Wednesday, August 28, 2013

What comes After School? Your education.


This blog was inspired partly by a fascinating comment that came through my ask.fm account last week:

kia

I admit that I just typed in the first reply that came into my head at the time, but later on, this post got me thinking.  The fact that someone even bothered to take precious seconds out of their day to post this asspaper of a non-question shows to me that we're living in an age where having more knowledge than somebody else is actually considered to be an insult.  According to hip, trendy young folks (I'm assuming the person who typed this is young and very hip judging from cutting-edge jargon like "LOL" and their refusal to finish a sentence with proper punctuation because young people don't have time for that in today's fast-paced world), if you're someone who "knows stuff" then somehow that's "bad", and you should just shut your fucking mouth so other people can be blissfully stupid and ignorant without your interference.  How did society become this way?  Surely it wasn't always like this?  Here's one theory:


Does this theory apply to k-pop fans?  To find out, I did what any rational person would do, and asked a bunch of them over at Onehallyu (the most active k-pop forum I can find these days that doesn't suck advertiser penis).  Here's what I got in return:

yve

Derp quota in k-pop fandoms as per the above theory sitting at just over a third.  That's alarmingly high, but perhaps no great surprise.  Maybe we should be surprised that it isn't even higher.


Of course, knowing that there is a high concentration of stupidity in k-pop fandoms is no great revelation - if it wasn't the case, could a site like Anti Kpop-Fangirl even continue to exist?  Therefore the question, as usual, is not "is there a problem?" but "what the fuck is anybody going to do about this?".

Ah.


I'm sure you've all jerked it a few times to the MV for After School's great new 70s-funk-inspired Japanese song "Heaven" by now.  I know that as a Raina fan (if you disagree, good - I don't need other k-pop fans cutting my lunch when she retires and is looking to settle down thanks) I certainly "appreciated" her bedroom scene:
 

Not to mention the other bed scene with Nana and only the barest hint of faux lesbianism:


 Lizzy prowling around on the couch in short-shorts was also quite welcome:


But the best thing about After School's new video isn't any of this stuff.  It's the fact that they're making being smart sexy.  This is exhibited partly in the welcome return of the pole-dancing, which is not just stripper-by-numbers but truly some next-level shit typical of the best After School comeback concepts:


(If you don't think this requires brain power, just fucking look at it - it's like a jigsaw, only fuckable.  Sure there's only 8 pieces, but what pieces.  If you think this is just for untalented sluts, get your stupid dumb skanky friends at school or college to try and emulate this and see how they go.  Where I live there's actually places where you can go and study and get a formal certification in this shit.  Not even joking.)

But where After School really throw their cards on the table is the sexualisation of books.  Heaven forbid I try to gently and politely suggest to anybody in the k-pop fandom that perhaps opening a book occasionally could be a good idea for them, it's a pretty fucking uphill battle anywhere that k-pop fandoms hang out.  Here's me commenting on a Netizenbuzz article concerning netizens' latest bee up their ass - "too many idols on too many variety shows":

nn

Just hope you're never stuck in a broken lift and forced to make interesting conversation with any of the six people who downvoted that one.  Even BoA578's good-natured "lol" collected 4 downvotes, anyone would think that user told everyone to suck Hitler's cock or something.

I clearly can't make books interesting to k-pop fans all on my own.  After School are making my job a lot easier though, by deploying some sexiness into the equation:


If I knew that Raina's "Basic Instinct" tease was waiting for me behind the desk of my library, I think I'd be asking to see my local reference section a lot more than I currently do.  Who knows, I might even read something while I'm there - and watching Nana consult her vast library for a hard copy of "Aesthetics of Pole Dancing Volume 6a - Pectoral Enhancement For A Cups" should be enough to make anyone throw away their lame e-readers and build up a book collection in the hope that girls will notice.


After School would make John Waters proud.

jwb

Thanks to their efforts in restoring fap to libraries, maybe not all hope is lost.  Don't forget to do your part.  Go to your local library today and bang the first hot person you see, or failing that just do what I do and make stupid posts on the Internet about how books are awesome and shit.  Bookmarking this post and the new After School video for "later use" is also highly recommended.

(Massive debt once again to Comekpop who went way above the call of duty to bring you the fappable goodness)

32 comments:

  1. sounds like that crazy kamillia that stalks people who mention kara on OH.

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    1. I haven't really posted about KARA much at all so I haven't done anything to make myself a target of someone like that.

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  2. Raina-biased, and I think they all looked great (esp blonde E-Young) and I'm glad they didn't dispose the poledancing concept so quickly. I still cringe when I ask someone about their favorite book and they tell me that they "don't read". We don't need more netizens.

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    1. One of k-pop's biggest weaknesses is lack of conceptual continuity. It's good to see this get addressed a bit more frequently in 2013.

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  3. On the more serious note, you'd like this article in the NYT on the Age of Denialism:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/opinion/welcome-to-the-age-of-denial.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=OP_WTT_20130822

    Goes well with the stupidity and anti-intellectualism part well. The rest, not so much :p

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    1. Also, I hope you will be streaming again soon. I'm sorry I missed the last one... Was on vacation...

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    2. It will happen again, soonish. I'd like to get on board with something like what's happening on tomorrow's stream where there's going to be multicams and shit but I'm going to see 4minute over the weekend which means a lot of travel and not a lot of being near a computer so I'll miss it entirely. I'll be sure to alert you well in advance with an attention-whoring blog post.

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  4. It's memetically known as modern-nihilism, and it has been going on for some time. I've been racking on about it, since 2010 in just the comments as part of subtext.

    I disagree on books though. They're a tool, not a concept for knowledge. Knowledge is a concept, and it can be obtained wherever there's information. People who read books are smarter by predisposition, and not actually BECAUSE of books. Books are the f(x) in this equation, if you will.
    Also, fiction doesn't count.

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    1. I actually agree, but adding that context didn't help with what I wanted to say, so I left it out. Netizens taught me everything I know about saying only what I want to say and not letting too many facts get in the way.

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    2. Growing up with English as my second language (God forbid I even utter a single word of that accursed white man's speak in my home), I learned most of my conversational English from reading Tha Classix like Treasure Island, 1984, and The Lord of the Rings.

      Does that make me a filthy plebe? D:

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    3. Linguistics operate differently, than just through storing information. Aside from genetic capacity, language is a defined in context, both between words in uses internally, and referenced in other languages. Kind of like looking at an equation and noting that -x2^2 exist on both sides of the equals sign, thus canceling each other out. Knowledge is basically just archiving.

      You're a filthy plebeian, the same way Andrew Kehoe was a smart guy.

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  5. My only gripe is Avex disabled the comments and rating for this PV. Come on Avex, I want to see which way does the pendulum swing, towards liking the video and proving the JPOP is lacking something that KPOP has been offering or disliking it on the virtue of being "slutty" by Netizens, the fact they are crackign down on anyone uploading the PV doesn't help since I want to see some Netizen vs AKB Wota duke it out in the Youtube Cage.

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    1. I think netizens being silenced is kind of awesome tbh.

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  6. the two members on each sidey pole are basically having some form of lesbian sex aren't they


    oh god that nb article is basically full of things like wah wah i miss x man and love letter wah wah wah.

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    1. Whatever it is, it looks good.

      I don't watch these variety shows at all... or any other shows for that matter. Don't people have other shit to do besides watch TV? I guess not.

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    2. well i watch quite a bit of tv during the summer and stuff but what really surprises me is that people watch their oppars religiously and make 5000 gifs/day about one thing when they have a wORKLOAD FROM THEIR ACTUAL EDUCATION i mean how is this more important

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    3. It depends who's on said variety show. If you have someone like SNSD then its great cause they take absolutely nothing seriously and the entire show is fucking hilarious. One reason I find kpop so attractive is because most idols are still quite young and I'm able to relate to them when they're having a good time and just making a general idiot out of themselves so I find most variety and reality shows quite entertaining.

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  7. Ever since I've discovered Crayon Pop, these overly sexualized MVs don't do much for me anymore.
    I watch them once and without much of an excitement.
    Whoever did the opening to the song, probably loves Daft Punk.
    The song has a nice beat, some nice disco funk. But I don't dig the vocals.

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    1. I think the vocals are good, light and airy, doesn't dominate over the beat and those guitar chords. Horses for courses. This is a classic example of a song that an Ailee would have completely ruined beyond repair.

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  9. “We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck them.”

    ehh i get what he's trying to say, but some of the biggest d-bags and liars i know are "bookish" exclusionary "intellectuals." not even hipsters, just ppl stuck in their own world. were it not for their ability to articulate themselves properly from all their reading, they would just be awkward shut-ins. i find these ppl just as irritating as your run of the mill kpop fangirl, only i place a higher standard on them since they should know better.

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    1. Not to say you are, but it sounds like something an uneducated teenage girl would say about his graduated uncle.

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    3. lol why would her uncle be a d-bag and a liar?

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    4. Why would a shut-in be a d-bag and a liar?

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    6. what? i think you're inferring causal relationships from my comment where there aren't any

      the author of the quote was [jokingly] suggesting only ppl with books should be fucked, or implying that books should be some sort of badge of intellect.

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    7. What's wrong with being an awkward shut-in stuck in your own world, or being "exclusionary" in the sense of having some standards regarding who you spend time with. Given how fucked a lot of people are I think shutting away most of the world except the people you know and trust is an intelligent and rational response and I really couldn't blame anyone for that.

      I wouldn't say that most people who read are smart, but I would say that most people who are smart can read. "If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck them" doesn't necessarily imply "If you go home with somebody and they DO have books, DO fuck them"

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    9. 'm too lazy to respond with my own words, so heres youtube vid of dawkins vs tyson degrasse that illustrates some of my point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiIjooe7-1U

      ignorance can at least be cured with patience. stubborn [intellectual] arrogance on the other hand...

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