C A S S I O P E I A ; of all the names
So I got into KPOP through a friend of mine, and when he was first trying to explain the entirety of KPOP culture to me (roles within each group, colors, fanchants, debut/comeback/goodbye stages, etc), one of the things that struck me as being very strange was the idea of having "official" fanclubs and, even more strangely, how prevalently the fans identified themselves as such.
Now this was in the beginning of 2009 and before the days of "Beliebers" and "Little Monsters", but they're still not used to the extent that it's used in KPOP--calling yourself a VIP or a SONE or a BlackJack was like an identity tag that immediately told people who you liked and what kind of person you were. The comment section would be riddled with things like "I'm a Hottest but I don't like...[member of 2PM]" or "well, I'm an ELF and I think [random girl group] is awesome".
(You even had fanwars within each fanclub, stuff like "You're not a real SONE if you don't love all nine of the girls equally" or "You're not a real VIP unless you pay money to be part of the fanclub", and let's not even get into the ELF shite.)
To this day, I still think the whole idea is kind of strange because it feels too limiting to identify yourself as only a fan of one group. But that's not what this is about. It took me a long time before I realized that "Cassies" stood for "Cassiopeia" and my first thought was "WHY WOULD YOU NAME YOUR FANCLUB THAT" because it just seemed like Bad Luck (capitalization and all) to me.
There are two constellations (according to Google) that have five stars in the sky: Cassiopeia, the queen and Cepheus, the King (who is her husband). If anyone doesn't know the mythology, here is some excerpts from Wikipedia:
+ Cassiopeia...was beautiful but also arrogant and vain; these latter two characteristics led to her downfall.
+ Her name in Greek..."she whose words excel"
+ The boast of Cassiopeia was that both she and her daughter Andromeda were more beautiful than all the Nereids...This brought the wrath of Poseidon, ruling god of the sea, upon the kingdom of Ethiopia.
+ Since Poseidon thought that Cassiopeia should not escape punishment, he placed her in the heavens tied to a chair in such a position that, as she circles the celestial pole in her throne, she is upside-down half the time.
+ The constellation resembles the chair that originally represented an instrument of torture.
So, long story short, Cassiopeia was beautiful and vain and they boasted that their "child" (IDK Dong Bang Shin Ki?) was better than everyone else and their pride came before downfall and they lose that "child" (for Cassiopeia, to death/to marriage. for Cassies...). Maybe I'm reaching here, but does that not sound uncomfortably prophetic to what happened to TVXQ?
To my knowledge, no other fanclub name is quite so "foreshadow-y". You have Wonderfuls, SONES, Everlasting Friends, BlackJacks, VIP's, Kamilias, Changjo's, etc, that are all so very harmless.
Why. Cassiopeia. щ(ºДºщ)
Now this was in the beginning of 2009 and before the days of "Beliebers" and "Little Monsters", but they're still not used to the extent that it's used in KPOP--calling yourself a VIP or a SONE or a BlackJack was like an identity tag that immediately told people who you liked and what kind of person you were. The comment section would be riddled with things like "I'm a Hottest but I don't like...[member of 2PM]" or "well, I'm an ELF and I think [random girl group] is awesome".
(You even had fanwars within each fanclub, stuff like "You're not a real SONE if you don't love all nine of the girls equally" or "You're not a real VIP unless you pay money to be part of the fanclub", and let's not even get into the ELF shite.)
To this day, I still think the whole idea is kind of strange because it feels too limiting to identify yourself as only a fan of one group. But that's not what this is about. It took me a long time before I realized that "Cassies" stood for "Cassiopeia" and my first thought was "WHY WOULD YOU NAME YOUR FANCLUB THAT" because it just seemed like Bad Luck (capitalization and all) to me.
There are two constellations (according to Google) that have five stars in the sky: Cassiopeia, the queen and Cepheus, the King (who is her husband). If anyone doesn't know the mythology, here is some excerpts from Wikipedia:
+ Cassiopeia...was beautiful but also arrogant and vain; these latter two characteristics led to her downfall.
+ Her name in Greek..."she whose words excel"
+ The boast of Cassiopeia was that both she and her daughter Andromeda were more beautiful than all the Nereids...This brought the wrath of Poseidon, ruling god of the sea, upon the kingdom of Ethiopia.
+ Since Poseidon thought that Cassiopeia should not escape punishment, he placed her in the heavens tied to a chair in such a position that, as she circles the celestial pole in her throne, she is upside-down half the time.
+ The constellation resembles the chair that originally represented an instrument of torture.
So, long story short, Cassiopeia was beautiful and vain and they boasted that their "child" (IDK Dong Bang Shin Ki?) was better than everyone else and their pride came before downfall and they lose that "child" (for Cassiopeia, to death/to marriage. for Cassies...). Maybe I'm reaching here, but does that not sound uncomfortably prophetic to what happened to TVXQ?
To my knowledge, no other fanclub name is quite so "foreshadow-y". You have Wonderfuls, SONES, Everlasting Friends, BlackJacks, VIP's, Kamilias, Changjo's, etc, that are all so very harmless.
Why. Cassiopeia. щ(ºДºщ)