elliot's daily thoughts

things i find pretty confusing as a new kpop stan

the title speaks for itself. 

for some more information, i've been listening to k-pop (while realising it's k-pop) since january 2024 and i started "stanning" kpop about may. i don't really remember when, but it was a bit before the stray kids comeback. it could also been june already, dunno. 

since then i've listened to stray kids, ateez, txt and enhypen mostly. 

now, let's do the things i find confusing. 

1. some people say, you're not a k-pop stan until you collect pcs or albums. but honestly, i don't have the money for buying albums. according to these people, i wouldn't be a k-pop stan since i don't have any albums. 

2. why do they call their tours "world tour" and they just visit japan and south korea? tf? a world tour is for me at least one concert in asia, one in australia, one in europe and one in america. 

3. what the hell is the job of a visual? like, a rapper raps, a dancer dances and a vocalist sings, but a visual? is the only reason he's in the group that he's good looking? huh? (that's no front to visuals, i just don't get it!) 

4. bias. just bias. like i was so stressed when i first started with kpop and my stressed ass was like "kay, imma be han biased now" and i don't get that when i look back, cause, yeah some people might like one more than others but i always feel so sorry when i don't like everyone, especially if i don't like only one. 

5. why is it called "comeback"? like they aren't really disappeared, it's just a new release. why don't you call it release? 

6. why do they include so much korean in their fanchants? i mean, yeah, i get it, it's your song and it's mostly in korean, but for non korean speaking stan's it's pretty hard to pronounce that. especially if it's rapped too. 

7. nct. i haven't quite looked through it and i was sooo confused when i first heard "nct". someone wanna explain to me why nct is a group, but also there are a lot of other groups who also have "nct" in their name? 

8. v-live. i've got now that it's something like instagram for k-pop idols but i'm still very confused. 

9. where do you get the information about new comebacks, concert dates and where do you buy concert tickets? i didn't even knew stray kids would have a comeback, i just saw a lot of announcements on watty, so i knew. also, the ateez tour rn, where did they release the tour dates and where do they sell them? i have questions. 

10. why are the concert tickets so fucking expensive and merch in general. do k-pop companies think we all learned how to turn stones into gold or why is everything so expensive? 

11. how do fan calls work and how do you get tickets for it (and why get so many weird people fan calls?)

12. it's not confusing for me anymore but as you might know my first group was stray kids and i knew the fandom name was stay. second was ateez, atiny also made somehow sense to me but why are the fans of txt called moa? (now i get it, btw, i just was so confused) 

13. group or band? how do you call it? because i've been calling it group since they don't play the instruments but some others also call it band? i've got questions. 

14. how do you start stanning a group even before their debut? maybe that's a personal problem, but i need to enjoy the music of a group before i stan them, and how do i know if i like their music if they aren't debuted... and how do you even know them? like how do you get your information that they exist? 

15. websites. this might be my personal experience but i think k-pop websites are such a struggle. 

16. is this just a rumor or is it confirmed? yeah. i still struggle with this since i don't really know where they confirm things and if i see some confirming things, i don't understand them because i don't speak any korean.