Minami

[koganbot]

warthoginrome writes:

I don't know if you had the chance to run into this news, so I wanted to point it out, because the topic is common to the entire asian pop scene

Comments

[koganbot]

Hey, anhh, it's good to have you back. I'd wondered where you'd disappeared to.

I don't have time to write anything right now, except to say that my reaction to this story was much like that of warthoginrome and askbask, which is that there's something going wrong in fandom here - not that this is news. In fact, in regard to K-pop not J-pop, on my very first comment thread on the subject, both you and petronia were quite prescient, at least as far as the T-ara uproar: petronia said: "K-pop has the most insane and deeply frightening fanclub culture ever, and I say this as someone with a full-blown otaku background. It's as much crazy hate of "rivals" as crazy love of the idols in question, said rivalries seem as random in provenance (from an outside perspective at least) as hip-hop beefs, and are sometimes as damaging - people have poisoned the water bottles of and thrown acid at pop stars they dislike." And you said: "the mechanics that one appreciates in forums and blogs is that people are very obsessive and gossipy (usually to such a high degree that pisses you off) about the groups they love... and kind of work as haters for the rest (or at least of the ones that can work as competence)"

But one thing I keep in mind is that, with all its restrictions and attitudes that I can't get with, K-pop makes vastly better music than people off in indie America with whom I share attitudes and ways of doing things.