Further T-ara hullabaloo?
I worry that my posting this simply adds my own drop of piss to the general pissiness of the Internet. If Areum's in trouble, posting about it won't help her. If she's not in trouble, posting about it won't help her. My excuse is that the Internet's in trouble too (which I find fascinating), and that's what I'm posting about. (And anyway, participation at koganbot is down to a trickle.)
But in case you're not up on it, ex-T-ara-member Areum has been posting texts and vids on her Instagram that Netizens are characterizing as "strange" and "insane," and there's a recent post of hers that seems to take a swipe at Core Contents Media CEO Kim Kwang Soo and at the remaining members of T-ara.
I really have no idea if there's anything there, and I simply don't trust Netizens and K-pop "news" and entertainment sites to be remotely competent on the subject of whatever it is, if anything, that is happening with Areum. Netizens, Allkpop, etc. have a history of credulously and stupidly repeating each other's narratives and interpretations. Regarding Aream, what's specifically missing are:
(1) Authoritative and full translations of what Areum said.
(2) Any attempt to actually evaluate whether what she said and did are "strange" or "insane" rather than, say, hard to understand due to observers not having a full view of what she's responding to (or maybe not even hard to understand if we block out all the noise and preconceptions regarding the supposed weirdness of what she's saying). Since I don't know Korean myself, and for that matter don't know Korea, I feel at sea. (And I'm so out of it regarding modern technology that I had to look up "Instagram" in Wikipedia). What I'm looking for is someone going in with the sense of "Here's something I don't yet understand, here are some hypotheses, here's what I found potentially disturbing, here are some potential counter-explanations." I mean, my initial thought about someone posting a video in the middle of the night where she's talking to people who aren't there would be that she's acting or playing around; whereas if she were talking to people who weren't there in the middle of the day at a supermarket I'd be immediately leery (but would look to see if she's wearing an earpiece, hence is just on the phone). One bit of supposed evidence of her strangeness was pretty easily refuted by poster jus-sayin: "On Instagram, not sure if it's international but in Korea, her birthday's 4/19, so she posted at 4:20 saying a minute passed since her birthday. It's not that weird. Among fans, some send her tweets at 4:19 to wish her a 'happy birthday(time)' or they call it 'Areum time' so she's not losing it because she wished herself happy birthday." People have been linking her Instagram as if it's self-evident that what we see will appear weird. But is it?
In any event, thanks to David Frazer for alerting me.
But in case you're not up on it, ex-T-ara-member Areum has been posting texts and vids on her Instagram that Netizens are characterizing as "strange" and "insane," and there's a recent post of hers that seems to take a swipe at Core Contents Media CEO Kim Kwang Soo and at the remaining members of T-ara.
I really have no idea if there's anything there, and I simply don't trust Netizens and K-pop "news" and entertainment sites to be remotely competent on the subject of whatever it is, if anything, that is happening with Areum. Netizens, Allkpop, etc. have a history of credulously and stupidly repeating each other's narratives and interpretations. Regarding Aream, what's specifically missing are:
(1) Authoritative and full translations of what Areum said.
(2) Any attempt to actually evaluate whether what she said and did are "strange" or "insane" rather than, say, hard to understand due to observers not having a full view of what she's responding to (or maybe not even hard to understand if we block out all the noise and preconceptions regarding the supposed weirdness of what she's saying). Since I don't know Korean myself, and for that matter don't know Korea, I feel at sea. (And I'm so out of it regarding modern technology that I had to look up "Instagram" in Wikipedia). What I'm looking for is someone going in with the sense of "Here's something I don't yet understand, here are some hypotheses, here's what I found potentially disturbing, here are some potential counter-explanations." I mean, my initial thought about someone posting a video in the middle of the night where she's talking to people who aren't there would be that she's acting or playing around; whereas if she were talking to people who weren't there in the middle of the day at a supermarket I'd be immediately leery (but would look to see if she's wearing an earpiece, hence is just on the phone). One bit of supposed evidence of her strangeness was pretty easily refuted by poster jus-sayin: "On Instagram, not sure if it's international but in Korea, her birthday's 4/19, so she posted at 4:20 saying a minute passed since her birthday. It's not that weird. Among fans, some send her tweets at 4:19 to wish her a 'happy birthday(time)' or they call it 'Areum time' so she's not losing it because she wished herself happy birthday." People have been linking her Instagram as if it's self-evident that what we see will appear weird. But is it?
In any event, thanks to David Frazer for alerting me.