Back
in the days, when I was a fair maiden, I had no PC, no internet, but my heart
was that of a fangirl always. I think everyone had such period in their life.
Back in the 80’s or 90’s being a fan meant something totally different, insane
to some point, yes, but purer and clearer than this bog we have now.
I don’t want to
complain about the centre of all fandoms, I’m not going to argue whether
this-or-that music is good or bad. Because, ultimately, it’s the music, right?
I truly enjoy some Kpop bands/singers.
What I loathe is their
fandoms.
Nowadays,
it’s really hard to stay beyond the fandom, especially when a person is
connected to social media (be it twitter, fora, tumblr, blogs, facebook etc.) and
bombarded by all kinds of information from around. Of course some do that, but
they don’t belong to “fans” world. They like to listen to this-or-this song,
but it doesn’t make anyone a fan. I like to listen to Panjabi once every 5
months, but that doesn’t make me a fan of Hindu music (au contraire, India
culture scares me with its unhinged vitality-destruction violent circle). I’m
talking about being a fan as a part of the fandom – that is: knowing about the
albums, tours, interviews etc. The hideous and sick subgenre to fans is sasaeng group, but I wrote about them so
many times already so that I won’t sacrifice the space here and now.
I
remember myself as a fan of Michael Jackson and of others (but shame doesn’t
allow me to speak). I collected posters, songs (even though my English was
actually imagined-words-probably-English back then), I watched music shows on
TV, I listened to the radio all day long, I recorded some auditions on cassette
tapes even. I wanted to go to the concert, but I knew I’d never go. Yet I was a
happy fan, fangirling in our little way with my lovely sister, dancing like mad
and… well, that would be practically all.
Now
fandoms became sickening. I bet it’s not only Kpop fandom trait, from what I see it’s
the same carp everywhere. But since I’m stuck with that, I’m writing only about
that. I was suppressing my anger for a long, long time, since, truth be told, I
was never a real part of any fandom (a short and painful encounter with Cassies
doesn’t count). Ever since Infinite, this became an integrated part of my life
and daily routine – checking the official website, having subbing teams’
websites bookmarked, and of course listening to the music, watching shows etc. I
like it. It’s the fandom I started to hate. I never got into Shawols fandom,
and the reason was painfully simple – I’m really not fond of SHINee’s music,
and I’m old enough to not force myself to it. If I had maybe 10 years less,
maybe I could lie to myself it’s awesome and love it to bits. Not now, nope. I’m
a nuna fan that isn’t easily impressed (someone
flashes his high note/mole and I’m gone, OK, OK…).
I
learned about OTP in a crude way – by stepping on some fragment of a fanfic. First,
I hate fanfics, I really do. And now let me explain why. Someone likes to
write, that’s fine, very admirable. But this very someone has the imagination
of the size of a peanut. That’s worse. So this person takes some characters from
a band and puts them into yaoi frame. Voilà – fanfic is ready. The fact it’s
disgusting – that’s a totally other story. And by saying that, one may be
deemed as “rude, hateful, devoid of imagination and love” person. I do get the
joking, even crude joking, I do, but fandoms took OTP (One True Pairing) into a
new level, and yet not the higher one. Fangirls (age 8 – 20) are sure band
members are fucking. They are even surer of that than of sun rising on the east
the next day. If band members display the affection towards each other – it’s a
proof they’re having sex 265 times a day. If they don’t – it means they have “silent
days” in their ‘marriage’. If you like to write – then create some goddamn
characters from scratch, base them on you, friends, family etc., but not use
those directly. Create a world (that is plot), create a line connecting the
events. How hard is that? And no, I wrote tons of short and long stories in my
life, I know exactly how this is. And I never, even once used some living
person in my stories. The same goes with drawing yaoi with band members. If it
was a good drawing, fine, but mostly it’s porn/annoyingly cute. And again – you
like to draw? How about creating characters and drawing them instead of a porn
fantasy or even in this porn if you like?
So they ship, yes ship (I don't know why a ship) some OTP and - and this is good part - if 1/2 of this OTP starts to, I dunno, talk with another member, a hell breaks loose. Fangirls hate it, write letters, cut themselves, armageddon!! Instead of shrugging it because normal people talk to others, especially in a closed group. It's hard NOT to talk, stand close each other sometimes.
The funny thing is, 95%
of stupid fangirls love fanfics and love yaoi. Yet for them a GTM (Gay Themed
Movie) is disgusting, bleh and meaningless. Maybe because no flying bubbles
around, seamless skin and all that “womantic air” around. I find yaoi fangirls
one of the most pretentious, lying and idiotic breed of fangirls ever. If I
offended someone, prove me you’re normal. Because I ain’t sorry at all.
When I
was younger, you know, we fangirls dreamed about snatching the guy to
ourselves. We imagined our dream dates, and we KNEW those were just an empty
talk. A dream to make our days brighter, fluffier and nicer. When we watched
Kylie and Jason’s Especially for You
MV, we were envious of Kylie. We wanted to be in her place (it’s a fangirl
thing, you won’t understand). Nowadays, fangirls dream of group members to
snatch each other, marry and adopt some kids. This is nothing against gay
rights, just to clarify things. So fangirls get high by imagining their idol is
not with them (as a usual, normal fangirl would do) but with another guy from
the band. What’s the purpose of this? “If he can’t be with me, let him be with
a band mate?” What the f*ck is this logic? Heck, even crazy fangirls of Guns’n’Roses
didn’t want see their guys one on another, you know. I find it disturbing and
disgusting. It doesn’t show an ounce of admiration to your “idol” at all. It
doesn’t show your appreciation of their talent. And as my friend V. said – it’s
partially the agency’s fault as well. People from there know exactly about
those idiotic OTPs that fangirls create and they pair the members like that for
a photoshoot. But don’t blame the members when they start to flair up about the
oppressive fandom (it has already begun and I wonder how that will go).
I don’t
have to add that the most ruined image has SuJu, right? According to fans (they
even change wikipedia from time to time, writing “husband to…”, “wife of…”
there, seriously), all in SJ screwed each other. No virgins. And since I’m on
tumblr since November, I had the doubtful pleasure of having a close encounter
with SHINee fandom. Gods, you don’t wanna go there, trust me. Why? Just because
of 1/5th of this band. Why tumblr? I realized that most of the
fansites I knew moved to tumblr, so I followed to get some pics and scoop
(sometimes equal to poop). Other blogs and fansites are dried up already. Hence
me on tumblr.
One
more thing, very recent about another fandom, namely Inspirits. For a year I
thought it’s one of the friendliest, sanest fandoms in Kpop world. Latest alevin
of fangirls brought some bad blood with it and they distort this used to nice
fandom. We, older Inspirits, love all 7. We may have our favorite (usually more
than one, cause it’s a really hard task to stick with just one in this group, I
have 3) but we support all of them. New piece-of-carps are distorting it. They
have one and only one, but they don’t stop at this – they bash others. The main
war is between two main vocals’ fangirls. The reason? Sit, because this is
beyond ridiculous – the number of lines, the screen time. I mean… o---key. When
did they run from the mental facility? Because such person has to be a deranged
lunatic to argue about those thing. It affects the whole fandom, and it makes
us look bad.
I
wrote replies to one of my tumblr friends’ posts who wanted to explain as
calmly and reasonably as she could that such war is pointless and ludicrous. But
I doubt 13-years-olds would understand half of the words of her posts, so it
may be written in vain. But it has to be done nonetheless. Fine, I admit, it
was Wuhyeon’s voice who caught my attention at first, and he still is my greasy
cutie, but the award for the best voice in this group goes to Seonggyu, I’m so
sorry. Now, butthurt fangirls, you can track me and sue me, I don’t really
care. Fighting over such nonsense thing is an absurd. It’s tiring and it’s
ugly. Plus, our little fandom lately has been cracking and vanishing. Why? All because
as I wrote in Infinitize review –
fans wanted boys’ new album to sound like everything else in Kpop. They wanted
to get another EXO album. Oh, I’m sorry idiots, Woolliment is not SMEnt, if you
haven’t noticed. Thanks to the all gods, old, new and forgotten for that! Don’t
try to reason that SMEnt has a good music. It has catchy music, but catchy
doesn’t mean good music. In fangirlish: catchy=/=good. Except for some, all
filler songs on DBSK albums are boring. Deal with that. SHINee has generic music,
beaten only by that of SuJu (I don’t count girls groups cause they’re all carp,
ALL). I don’t understand war among fandoms, but war inside of one fandom is
just beyond my capability of understanding. It’s just not right.
Does
this make me give up on K-music? No, because I came here for music, not for
fandom.
