Dream Machine (Yet another article on K-Pop by western media)

[af_fx_tion]

In the early hours of the morning when Beatrice Phan finally shuts down her computer, she goes to bed with a handful of soft toys and her idols: boys with chiselled jaw-lines, straight noses, full lips, lustrous hair and most likely a bit of eyeliner. Perfect boys, pretty boys, boys who look like girls, the boy next door, the foppish, the sultry,

Comments

[lightframes]

"When my children started to call me 'sexy lady', I realised it had to stop," says one Sydney mother.

LOL

Korean K-pop fans, who usually focus their obsession on one idol group or idol, sneer at overseas fans, who tend to divide their attention and follow a number of stars.

I've always heard this but I never understood it. It's not like sports teams, when one team's success means the others have to lose. Liking and supporting multiple music groups doesn't hurt the success of any one of those groups.

The interview with Glam was really interesting. It seems weird to me that plastic surgery is still "unmentionable" for idols since it's so prevalent over there.

"Frankly, the guys [are] just too effeminate. It may sell in South-East Asia, but it's never going to sell in the West. Because they don't even look as masculine as Justin Bieber. They're so glammed up, it's almost awkward to look at it at times.”

Well, it's awkward for you because you're not the target audience...

[dapo322]

lol@ the masculine as Justin Bieber line. People still joke about Bieber looking like a girl calling him Justine.

[lightframes]

Yeah. For him and a lot of these K-pop idols, I mean... how do people expect them to look? I mean, they're past puberty, but people still look pretty young into their 20s. I'm guessing he means he's not used to seeing men with the makeup/fancy hair/lack of facial hair, but I don't really care what he's used to seeing to be honest. Entertainers have always taken more freedom with their appearance than the average person.

[4minutesluts]

sticking with one group just seems arbitrary, boring, pathetic, and juvenile to me

[lainmyownworld]

this.

[edanz_castle]

Same. What's wrong with liking more than one? I guess K-fans look at it as a relationship between one man and one woman? Stick to each other and don't go creeping on the side??

[winegums]

lol if young Leonardo DiCaprio's popularity with tween girls in the late 90s was anything to go by, kpop idols' effeminate looks are not going to be the thing holding them back from success outside Asia.

[lightframes]

Yeah, that guy is not understanding that young male idols are not trying to look attractive to him. Young girls like young-looking guys. I didn't like guys with beards when I was a teenager. I liked guys who looked like teenagers. (Now I'm in my 20s I love facial hair lol)

EDIT: "boys with chiselled jaw-lines, straight noses, full lips, lustrous hair and most likely a bit of eyeliner. Perfect boys, pretty boys, boys who look like girls, the boy next door, the foppish, the sultry, the wholesome."

And liking boys who look like this is not unique to K-pop fans.

[winegums]

mte

your average 16-year-old does not want to see fucking George Clooney or whoever's face on her bedroom wall and might actually like a more androgynous look on her men, old white dudes just don't get that.

eta: it's in no way unique to kpop, boybands everywhere rely on that look to help them get the teen girl audience. I still have a soft corner for boys who look like that, even if - like you - I appreciate a bit of scruff now.

[burger]

this whole comment is so spot-on