POSITIVE post: 3 people who I like in k-pop right now

I've recently been alerted to the fact that some people think my k-pop blogging is "negative" and that I'm just hating on everything I can for cheap jokes and generally getting off on being a rude and unpleasant person.  Gosh, what a strange perception.  This is obviously untrue as clearly someone who genuinely hated k-pop wouldn't spend so much time writing about it, so why are some people so easily confused about this?

I think part of the confusion is cultural: Australians tend to have a highly irreverent sense of humour and communicate with insults a lot, even to people that they like, and I'm certainly no exception to this.  If you watch the following Australian viral video, and you're from another country, you'll probably laugh, but if you're also Australian, you'll cringe in equal measure, because you will know people personally who are just like this - and you'll know that it's not even an exaggeration.


Like our friend Darren, I tend to take the piss out of what I like just as much as what I don't like (although I'd like to think I'm slightly less of a cunt about it than Darren is) so I can definitely understand how that could be a bit baffling to the casual observer from overseas, and why someone might read my writing and incorrectly believe that I just hate everything under the sun - it is definitely not the case!

Nevertheless, I know many people don't ever believe anything I write here (even when I'm proven right) so now it's time for me to deliver some proof.  So it's with a big-time POSITIVE attitude that I now present to you the following list, for your entertainment:

3 PEOPLE WHO I LIKE IN K-POP RIGHT NOW

1. Suzy (miss A)

Unlike a lot of people, I don't really get a boner over Suzy - in fact she's definitely my least favourite member of miss A in that aspect.  However, Suzy really got into my POSITIVE books lately in a more general non-sexual "you're fucking cool" sense over her recent appearance at some awards ceremony nobody gives a fuck about.


When receiving this shitty award for some bullshit dickwank, she did some supposedly horrible things like:

• thanked her dog
• moved her head from side to side a bit
• laughed
• seemed nervous
• wasn't that well prepared

Doesn't sound to me like someone who intended disrespect - sounds more to me like someone who really didn't think they had a hope in hell of getting a fucking award in the first place, and given the way people criticise her acting, who could blame her for thinking that way?  Either she's too shit at acting to deserve an award, or she's a great actress who should have expected to win and should have had a speech prepared - you can't have it both ways, guys.  In fact if she went up and DID have a careful speech prepared netizens probably would have turned the tables and torn her to shreds, saying "how dare that talentless bitch presume that she'd win the award over those veteran actors and even have the sheer arrogance to prepare a speech in advance as if she was a shoe-in".

Of course everyone took a great big smelly cyber-dump on this nervous teenager anyway, because younger people are easier to cyberbully, and international netizens in their usual mad scurry to think and act as much like Korean netizens as possible, echoed the thoughts.  All the people hating on Suzy probably wouldn't even dare to criticise Alex Lifeson from 70s rock group Rush for this speech (which I've linked before but here it is again because it's so great), which is for a far more high-profile award than what Suzy is getting:


...so why the double-standard?  If someone wins an award, surely they've also earned the right to do their own speech, their own way.  Suzy was probably nervous as shit and trying to liven up the event because award ceremonies are so fucking completely boring.  I've been to a few, and let me tell you firsthand; on TV you only get the edited highlights of the awards people care about the most.  The award for "best combined ukelele tap-dance performance in a TV drama that aired between the hours of 3am and 4am", they don't televise that shit, but if you're at the event, you still gotta sit through it.  These events drag on for fucking hours and listening to hours after hours after hours of different people going up to get awards and all deliver the same boring generic speeches where they thank all their employers and their family in professional grammatically correct inoffensive language is like trying to cut down a tree with a nail file while simultaneously doing the "Cherry Blossom Ending Challenge".  There's a reason why they have free food and alcohol at these things.

Also, if I ever win one of these fucking awards (presumably for "most rambling pointless blog post", "most unpopular opinions" or "biggest arrogant cuntfaced douchebag"), you bet your fucking life I'm thanking my cats, and I'll make a point to thank them before anyone else.  So Suzy's alright by me.

2. SULLI (f(x))

I've discussed Sulli a lot in various posts in reference to her sexy catchphrases as well as general hotness, but this post isn't directly about either of those things.  Instead, I'm going to shift focus to Sulli's behaviour, which I must say is exemplary and definitely a POSITIVE force in the world of k-pop.

Those of you who have ever held down a job at some point in any kind of industry involving constant contact with the general public will know that there's a thing called emotional labour.  A very underrated aspect of work, emotional labour can be very taxing depending on your personality and requires that you basically show warm pleasant emotions to people who you may in reality perceive as worthless wastes of oxygen and carbon and that you would prefer to stab a thousand times in the face rather than talk to for more than ten seconds at a time.

Western pop stars are generally not expected to perform any emotional labour - getting through the song in a functional fashion is considered the only key requirement, and anything else is really a bonus.  Korean pop stars, on the other hand, are definitely expected to perform emotional labour - and not just while on stage!  Any time that they are in front of the camera or in front of the general public, your bias has to maintain the resolute fake-happy facade of an airline stewardess.  Grandmother just died?  Smile for the camera.  On your period?  Smile for the camera.  Just gave a blowjob to the production manager backstage and he obviously hadn't showered in a week?  Smile for the camera.  Etc.

Unless you're Sulli, in which case - fuck it.

• Photoshoot with EXO and SHINee?  Sulli does photoshoots every other week, she's over it.  Don't even ask her shit - idol or no idol, there are no fucks given.
• Dancing on stage?  Fuck dancing on stage.  Fuck your stage in the ass.
• Time for Sulli to work on an advert?  "That's nice, what about it", says Sulli.
• TV interview?  Just get it over with, asshole.
• Some shitty contest show or whatever?  Cao ni ma.

I don't know about you, but I think idols work hard enough and pander to the whims of childlike fans and judgemental couch-potato assholes enough as it is.  It wouldn't hurt the average spoiled Korean entertainment connoisseur to get used to the concept of not having their genitals sucked through the computer screen every three minutes.  What we need is more idols like Sulli not giving a fuck, and eventually we can progress to the beautiful place the west is in where singers can be their beautiful selves on stage and life just goes on.

3. Kim Kwang Soo (CEO/ex-CEO, Core Contents Media)

We all hate this dude - something all k-pop fans can agree on, right?  But wait.  I can't think of any k-pop CEO (or ex-CEO, whatever) more never-endingly helpful or willing to go out of his way to please a bunch of whiny spoiled cunts.  Sure, he's certainly got his dark side, like any other k-pop CEO (the rest are just better at not getting caught out) but we're being POSITIVE here so let's look at some of the nice, POSITIVE things KKS has done for T-ara and their fans over the last couple of years.

*  Fans were noticing the lack of boobies in T-ara, so KKS dutifully responded to the call and added an extra bonus well-endowed member to T-ara for your perving pleasure.  Well played, sir.  What a nice man, looking out for the fans first.  Response: all you ungrateful shits fucking complained.

*  Fans were noticing that T-ara was a bit shit sometimes on live stages, and this was holding them back from being a top-tier group, so KKS heard your complaints and added more members, and also told existing members to lift their fucking game or they're out.  Response: all you ungrateful shits fucking complained.

*  Fans kept complaining about Hwayoung being basically crap and useless, so KKS, noticing that you were all correct, removed her.  Response: all you ungrateful shits fucking complained and decided you wanted the rude bitch and her shithouse rapping back in the group after all.

*  Fans also kept complaining about how KKS wasn't clearing up the bullying rumours and wouldn't apologise so KKS offered to meet the T-ara haters, not over the Internet but in person and reveal everything.  If you're not immediately blown away by that fucking fact, then you're obviously new to how big companies like this work, so let's put this in perspective for a fucking second.  Imagine the boss of Endangered-Fish-Meats-R-Us contacting the head of Greenpeace and saying "hey, I know you don't like my marine-life-slaughtering ass very much, after I've clubbed this baby seal to death, made the blood into a nice seal smoothie and put it on my online store for sale how about we go and get a coffee somewhere and talk calmly and rationally about our disagreements?"  That's the kind of scale we're talking about here.  Response: the pathetic haters complained and ludicrously declined the meeting because he wouldn't let them also meet T-ara thus giving themselves away as secret T-ara fans, something KKS was smart enough to realise and acknowledge in his...

*  ....motherfucking hand-written letter of apology.   Holy cunting fuck - what CEO of any company anywhere does something like that, ever?  Sure, it's one thing for the group to do it, but the CEO?  Getting a CEO of any company anywhere even just to admit "yeah, okay we fucked up a little, kinda" is almost unheard of but apologising formally for an entire scandal - accepting blame and not weaseling out of anything - in a handwritten fucking letter?  Mind fucking blown.  Here's an exercise, go to Google right now and type "CEO handwritten letter of apology" into the search bar and see what comes up.  You'll notice that KKS is there on the first page of the search... why?  Because he's the only CEO who's ever written an apology letter which is actually even remotely sincere and worth a damn.  That's how fucking unprecedented this is, you k-pop fans are getting the gold star treatment from this dude and you don't even fucking realise it.  And best believe he wrote the fucking thing too (not that it matters who writes it) - his 18 year old hot secretary who is blowing him doesn't have handwriting anywhere near that good, we all know kids can't write these days, it's all about computers now.  Response: as usual, all you ungrateful shits fucking complained.

*  Let's not forget Dani.  Everyone on the planet with an Internet connection and the slightest interest in k-pop made sure to cyberbully the fuck out of poor underage Dani and said "please don't debut Dani in T-ara".  So KKS didn't debut Dani in T-ara (and still won't). Response: all you ungrateful shits fucking complained (oh, and cyberbullied her some more for good measure).

*  During all of this, people kept asking KKS to step down as CEO.... so he fucking did.  Response: all you ungrateful shits fucking complained okay you actually mostly liked that one... even though it may not even be true because recent press releases still refer to him as the CEO, and even if it is true, he's probably just been moved to a lower-profile position, with more power.  Oops.

All I ever read about KKS is constant hate, but the poor old guy has been struggling to do the best for the sake of his groups and their fans all this time.  Don't like his decisions?  Maybe your unqualified, inexperienced ass should stop fucking telling him what to do then, because perhaps the problem isn't that he doesn't care about your opinion but that he cares too much about it.  Maybe if he just did his own thing instead of listening to the whining of every crybaby with a keyboard and an Internet connection perhaps he wouldn't have second-guessed himself enough to fuck things up so badly in the first place.  Just maybe.

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So that's the end of this POSITIVE post.  I'm hoping that you all got the extremely POSITIVE vibes from my writing and you're ready to look at some of k-pop's bigger scandals and issues in a whole new POSITIVE way.  Or maybe you hated this post and you still think I'm a negative cynical asshole who shouldn't be writing blogs in which case you can POSITIVEly go and get fucked.