What Puberty Made Me Do

My Quest To K-pop Immunity

1-  My Quest To K-pop Immunity

Quite a few years ago I discovered a whole new world of a certain fandom: Kpop.

I only became interested in kpop at the start because my brother was into it, so naturally I wanted in on the action too! The first time I even heard of the subject was right back when PSY came out with their popular new song called Gangnam Style. Yes, it was a good disco bop at the time and everyone seemed to love it. Its only a few weeks after it becomes a hit that my brother mentioned to me about the whole new world called kpop. I was like "What is 'kaypop?'" and I didn't really understand the whole concept (probably because I was too young to be bothered about that kind of thing) and suddenly I'm being showed this tune by some group called BIGBANG: Fantastic Baby. Now that was a song! After that introduction I started to get more involved in the while fandom.

I started with the boy bands such as Exo, Bts, BTOB, SHINee, BIGBANG B.A.P, Vixx etc. and worked my way up to knowing their names and songs off by heart and then I went through all the girl groups name by name, group by group, song by song. It was quite time consuming, and I remember vividly not getting any sleep some nights which was absolutely stupid because it wasn't like they would be gone in the morning.

I loved it though: I found something I was super interested in and I wanted to continue on my quest to kpop immunity. That -in my mind- meant I knew everything kpop: the language, groups, members, places, songs, kdramas, actors, the whole lot. At the time I thought it was all in the name of love and I feel exhausted just thinking about it all.

And that is how I turned into a koreaboo for a short period of time, probably one of the cringiest stages of my life so far. That is why I am slightly hesitant on writing about this 'experience' of mine. Although I never wanted to go to any of their concerts or meet and greets (because I hate those sorts of places, you will never catch me there EVER) I made up for it by doing all the researching and watching online. I found it quite obsessive actually, and I know now how unhealthy and weird I was back then. One thing you should know about me is that I do tend to have an obsessive sort of personality- not a creepy or weird obsessive personality, just one that when I do something I enjoy (like biting my nails, or *ahem* watching kpop/kdramas) I find it hard to stop and get out of that routine. It sucks quite a bit.

At the time my 'addiction' was fuelled by my friends who also shared the same interest in kpop as me at the time (and still sort of do) but I still don't know how they managed to keep on top of the kpop world and do their homework at the same time because I certainly couldn't. Another thing I am bad at is time management -like- seriously bad at it. Not that I'm blaming them for any of this, they were very comforting when it came to share the interest in the fandom. We would always go up to each other at school and speak as much Korean as we could in one sentence. We didn't know much so it was quite limited, but I thought it was cool and impressive. Now, not so much. I cringe and cringe just thinking about those dark times because it was so awful, the Korean -if you could even call it that- was so bad that I just want to die now at the mental image of my attempt to speak the beautiful language. I regret every mispronounced word which amounts to a crap-tonne of words.

I am still a big fan of kpop now, but I have toned it down considerably because quite frankly my love for it back then was scary as fuck. I'm glad that I've changed because now I have a wider perspective on my interests and I'm not as obsessive as I was when I was younger. Of course, I love the language and I still watch kdramas (I recommend watching Blade Man, it's sick) and still listen to kpop; I still know the members names to some kpop groups, and I know some words in Korean, but I never attempt to say them. I must have watched over 50 dramas since I first discovered Korean dramas. I have no trouble admitting that they are very addictive, and I still have trouble getting away from them to actually sleep at night but my mum -unknowingly- helps keep me in check by switching of the internet. Every. Single. Night. Sometimes it's infuriating but I know that it's somewhat a good way of making me go to sleep!

Over the years my 'obsession' has declined and it's probably because I realised how dumb I was being, putting these sorts of things before my health and education. I wasn't able to focus in classes because I was so tired, only running on 2-3 hours sleep a day. It was so stupid and now I look back and I really want to slap myself to see that what I was doing was really fucked up. But unfortunately, I can't do that so instead, I'm writing about how stupid I was. My aim isn't to deter other people from doing it because although I find it so cringy that its almost painful to look back at it, its also really freaking funny to me. I think in about 5 years' time I will be hooked on something else but until then I will be sticking to mostly kdramas and marvel.

A/N

If anyone wants to know in more detail about what I write, whether it's a certain situation I mention or certain *ahem* drama I've watched or may not have watched then feel free to comment or message me 😊