, let’s put it that way.
Hey, I’ve noticed that when people try to ask you general questions about maybe industry news/machinations you sometimes you seem to refuse take your own biases out of the conversation. Like somebody may ask you about “what could be the implications of Agency X making Business Decision Y?” and you’ll be like “it doesn’t involve the artist so I don’t care.” I mean you’re one of the few people in the international kpop fan space with the knowledge and experience to actually be able to answer things like this, can’t you just be a good sport and take a stab at their question?
Partly it’s because I don’t think my opinion is necessarily any more informed than anyone else’s (yes I’ve been privy to ‘comapny conversations’ etc but every company is different so the experience isn’t that useful if I don’t have an insider in that particular company) but mainly I just think those things aren’t important to focus on. One of my only regrets as a writer is that I was the first person talking about industry machinations in the k-pop space from an industry insider perspective, and my intentions were very much misunderstood and misconstrued. I was talking about it from the point of view of artist advocacy, i.e 1. being aware of what the people in the business are actually going through so people don’t hate them or idolise them but see them as real people just going through real employee type stuff and 2. making sure people who might be thinking of getting into the industry have good information. Sadly people took my posts and ran with them in this horrid business one-upmanship kind of way, using them to prove that their favourite company that they stan is making good business decisions and performing better than the other companies that they don’t like, and linking my posts to try and win their little fanwars or go “oooh, look how well my faves’ comapny is doing”. That was never the point of why I was posting and I don’t intend to make more posts or answer questions in a way that panders to “company stan” type thinking. Besides, I have no money, and these people have a lot of money, and they’re not giving me any of it so fuck them. Why should I care. If people start shovelling money in my direction hand-over-fist this opinion could change.
so this random itzy bside from 1963 suddenly went mega viral for no reason and i got me thinking about those people who make liking bsides to albums their whole personality which would be less annoying if the ‘this bside should have been the title’ talk didn’t happen with the worst songs ever. is it like an contrary instinct? a bragging thing that ‘yes i am a good kpop fan because i actually listen to da muzik’? another case of kpop stans playacting at being a&r people? also i don’t get why it went viral it sounds like dogshit itzy makes better songs today and that’s saying something
Not sure what’s behind it, any of those theories could be correct. I have no idea why this song went viral any more than anyone else. But I’m not against people liking B-sides, I just don’t cover them in roundups because of time constraints plus they’re often bland or awful. I may get to this Itzy song at some point in an album review.
Do you Think the American is gaslighting? They have “pick up trucks” in USA. They’re even a regular topic Country music songwriting.
I guess they look different in the states, I’ve never seen this kind of low-profile ute there. Mind you these utes may be going the way of the dinosaur since everyone in Australia weirdly wants Ford Rangers and RAMs now. One thing that I hope comes out of the recent fuel crisis is that Australians start realising they don’t actually need that huge fuck-off ute or SUV.
work colleague killed herself, why can’t i bring myself to have a “proper” reaction? it’s someone which worked on my sector and which i saw and talked to every day, we weren’t actually close (through my perspective) but it’s still someone who i knew… yet i feel way less worse than even the shittiest higher ups. i feel kinda lost but that’s it, i’m still doing stuff as i normally would. am i a bad person?
it’s been like this for as long as i can remember, even when family members die i can’t bring myself to tears or to think about it for more than some days, even after going to their funerals… i know you’re not psychanalysispse but i just want to air this one out to someone, i don’t think i’m a twisted psychopath or anything, i do show a lot of emotion on stuff but i hate my fuckass blasé attitude to death specifically, feels like i don’t take it seriously
maybe you can describe how do you generally react to death too? if i’m not pushing the limit of the question(s). thanks
I’ve had some many people I know die. Perils of working in an industry where “live fast, die young” is a bit of a cliche is that there’s peer pressure to be a self-destructive idiot and people do exactly this. I guess I’m similar to you in that my reactions when I find out are typically fairly muted. If it’s someone very close I do cry, but never at the time, always later. Sometimes several days later. At the time I just feel kind of numb to it, certainly not a pleasant feeling, rather more “oh no, not again”. If it’s someone less close, I don’t cry at all, I’m just kind of generally bummed out.
nostalgic t-ara scandal related question uwu
hey do you ever feel like some of the snake twins actions kiiiind of make sense, looking back at it?
FACT: hwayoung is a bum and didn’t want to work which brought down the whole group… but based on some accounts (like areums) it does seem like she WANTED to get along well with everyone, she was a spoiled teenager at her first job.
and hyoyoung just acts the way any close sister would tbh, not enough for me to consider those two as big bad villains. i think hwayoung deserves her actress career and awards if she truly learnt how to act professional as people say. what truly stings about this perspective though is that she, to this day, wants to bring down the t-ara girls so long after the whole situation… must be unresolved self esteem issues after digging her own grave back in 2017.
i don’t think those two are nice people and this isn’t about the snake jokes which i actually love and are pretty much deserved. but maybe hwayoung does deserve her place in the industry… somehow? what do you think? this is internal monologue i’ve had since 2024
I’m always a bit torn about talking about those two because while on the one hand they definitely did T-ara dirty, on the other hand I kind of like dirty bitches, idk. What really got me was how Hwayoung could have cleared up the whole shit easily but didn’t and just rode the hate wave, throwing everyone else under the bus and trying to milk as much fame out of it as she could. K-pop sure is a cutthroat biz.
Is she singing about penises or no? If so, IDK how they thought it’d be appropriate for children (from a Sponge Bob Movie OST).
No idea. Ice Spice is kinda meh and honestly I just tune her out. Ice Spice is okay until you hear more than one of her songs and then you realise that every single bar of every single song she’s in has almost exactly the same flow. She’s more of a one-trick than Minju in League.
What’s your opinion? The Korean mum seems like the more caring of the two to me. Wanting the daughter to find a rich husband that would provide the financial stability to take care of her.
How about both of these moms STFU and lick my nuts.
Your thoughts on his theories? {stuff about Enhypen}
I think what he’s failing to factor in is that boy groups in k-pop who are successful tend to be perceived to have a longer shelf life.
why haven’t you answered my love letters ?!?!!??! ive sent you 64 in the past month alone !!!! and nothing !!!!! one of them even had 1 million dollars enclosed as a cheque….. this is what my love gets me…. forget it, loser. I’m moving on to thebiaslist, or perhaps Asian Junkie. Fuck you, jerk !!!
I spent the million dollars on Eunha fancams. Totally worth. Thanks, I guess.
in Addison Rae’s song “high fashion” what is making that super heavy reverb like noise at 3:18? is it just a synth?
Yes. That type of buzzy waveform in a synth is called “sawtooth” because that’s roughly what the frequency graph looks like when you play that sound in isolation.
1. Thoughts on first Arch Enemy song with new vocalist?
2. Thoughts on new vocalist being an Australia?
I’ve never been much of a fan of that group but this is definitely one of the better songs from them I’ve heard. How often do they change vocalists, damn. I’d be happy for her but I feel like there’s no point because they’ll probably have someone else doing vocals next year.
is this the most engrish kpop song to ever engrish? i remember when this album came out and yves’ fans were complaining about how yves had written korean lyrics for the songs but they were rejected for these incomprehensible english lyrics. i always had this theory that with the album being a blatant play for western hyperpop audiences they felt as if they couldn’t make the lyrics mostly korean but they still wanted to sell her as exotic and ‘weird’ in the way hyperpop artists have to be so these lyrics were deliberately written as strangely as possible. do you think that too or is it just a case of korean lyrics getting lost in translation
I’d be very surprised if songwriters in the Korean system were self-aware enough to know when they were hitting the “uncanny valley lyrics” button. Kpopalypse’s law: never credit to unique artistic expression what can be more easily explained by simply having no clue about anything.
I’m not sure how much music theory this would require, anyway why does this fairly upbeat song sound so fucking depressing?
It didn’t sound all that depressing to me but maybe I’m just such a maudlin cunt that I don’t notice. Anyway, I suspect it might be that descending strings line in the chorus that’s doing the work on your emotional state, such as at 3:39. Just a guess though.
The music video for that new Eric Nam songs features a bunch of E list celebrities/reality tv personalities that he was just on a E list celebrity competition show with. He was pretty boring on the show, but it’s nice to see he made some friends. If you had to choose a kpop celebrity who would be fun/willing to argue on a reality tv, who would you pick?
Chuu. All girls who like me have the “Chuu energy” so we would get along well.
On a scale from 1 to 10, how much can this song, or generally his discography, generate a huge noise pollution worldwide (besides deforestation with those AI slops parts there). Will there be at least one K-Pop artist who tries this genre?
Yes, it will happen. In fact quite a bit of Korean rap isn’t all that far from this. Effie only needs to turn up the faders a little and she’s 90% of the way there on some of her tracks. Someone will go all the way soon, I promise.
@10:43
1. so the “team members” making personalised messages for subscribers are like the modern equivalent of paid sex phone line operators?
2. do you think that you’re “creative enough” to be good at such a job?
Yes
Oh, you would get training. Minimal creativity required. There are certain things that would be known to work. They would have a whole instruction manual which would include not just the best ways to keep people engaged, but also what to do when things go pear-shaped. They probably have laminated cheat-sheets that you can refer to quickly in a “he’s getting too attached” emergency, like your workplace’s bomb threat checklist.
1st 12 mins of video, does interviewer ask good questions or no?
Pretty good, actually. Open-ended and he clearly knows his topic. Nice little sidestep when answering the training system question, you can tell these girls have come prepared for how to handle something like that!
This is a deeply morbid question, but I think I’m just not able to comprehend what is happening- do you think we’ll get any ED related deaths in kpop anytime soon? I’m genuinely shocked at how some of these idols are alive. Some of the idols are at a level where they would be getting admitted to a hospital regularly. It’s insane. Like these people human beings, fuck everything else, WHY IS THERE NO CONVERSATION IN THIS INDUSTRY ABOUT EDs??
Yes we will, but it probably won’t be openly discussed even then. Nobody talks about it because if they did people would start serious scrutinising idols diets. It will probably take someone dying or becoming permanently fucked up for any change to happen and even then it’s a maybe because people will try to hush it up quicksmart. Deaths where nobody wants to reveal the cause – it’s probably quite often due to ED. External forces are powerful.
Have you ever gone through the process of getting a O-1B or P-1B entertainer visa for entering the USA? Is there an equivalent for your country? Why would like a musical group risk trying to get into a country on like tourist or student visas?
I’ve never had to do it personally but I’ve worked with quite a few people who have, and guess what… they went in on tourist visas instead LOL. The reason why is that it’s so much easier to get a tourist visa. Mind you these were punk groups that were probably not known by customs etc so if you’re obscure enough and good enough at playing dumb then nobody’s gonna know. There’s all sorts of gambles that you have to take with going the “official” route plus it’s expensive. There’s risks with both avenues because of how weird and convoluted the system is. You can read more here if you’re interested, although things may have changed slightly since I wrote that post (it’s probably even harder now).
Plz walk us through the logistics of a normal, non famous person touring drummer trying to transport their gear internationally, cross continental. Thx.
Take your favourite sticks (and if you absolutely must, maybe your snare drum) in your luggage, hire the rest in the country you’re playing in. I’m sure it’s different for Lars Ulrich, but drummers in small independent groups don’t tour with an entire-ass drum kit unless they’re touring very local. Every major touring destination city in Europe, Australasia, North and South America has at least one gear hire company that specialises in hiring out kit to nationally and internationally touring musicians. The other option is if you’re on the bill with other bands, you borrow their shit – and when you invite them to your country, you return the favour. I’ve had Guitar Wolf and King Brothers play through my bass rig because we were on the same shows together… like drums, nobody wants to tour internationally with one of those accursed Ampeg “fridge” bass towers, or even worse, the dreaded industry standard Ampeg SVT-2 bass head that weighs 40 fucking kilos! Touring with equipment is expensive and a hassle, and airlines have regulations on what can and can’t be taken in terms of weight, dimensions etc… once again if you’re Lars you probably don’t give a fuck and just private jet in yourself and your favourite toys, but the rest of us mere mortals need hire companies.
Which artists do you think have the biggest influence on the current sound of K-pop?
I wouldn’t know. I’m not westernpopalypse. I tend to hear the k-pop version first and then the western influence later. I know far less about what’s happening in western pop than most people who follow it, the limited knowledge that I do have is mainly gotten from my readers via places like this one. If you’re reading this and young and following current pop music, you’re probably in a far better position to answer this question than me.
she claims that agencies are willing to take in older trainees if they’re really good looking (example she cites is Irene). any truth to this claim or no?
Yes it’s true. However it’s definitely the exception. And you really do have to be someone on Irene’s level of “generic attractiveness”, or alternatively someone who looks far, far younger than they really are (like Dara) to be considered. And let’s not kid ourselves, by “older” we’re talking mid-20s at absolute maximum. Anything beyond that and you’re really not looking to enter idol pop as a genre (Gangkiz tried, look what happened). The exception might be some very small agencies may give less of a fuck, and also agencies catering toward the “adult entertainer” type of groups like Girl Crush where age matters less there than if you have the right look and physique.
is the “vocal soup” thing you were talking about among the examples cited here?
Probably. I don’t even pay attention to voices enough to even notice or care when it’s happening, I just know that it happens a whole lot, it’s the norm, not the exception. If you think “vocal soup” or “member substitution” is being used, it probably is. It’s something the Shin Hana books cover, everyone records the songs individually but on the final cut it’s only a couple of girls who have their voices actually used. Absolutely situation normal.
did he convince you of his innocence or no?
Can’t be fucked watching. Lots of people being interviewed, not much in the way of actual confirmed facts or consequences. Also need to see Trump on the stand, he’s not any more innocent than Clinton is, where’s that.
Common as dirt or standard industry practice, no? international fans hoping for change but will Korea and/or East Asia ever care?
“Critics fired back at the whitewashing and Photoshop extremes, comparing it to past K-beauty controversies and questioning why her real radiance gets altered. The split highlights ongoing industry gripes over idealized edits versus authentic idol looks.”
It’s not just Korea. Your favourite western models don’t look in real life how they do in advertising either. I worked with a girl for a while who knows [American TV celebrity x, we love a good blind item don’t we] personally through family connections, at the height of her TV fame [celeb x] visited her house and they took photos together. Oh my god, a face that could crack mirrors. But she looked fine back then on the TV screen. Celebrities do not look like how you think. K-pop fans learning how the world of TV and advertising is actually a lie, imagine that.
Just went to a seven year old’s birthday party where there was much screaming of K-Pop Demon Hunter Lyrics. I finally paid attention to the lyrics in the song “How it’s Done” and… there is a line that says “Fit check for my Napalm era.” Is that… an okay thing to say in Korea? My American brain has been trained that Napalm was our historical failure in Korean and Vietnam and not something to make light of (but my American brain is also processing the onslaught of our current failures). That was surprising
Well a lot of people die in gun volence and yet guns are all over so many popular songs. When I first heard gun-talk in rap songs it was really jarring to me too. “Why are they so keen to let me know they’re going to shoot someone? What’s this weird obsession with shooting people?” It was very strange. But with exposure I got used to it. Back to KDH and they’re trying to sound “savage” or whatever so it fits. What are people supposed to do, only sing about flowers and rainbows? All sorts of topics are in songs, and often it’s a metaphor anyway. Plus the target market for this song wasn’t alive during the Vietnam war, but people do understand that napalm burns and is nasty, right? Wow I can’t believe I’m sticking up for one of the worst songs in Kpop Demon Hunters.
My musical ability, ear, and knowledge are all incredibly limited. So I ask you – why the fuck do I hear Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For” in damn near every k-pop song??? What is it about this song that I am constantly reminded of?
Listen, I don’t really know how to word this. Obviously I don’t literally mean every song, but I’ve never seen anyone else mention how fucking closely a lot of modern k-pop mimics sounds from this one song. And yes – “What You Waiting For” in itself is not THAT unique. It’s pretty experimental for the era, but really it’s sort of a mishmash of a bunch of shit that would be popular all through the mid-00s to early 10s. But I can name other songs I think a lot of k-pop takes influence from (Britney Spears’ entire Blackout-Circus era, for one) – and I still think none of them even come close to this.
For one, it’s a western pop song from 2004. The crowded mix is pretty standard for that era – and that’s what k-pop has been plagued with for for years. But beyond that, the textures (please correct me if I’m using any incorrect terminology). The droning bass, the warbling FX, even the drum machine noises sound like samples straight out of your average aespa or NMIXX track?
The vocal delivery too. Not that pop vocals have that wide of variation – and Gwen has 10x more personality in her singing than your average k-pop vocalist… But they sound very kpop adjacent. Maybe it’s the reliance on contrast between talksinging/more syncopated lines and these lyrical melodies??
Again, at this point I’m just spamming musical terminology I’ve seen other people use and pretending I know what I’m saying. But what really made me write this is NMIXX’s Reality Hurts, a song I love:
Is this not just… the same fucking deal?? It’s just a slightly industrial hyperpop adjacent version of the same song?? Like no obviously I’m not claiming plagiarism, but… am I crazy for thinking these sound alike? The moment it goes into “I can move a mountain range, I don’t need magic” I literally start hearing Gwen Stefani lmao
I’m genuinely blanking as to the other songs where I’ve had this same feeling, but I can tell you I’ve had this epiphany at least 3 other times with 3 different kpop songs over the last decade. The only other song I can say that for is Britney’s “If U Seek Amy,” but only because like 2 different groups straight up stole her shit
Maybe you can jog my memory as to where else I’ve heard this song as an influence in kpop, maybe not – maybe I’m literally spouting nonsense. I guess what I’m asking is – a) Do you hear what I’m hearing at all, b) Do you think I’m exaggerating and other western songs have a far more audible influence on the sound of modern kpop, and c) what are your thoughts on What You Waiting For regardless of all that? It’s honestly one of my favourite songs of all time, maybe that has something to do with my ramblings…
A. I’m not hearing a great deal of similarity between any of the song you’ve mentioned. But if I were to try to find the “most similar” part of Reality Hurts to the Gwen song, I’d say that it’s the fast section, and I’d say that because both sections have a pretty simple bass/snare beat with consistent root note bass underneath, plus a similar snare sound. So perhaps you’re locking onto that, which is a feature in a lot of songs generally. I have no idea really, but that’s my guess. The songs aren’t drastically similar, or even a little bit similar really, at least not any more than any two pop songs are similar because they’re both modern pop songs with modern pop song production. But yes it is “the same deal”, because it’s a pop song. Pop songs do what’s popular, and what’s popular moves in very slow increments. Sometimes a little shove here and there, but nothing too drastic.
B. Again I’m not westernpopalypse and for current western pop influences on k-pop, I really couldn’t tell you with any authority.
C. I don’t mind Gwen’s song, I’d tolerate it if it came on at the gym or the supermarket or something but I probably wouldn’t listen to it again by choice.
I have to think that this MV is peak K-pop street harassment. Creepiness? Jeezus, just look at that thumbnail! These guys stalk her through identity changes that would put a mob informant to shame. She’s a TV moderator, then a barista, then a cop, then a boxing ring girl. It don’t matter, they follow her through space and time. They jump up on tables, slobber all over her, paw at her; it’s nauseating. And dear lord, those haircuts. Threat level? Well, they seem to be able to do anything and go anywhere they want, no matter what. They burst in on a TV show recording, show up as the window washers at her coffee shop, and somehow get in the ring at her boxing arena. They may be using witchcraft. Does anyone else even see them? Or is it just her, like in It Follows? Threat level? Very high, except when she’s a cop and carrying 2 firearms, at least (one for each of them). Hopefully the other jobs are her going undercover, but if not, I’m worried.
Thoughts?
Well at least they’re good at washing windows.
You said in the last qrimole that most male kpop idols presently are gay (or something). Why do they have such large fanbases then? I’ve sort of distanced myself from idols a bit, and I don’t really keep up with the groups I used to, but I’ve noticed that I’ve lost interest in boy groups and male idols, even though I am a fan of both bgs and ggs. Maybe it’s all the sexual crimes against women or the misogyny of Korea, but I just…stopped. This might not really be a question but if the fans, who are mostly heterosexual women and girls, know on some level that their idols would never be interested in them, why do they still bother (especially the fanfiction writers and selfshippers)? Isn’t it “fetishising queer relationships”, as the fujoshis are said to do? What’s in it for them?
I think it could be one of a couple things:
I don’t think that a lot of the fans do really understand how much gayness there really is, I mean they would know that mathematically it wouldn’t be zero, but males in dance pop groups in the west are gay a LOT so I would expect the same in Korea
Perhaps fantasising about the male who is kind of maybe a pansexual/whatever is a more “safe” fantasy that’s appealing to some, also if he’s gay at least you know he’s not drugging other women in the club but just hanging out in the dorm with his groupmates giving handjobs under the bed covers
I don’t know if you had faced this situation, but how do you deal with people who love to emphasize how hard their jobs are compared to you, aka people who need to feel important and oh-so-indispensible to a… stranger (to me colleagues are just strangers at the end of the day) all the time?
Also do you agree with the sentiment that the best way to overcome shitty corportate life is to… not put too much of yourself into it, because at the end of the day you are never matter that much to the company, and almost no mistakes are that huge or lethal enough for you to losing sleep (well except those that can get you sued)
Both questions are similar because they’re tied into this idea that “your identity = your occupation”. Your job doesn’t have to be the entirety of who you are, it can just be something you do to put food on the table, it doesn’t have to be any more than this. I’ve worked several jobs, some have been supposedly “cool” music biz stuff but I also have done a lot of other more mundane jobs like office work etc. I’ve done enough different things to know that any job, even your dream job, gets boring after a while. It doesn’t matter how awesome your job is, there will be days when you really can’t be fucked getting out of bed and going to work but you know you have to do it anyway so you can get money and live. So yeah… don’t worry about it. Just do what you have to, so you can then do what you want to. If you have that attitude, your friends who try to make their job their entire identity will just look silly to you.
is franz ferdinand’s take me out a nmixx change up song? i always mentally slotted it into the same category as bohemian rhapsody but ultimately the only major change up is from the long intro to the rest of the song and it’s too smooth a transition to count as truly jarring but then again you could also say that about nmixx’s know about me so i don’t know. can songs be spiritually nmixxian?
Nmixx’s change ups are generally completely jarring, almost like someone just turned the dials on a radio knob to a different station, and I think that’s what they’re trying to be. Nothing like the FF song at all. I wouldn’t put Bohemian Rhapsody in the same camp as Nmixx either for the same reason. Hell, even Girls’ Generation’s “I Got A Boy” has smoother transitions than Nmixx.
improvement or nah?
Nah. Not a big fan of this djent-style riffing. With better riffs, maybe there was potential here.
Lol.
Do you think that this line of work will disappear when live radio dies? (Assuming that Baby Boomers and maybe Gen X are the people keeping broadcast radio alive.)
It’s already taken a hit due to AI narration. But no, it definitely won’t vanish completely. Television ads still use voiceover and advertising is going nowhere. Also don’t underestimate the staying power of radio. People thought television would kill it in the 50s. There’s more radio now than ever. There’s so much that it used to be genuinely difficult to start a new radio station in any big city because there simply wasn’t room on the dial. One of the reasons analog radio is being phased over to digital is so we can have MORE stations. Radio isn’t going anyplace anytime soon. People also thought books would die when radio came out, that didn’t happen either. In fact the death of books has been theorised at least half a dozen times, yet people still read books.
I just left a comment about this topic on your blog but realized as I typed it that I needed more information, so here I am again…
You’ve written that k-pop songs sometimes feature uncredited background vocals by artists not in the group. However, looking through the credits for Baby DONT Cry’s new mini album, I was surprised to see that Kim Boa of Spica was credited for background vocals (along with Perrie of Little Mix) on four of the five songs and was named as “vocal director” for the fifth. Spica was the group that got me into k-pop and Boa was my bias, so I’m glad she’s still finding work in the industry (and no doubt making more money than she did in Spica). I do have a few questions, though:
1. Does the fact that Boa was credited mean her vocals were more than “background”–i.e. that she sang significant parts of the songs? Even before I knew about her involvement, I did notice that the vocals sounded unexpectedly mature in places!
2. What is a “vocal director”? Does that mean Boa just gave instructions to the idols about how to sing the lyrics, or does it imply more than that?
3. Can we assume that most k-pop songs have traces of other people’s vocals on them?
4. Do you think Boa is breaking even with this kind of work, or is she picking up a shift in a coffee shop here and there?
1. No, but it doesn’t rule it out, either. What people choose to credit and what actually happens doesn’t always line up. Often what is credited is what the different parties involve agree should be credited. Well known example – tons of Beatles songs are credited as “Lennon-McCartney” even though it’s very obvious which ones John Lennon wrote pretty much on his own and which ones Paul McCartney wrote pretty much on his own because they have fairly different writing styles.
2. Just someone who tells other vocalists what to do on a track. Normally this is the domain of the engineer/producer, but an engineer/producer may in some cases not want to get involved in things like coaching the vocalists for whatever reason.
3. I can’t give you numbers because I don’t know them, but it’s pretty common.
4. She’s been doing this for years and years so she may be someone who can make a living off it full-time, but if so she’s lucky plus unusual. Most musicians who aren’t famous have day jobs, it’s the norm not the exception.
Hello, hope you’re doing well! so I’m someone who exclusively listens to kpop since around 2012 and can’t ever seem to get in any other genre of music.
Lately there’s this band called Angine de Poitrine that got traction from a KEXP performance on youtube and I’m really surprised at how much I enjoy it when it shouldn’t sound anything like Kpop.
Obviously kpop has never used microtonality in its music but I’m curious if there’s something else from their music that’s similar to kpop? They’ve said in interviews that they draw influence from traditional japanese music and middle eastern music as well (among other things).
Feel free to answer to whatever you feel comfortable answering and I’ll continue reading and lurking. Take care!
No not really.
I find “jam bands” like this boring, and I find microtonality a bit pointless. I think I was probably one of the only people who heard Angine de Poitrine for the first time and was instantly like “oh… this sort of stuff, eh whatever” rather than being either fascinated or horrified or weirded out. This is a “me” issue – I grew up around people in bands with similar ideas to this (but without the microtonality), and my brain is so hardwired into equal temperament (thanks piano teaching) that anything microtonal in a very substantial way just sounds “out of tune”. But yeah nothing in k-pop really sounds like this. For similar bands look elsewhere. Try Australia’s King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, or Indonesia’s The Melting Minds, two other bands I also dislike but if you like Angine de Poitrine you’ll possibly like them too.
BOOK QUESTIONS
how do you write so fast? it feels like every few months you have another novel out. do you have a lot of time on your hands? or do the words just come easily to you? tell me your secrets please and thanks
The Shin Hana books were written about 6 months apart from each other, but it’s been nearly two years between when the last Shin Hana book came out and the imminent release of Girls909 (already out on paperback, ebook available about 24 hours after this Qrimole post here goes live). Time flies, hey? I found Girls909 much harder to write, as it was brand new territory in some ways. I wanted to try some different things and it took a bit of tinkering before I felt that the content “worked” for what I wanted to try to say. It also has some pretty extreme stuff in it, more so than the Shin Hana books, and all narrated in the first person, and figuring out how to make that work without it just seeming gratuitous or whatever and also being engaging and interesting and maybe shocking was a puzzle. All of this took a long time. I still don’t know if I succeeded, guess I’ll find out when people read it! But I think the book reads quite well when I read it back to myself, and that’s the main thing, that I’m happy with it personally. Obviously no book will please every reader, and the book definitely isn’t designed to be appealing to everyone, or even most people, but the right kind of reader should enjoy it. In theory. I’m expecting lots of divided opinions.
As for writing discipline in general, when in writing mode I would just try to write five pages per day, every day. Sometimes I’d hit that goal, sometimes not, but that was always the aim. No I don’t have a lot of time, juggling various work committments and also a change of employers and just having to put the brakes on writing every now and again to just prioritise survival and making enough money to keep a roof over my head was also a reason why Girls909 went slow and was released way past my ideal schedule.
With respect the Girls909 cover looks like it was pulled straight from Wattpad. If you upload the photo without the text, I’d gladly make you another one at no cost. Unless the Wattpad look is intentional/satirical, in which case you can disregard this message! Plus you should write more short stories. Brevity is the soul of wit and all that.
I don’t go on Wattpad so I don’t really even know what you mean by this. People compare what I do to Wattpad often and I figure it’s a negative observation or a criticism in some way but I never have any real idea what they’re even talking about. I guess the tone of the cover is kind of bubbly and bright and not too deep, like a fluffy fan story, and if that’s what you mean then yes that’s absolutely a deliberate bit of misdirection, but I don’t know if that’s what you meant or if you mean something else a bit more specific. The front cover is supposed to give the unaware reader no real hint as to the nature of the book’s content.
I may write more short stories at some point but I wrote them for a decade and honestly very few readers gave a fuck. Slightly more people care about the books but it’s still a minority of readers, hence why I section off the book questions in QRIMOLE, so readers who don’t care can easily skip them. Most readers of this site just want song reviews and boobs and that’s fair.
does Eunice fall into any of these cliched tropes about Asian American protagonists?
Apparently rehashing the Joy Luck Club seems to a such common thing amongst Asian American authors, that ppl meme on the cliches. I suspect it might be a case of many of them being imaginationless people with no interior monologue and/or unable to picture things in their head (eg not even like an apple).
It’s fucking odd because I can think of super creative Asian American authors like Peter Chung who created Aeon Flux; comic writer Larry Hama who almost singlehandedly created the mythology behind GI Joe; independent comic artist Tim Lim who co-created Kamen America; indie comic artist/writer Ben Dunn who created Warrior Nun and Ninja High School.
I haven’t seen/read/experienced The Joy Luck Club, but I already did the “shitty parent” in the Shin Hana books, which is there because I figure a Shin Hana isn’t created in a vaccum. For a character to be like that right at Chapter 1 she needs to have a backstory where it’s at least implied that she’s being seriously shat on before the book even starts and lack of appropriate parenting seemed like it should be foundational because when looking at delinquent kids, shit parenting is a pretty common denominator. Mind you Shin Hana isn’t the Korean American in that book series. Girls909 is a bit different to all that. Family and race stuff doesn’t play no role whatsoever but it’s also not the main course. Honestly Eunice is Korean-American simply because that’s such a standard cliche in every big k-pop fictional story and I wanted to start from the most cliched done-to-death baseline that I could possibly think up (attractive Korean-American nice girl auditions for a k-pop thing, wants to be a big star and famous and rich and blah blah, tries to achieve her dream) because it makes the events in the book hit a lot harder and I just wanted to see how far downhill I could bend that particular concept. So I wouldn’t say Girls909 has much in common with the above at all.
How to solve problems the Shin Hana way?
Well, the books are a good instructional manual for that. But she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish any of it without friends, so I think the main takeaway is that the culture of individualism is bad and that to really get things done you need to draw on the strengths of those around you and work cohesively as a team.
did you base the Dongjae character {from Show Me Love} on yourself?
No. I never had a girlfriend in high school, I was a total loser of the most epic proportions. Dongjae is far too charismatic a character to be based on me!
I’m curious to see how you write a protagonist like Eunice!
I like the Hana series of books but (as far as i have read, only went up to book 2, will reflect) Hana does feel like your K-pop girl avatar of sorts because of her personality and perspectives being so much like yours (minus the murderous part I guess).
Of course you already wrote characters like Eunice, but none had the protagonist status… So question(s): Was it hard to write her? Did the frequent christian outlook on the world start becoming boring to you? Is that why Girls909 won’t become a series?
Note to everyone: while it’s not mandatory to read all four Shin Hana books before reading Girls909, because Girls909 is a self-contained book, there are definitely some easter eggs if you read them in order.
I deliberately went for a protagonist who was as unlike Shin Hana as I possibly could make her. Shin Hana isn’t really like me, but she does have some of that bitchy characterisation that I use in my more hyperbole moments or in other fics so she might be a bit like how some readers imagine I might be! (If I were to pick a self-insert character I think it’d be Youngsook – cares about music and tech things, is shit at dancing, not that focused on her own appearance and basically lazy af.) Writing Eunice was tons of fun. There are entire chapters where Eunice doesn’t swear and in fact she really hates swearing as she considers it ungodly, part of her battle in the story is trying not to swear while increasingly swear-inducingly horrible things are happening to her. She’s a great character, I especially loved writing her “prayers”. The book is self-contained and all books I write from now on will probably be. I think asking readers of my site to read multiple “series” is a bit of a tough ask, especially as most people who read the books are much like yourself and haven’t even finished the series yet. It’s better if I write multiple different standalone stories from now on and then readers can pick and choose what they might like to read more.
The full list of my “writing challenges” that I set myself for Girls909 is this:
Main character a total Christian goody two-shoes
Must have at least some entire chapters with no swearing
Standalone story, no sequel, same page length as a Shin Hana book
Must have at least one explicit sexual scene that does not “fade to black” like the Shin Hana scenes do
Must have prayer
Must have {redacted as it’s a huge spoiler – you’ll know it when you read it}
Must completely horrify and disgust any k-pop fan who accidentally picks it up expecting something like “Kpop Confidential” or especially “Hello I Love You“
Must actually still be interesting and work as a story for a non-k-pop fan/non-Kpopalypse reader while doing all of the above
I’ll let you be the judge on whether I succeeded because I have no idea.
NERD QUESTIONS
is an example of typical australian humour? i was this mission earlier and was groaning at how lame and unfunny it is.
The Borderlands games all have massively unfunny writing across the board. I definitely wouldn’t make any assumptions about Australian humour or indeed any humour of any type based off of what happens in any of those games.
In response to this question about gaming censorship:
I thought that we had alternative but then I see this:
So you’ve ever got a permanent funding home, jumping from platform to platform, until the next one gets hit by large enough to be noticed by the Mastercard/Paypal/Visa/Stripe/etc Eye of Sauron.
What can Wonho artists and game makers do? Make exclusively woeks about massive titty MILFs, because they can’t be confused for minors like petite body type characters can? If a slim Asian female artist wanted to do self-portrait adult art she’d potentially be fucked.
Do you think they’re exhausted?
Censors will always try to censor, but people will also always fight for what is right. In the meantime I will calmly accept the massive titty MILFs.
Thoughts on game?
In the trailer I can see elements of Quake, Heretic and Blood.
I already have the original Dusk, this looks to be identical, just prettier. It’s more like Quake in gameplay and just how it generally feels rather than the other games, I didn’t hate it but I got bored of it after a few hours, never completed it. I don’t think a remaster would change that or make me want to pick it up again, “better graphics” doesn’t really sway me much on anything.
Have you played any Extraction MP shooters? What’s your opinion of the game mode concept? PvPvE typically and high risk, high reward. You risk losing your current gear if you die out in field, trying to secure even more loot. Do you risk interacting with other players who might cooperate with you to get loot from AI enemy filled dungeons? Other players might stab you in the back during the crucial extraction phase of the gameplay loop or try to kill you on sight when you first encounter them.
I’ve never tried one. Seems stressful and like something I’d enjoy more single-player.
your thoughts on his thoughts?
I definitely noticed that for like almost a decade almost all horror games you had no weapons and were running away and hiding.
one observation that he doesn’t make is that i think developer might’ve been making games that are more likely to be played by big streamers/Youtubers at the time, like Pewdiepie, Markiplier, Jacksepticeye. I.e. The 5 Nights at Freddy’s games became popular with children because of Youtubers.
I’ve never watched a streamer play a horror game in my life so I can’t really throw down on that. But I think it’s a drastic oversimplification to say that a horror game with no weapons where you can’t fight back is bad and one where you can is somehow better because there’s more choice. You can easily engineer choice into a game where running and hiding is involved. Mind you I didn’t like the “run and hide” games much because I’m not that easily scared I guess… but then I also don’t like the opposite, which is something like F.E.A.R. where it’s simply not scary at all because your character is far too armed-the-the-teeth and generally invincible to be scared. The scariest computer game I think I’ve ever played is Receiver 2 because while it’s a very controlled experience 99% of the time, those loss-of control moments are always around the corner and they happen due to the game world design, there’s no “get to room 256 and walk on this pre-set trigger on the floor and then scary event x happens” type stuff, the mechanics of the game world are just naturally organically scary on their own.
your take on the Portal 2/Left 4 Dead writer’s opinion here? doesn’t attitudes like his just encourage toxic positivity environments?
the games which ppl have been “celebrating the failure of” have been bloated AAA live service MP games, with aggressive monetisation. eg Concord, High Guard, Marathon 2026. i would thought that it’s good, ppl voting with their wallets, telling the industry what they don’t want to see be made?
I think consumers being vocal is good. Devs are probably feeling the pinch because a lot of high-profile games are failing and people are losing their jobs. So I think comments like his are probably borne more out of perhaps being scared and just everything being a bit raw for devs right now. He’ll probably walk it back at some point. Like, I can’t imagine a book author saying something similar. They would be torn to shreds even more. Writing culture has a very strong critic culture – authors are expected to face criticism, and arguing with critics is seen as completely unacceptable conduct for an author. Gaming could and should be more like that (I just hope gamers dump the current obsession with right-wing idiocy somewhere along the way).
If isekaied into her body, which path would you take and why?
“Armed with only a “succubus stone” and her summoning skills, she must decide: maintain her purity and fight with discipline, or restore her magic faster through sexual encounters with men and monsters.”
Game looks like shit. Can’t I just go to the milk bar and get a malted and not worry about it?
thoughts on game concept?
Sounds like a nice idea but I have a feeling that in practice it might be underwhelming. Seems a bit like it could actually just be the same old procedural generation tricks under the hood and the previous player’s actions just tinker with the dice roll a bit. So, not that special really.
thoughts on technology patent?
in cross-platform MP PvP matches, ppl on “superior” hardware like PCs or consoles will be nerfed with smartdevice touchscreen players (i’d assume that other combinations apply too, like KB+M users vs controller).
N.B. they might never actually make it. Sony like to make loads of patents but never use them (maybe to act as a patent troll). I remember there was an infamous one from IIRC the PS3 days where you can skip ads by yelling the product’s name out loud.
Ugh, Pirat_Nation. But anyway, yes it’s quite common for companies to collect patents for ideas that “may or may not work” and then sit on them. Not just in gaming. In the very early days of electric cars a similar thing happened.
your thoughts on every game on this list?
I lost interest in Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines very quickly. First System Shock is great. SWAT4 was really good back in the day. Haven’t played the others.
NOT QUESTIONS
Eunha does like being sexy, but she also clearly uses her cute image. Why not enjoy both?
Cute and sexy are not and never have been opposites, we only think that way because of k-pop fandom culture lying to us over and over again to the point where we think it’s normal. But your question isn’t really a question, more of a suggestion. So I will suggest to you the JAV of the Month for April which is IPZZ-740 which should help you associate cute with sexy..
But seriously Chuu’s boobs look great recently
This is not a question. JAV of the Month for April is START-370 because I think Yura Oguna has Chuu energy.
It is bullshit that kpopping.com requires registration just to view the website.
I can view it without registering? Most of it, anyway? I don’t know, it’s free so not really a big deal I don’t think. JAV of the Month for April is SNOS-038.
Just did the trufax survey and I’m sure you got people complaining there were no smoothie or lollipop on the list of non-sexual consumable items. But let me introduce to my favorite, Newbeat’s “Cappuccino”.
I can’t blame you for not knowing this song, it was a digital single with no MV from a nugu boygroup, but I hope that listening to these boys singing so enthusiastically about cappuccino – and certainly nothing else – will make you more appreciative of the qualities of this drink. (seriously though, when you think it couldn’t get more obvious, they change up the lyrics in that last chorus…)
Oh my god. Those boys sure do like their “coffee”. Coffee-themed JAV of the Month is MEYD-834.
I barely need a response to this, but I just gotta get it out I guess and don’t feel like subjecting myself to reddit. I’ll update if anything happens, lol.
Ummm, so Friday/my 33rd birthday (been reading you since I was omg maybe 20) has been spent laying in bed due to severe asthma, wondering if a guy is going to text me. Guy in question is from work. I’ve had a wee crush on him for a couple months, when he DISAPPEARED to another division. I built up my courage and sent a very good email with the title of “Spirited Away” on Monday afternoon, referencing some in-jokes and giving him my phone number in case he wants to grab coffee sometime.
On Tuesday afternoon, he responds via email! Woohoo, it was really sweet. He responded to all my jokes, said he’s definitely going to hit up me to feed his caffeine addiction. Also he complimented my subject line.
Now it’s Friday night and no text! Aaagghh, I thought I pretty much had a green light and now idk man. If he’s only interested as friends, I’d rather know sooner than continue living on the edge. I’d distract myself by setting up a date on the apps or just LIVING LIFE but guess what, my lungs won’t let me. So here I sit and do jigsaw puzzles and watch TV and fucking agonize.
Ok welp thank you appreciate you I know there are other fishes in the sea but I can’t pursue any right now so that’s not very helpful.
I hope you works things out. Speaking of shit guys, JAV of the Month with a shit guy in it is MIDA-368.
BEST QUESTION
So Park Gyuvin, who apparently is a “popular male idol” has an extensive list of requirements for fans who want to attend his idol show performances: 3 issues of a magazine featuring him; at least 1 fan account dedicated to him; merchandise of his; AND you must correctly answer a quiz. Netizens are seemingly praising the dude for having requirements to show you’re a “real fan,” but it just seems weird and arrogant to me. Is it for security reasons, perhaps? I don’t see how. Anyway, in order to be a better kpopalypse caonima, please tell us what your requirements are for being your fan.
A while ago I made a Kpopalypse lore quiz, because I wanted people who spammed my email address prove that they knew about the site and therefore were relevant contacts. None of them got the quiz 100% right… but almost none of my readers did either! So I’ll definitely know when I’ve met the first true Kpopalypse fan if they can consistently 100% this quiz. I’ve deleted all responses out of the quiz (as I don’t use it to give to randoms anymore, I just delisted my public email so they couldn’t spam me) so if you tried it before you can now have as many shots at it as you want – enjoy! But really if you want to be my fan just click my website at least once a year. That’s all I ask of anyone. Anything else I’m eternally grateful for. Oh, and appreciate this cat.
That’s all for this episode of QRIMOLE! This series will return next month!
Oh, and do you have a question that you’d like to see answered in the next episode of QRIMOLE? If so, use the question box below, or if no box appears, click the Qri on the sidebar to open the box as a separate webpage! Kpopalypse will return!
