look, it was either this or a comprehensive intro to ALL THE GIRL GROUPS IN KPOP. lesser evils.

[elapses]

I have been referring to this project as my "SNSD pimp post" and I guess it is... technically that. But to be honest it's more like my excuse to write meta-y odes to the various SNSD members. Full-on rpf fandom is still kind of weird to me, I don't know that it will ever not be. But one of my favorite things to do in fictional fandoms is to knit

Comments

[typicrobots]

This is so funny because I basically do not listen to the lyrics of any of these songs. I got into Kpop around 2009 (so long ago!) and that was at the height of their Gee popularity, and then came Genie and Oh!. Anything before that I have no idea what their image was supposed to be, but from what I can tell it was pretty innocent and subdued? I want to say after the popularity of Gee is when their outfits started to get shorter and smaller while the overall message of their image didn't change at all - they were still little girls. I don't think there's anything overtly sexual in Gee either (although the aegyo there is played up for the benefit of their male fans), but Genie, I don't know. I thought the entire video was about selling a male fantasy. The girls inviting them into this boudoir-like setting where they're pillowfighting in skimpy outfits while they sing about fulfilling his every wish? That right there is where the dissonance gets me, that idea that oh, they're just doing it in a fun, innocent, playful way when it's clearly not - it's clearly SM trying to sell SEX. I guess my gripe is that they never let anyone acknowledge that this is what's happening, they keep up the pretense that this is all just good innocent fun. I would love to see how SNSD's fanbase breaks down compared to others - I think I heard somewhere their older male fanbase is disproportionately high compared to other groups that also appeal to older fans, like 2PM and older women. I DON'T KNOW, THAT WOULD BE INTERESTING.

You brought up the Wonder Girls sexy schoolgirl image (I think that's around Tell Me and Irony?) and while they also had some short outfits, I don't think it ever veered into the territory of hypersexualized the way SNSD's outfits did post-Gee (the other thing about SNSD's hypersexuality is how uniform it is among nine girls - I think they're one of the last few girl groups who still dresses the girls in the exact same outfits, creating this kind of en masse sexuality that always creeps me out a little). I guess my point with the Wonder Girls is that their image matured as the girls matured - if they started out sexy schoolgirls, they're not that anymore (also when I said I don't pay attention to lyrics, that's a lie, even as far back as Tell Me and Irony the Wonder Girls were all about kicking guys to the curb, creating some kind of illusion of autonomy). And I guess the same can be said about SNSD - like I said, the jump between Oh! and Run Devil Run made me like them sooo much more, but like you said, the overall message of their lyrics and image hasn't changed much. That's what disturbs me, I guess, is that these clearly grown women are kept at this stunted innocent/sexuality phase.

HOOT IS LIKE MY SHINING BEACON. I don't think the girls will ever go over to the dark side of sassy, because like you said, they definitely fill a niche in Kpop that sells, but more stuff like Hoot and I would totally love them.

OH DRAMAS. They are total cheese-fests but I love them because they're so comforting in how cutesy and even predictable they are. I have issues with how female sexuality is handled in dramas too, but I think it doesn't bother me so much because it's nowhere near as blatant as it is in Kpop. Dramas are trying to sell a story, while Kpop is trying to sell an image, and that image is almost always young, sexual, available girls.

[elapses]

Oh god, for some reason I was not thinking about the music video when I wrote that sentence but instead the concept/performance outfits -- YOU ARE COMPLETELY RIGHT, the Genie MV is the creepiest thing of all. I think I even meant to say that, when I first read your comment on my phone -- NOTHING IN KPOP WILL EVER BE CREEPIER THAN THE GENIE MV, but I forgot. (God I hope I am never proven wrong on that count.) I wish there were a way to see the demographics of each fanbase too though -- I kind of think that the oldness of SNSD's fans is overemphasized (they're totally there, but not in those numbers), but the maleness of them is not. Which is still disconcerting to me, I guess because I think for the most part Western pop music is marketed towards young women.

In a way I think Irony and Oh! are like two opposite sides of the same coin: the crux of the issue is the sexualization of youth. In Irony you have actual fifteen-year-olds in suggestive (but still young) outfits doing a fairly suggestive dance, in Oh! you have twenty-year-old women acting like they're still fifteen in a very suggestive kind of way. But what you said about the Wonder Girls' lyrics is exactly what I mean: their management doesn't seem to have the same weird brain block about giving them something to sing about with any kind of agency. And as much as I sometimes find JYP-the-company kind of sketch (all the companies are sketch), I think that they generally try to go for a more, uh, creative vision (god it feels weird to say that about anything kpop, I JUST MEAN RELATIVELY) than SM does, where the bottom line is always money. When the Wonder Girls come out with a new single, I think it is a little more about what the company wants for them as performers, whereas with SM it is always about what has made them money before. ALWAYS. Which is great for WG because it does mean that they have gotten to progress away from the infantilizing.

CHEESY RETRO CONCEPTS ARE ALWAYS THE BEST CONCEPTS OF ALL THE CONCEPTS, except for possibly spacey concepts. (Which is why I still don't get the hate 2 Different Tears gets HOW CAN YOU HATE SOMETHING THAT IS CHEESY RETRO AND SPACEY AT THE SAME TIME?! It must be hard to be that wrong.)

I totally get you there, but at the same time-- idk, at least the idols get to shed that image when they walk off stage, you know? The drama characters are fictional, but it is still uncomfortable to me that that is all that they are. (But honestly it's less the women that keep me from watching dramas and more the asshole men. I get WHIPLASH from the way they switch off between TOTAL DOUCHEBAG and having their hard melted from love. I love the like, concept of a sixteen-episode cheesefest, I just wish they would switch up the character archetypes occasionally so I could have fun too.)