who is she?

how i got into kpop

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

ah, life before kpop. what a time that was.

the story of how i discovered kpop is kind of coincidental in a sense. i really had little knowledge of what kpop was when i first encountered it. i didn't even know gangnam style was kpop. i was on youtube one day, doing my own thing, and i saw this thumbnail for a music video called "DOPE". i was like "BTS? what kind of name is that?" but i watched it anyway. let me tell you, i was more than impressed by the dancing. i watched it a few times after that just because of the dance, and i thought the song was kind of catchy. i didn't really have any opinions on the fact that it was korean at the time and i certainly wasn't like "woah they all look the same what is this". thats the general reaction anyone in my life had when i show them videos. i remember, thinking back, that i was really drawn to jungkook and jimin. that fiery red hair and jungkook's earrings with the police uniform, damn.

skip forward a year and i come across the DOPE mv again. i press it and watch it again because, hey, that shit is incredible, then see these 'BTS' dudes have another mv out;

blood sweat and tears

so naturally i watch it bc i'm like "these guys are the shit let's see what else they have in store".

i was mesmerized.

those "BTS" guys were beautiful. like, the most beautiful men i'd ever seen.

from the first second the song began, when jimin with his silver hair and neck tie had his hand out and had that intense look in his eyes, i was star struck. they all were elegant but at the same time alluring, and it was quite a dangerous combination.

from there i clicked a few more recommended kpop videos. 4minute's crazy and hate as well as twice's debut song like ooh-ahh (though at the time i didn't know it was their debut, and i enjoyed the dance break thoroughly).

i ended up actually adding hate to one of my playlists and bopping to it, but deleted it after a while and forgot about the videos entirely.

i was, and still am, subscribed to this youtube channel called 'React'. i saw they posted a video of youtubers reacting to kpop, and i, being the ignorant young child i was and not realizing i'd already watched numerous kpop videos, decided to watch them. i saw they reacted to the few music videos that i'd seen, then watched another one. i remember specifically watching them react to got7's just right mv and being like "wtf is this video concept. why is this guy licking, like, lotion off his hand in some child's bedroom?". (though i'd come to love got7 later on; love you jackson)

so i'd watch the kpop react videos whenever they came out. i still wasn't intrigued enough to look into the world of kpop more, though. once i entered my second year of high school, there came this freshmen who was sort of infamous for her obsession with kpop. bts especially. she wore her bts V '95 jacket everyday, and still does, and had stickers of all 7 of them on her locker. no one had anything on their lockers, or even used them, except for her. i was in the same computer class as her and she would use BTS in every project or presentation there was. so there came this sort of stigma around kpop throughout my school (unfortunately for present day me). i was still unaware of the affiliation between kpop, BTS, and those videos i'd watched because i forgot about BTS and didn't put it together that the guys on those stickers and on her jacket were the guys in the DOPE and blood sweat and tears music videos.

one year later, it's my junior year. i forget how, but yet again i stumbled across the blood sweat and tears music video. and this time, it was different. i don't know what changed, but i decided while i was watching it that i was going to learn their names.