What was it like being a 2nd gen kpop fan

It was actually possible to check every debut and every comeback

at max there were like 10-20 debuts per year and 1 comeback per week

I can only think about when I watched some kpop variety show on Youtube and it was often like "*insert name of variety show* EP 1 Part 1/5"

and then the part 3 would be missing or something and then I maybe watched the episode on someone else's youtube channel or on Dailymotion instead.

• Depending on where you lived you didn't found the original upload of an MV but the fan-upload since companies region blocked more MVs back than
• Cause of the region blocked MVs it was more popular to search for MVs with translated lyrics on them (almost the same thing as color coded lyric-videos these days but mainly just lyrics, no color coded in Han/Rom/Eng on the MV)
• To avoid copyright claims some people who uploaded the MVs again had multiple YT channels
• Many artists didn't post vlogs and were not active on social Media so fans desperatly waited for uploads of shows like Weekly Idol with English subtitles to see their fave idols do something
• If someone did vlogs they had no subtitles (this still happens for some artists, like not every KPop group posts subtitles but it was way more rare to have subtitles back in the day)
• You barly could find selfies of artists and had to mostly look at company-made or official artist photos of your faves
• Barly any idol was in a Kdrama and if they menaged to be in one you either didn't found it with English subs or you had to find a mostly illegal website to watch the subed drama
• It was so rare to find idols in dramas that you belived they had to be extremly special to Korea to become an actor
• You also belived that a brand deal for an idol was a 1 in a million chance and that they had to be the very most special person in Korea to even be allowed to be in an endorsement or an advertisment
• If a group had beef with their agency than it was a way bigger deal than these days. Today you can for example shit on a agency and move on after some days or even faster, back than fans were pissed at the agencies for months cause there was barly anything better to do. Example when the first EXO-Member left SM people were super mad for at least 6 months
• Finding other KPop-stans online was quit rare. If you found one and told them about a KPop-act you just found, they maybe ignored you, didn't knew what you were talking about or directly made sure that you knew they only listen to like 3 artists max. so you knew to not bother them with a group that maybe not even the Knetz would've known
• Everyone was talking about Big Bang, SUPER JUNIOR, EXO, SNSD, f(X), Wonder Girls, 2PM, ... as if they were the hotest shit in all of KPop and partied hard if you said the name of a song they also knew "OMG you also know Ring Ding Dong by SHINee? So cool"
• The "girl next door" image was more liked and therefore fans loved it when a cutsy song got released where the girls were not overdressed
• Boys could look like whatever they wanted, but if they had a sixpack and showed it, everyone belived that this guy would be the hottest shit ever
• Nobody talked about bad dancing, even if people like T.O.P can't move around more than like a brick, people still thought they were good dancers
• Solo-songs from idols in groups were a lot more uncommon and people stanned more soloists who were soloists since their debut, only GD menaged to build a stable career as soloist from a group at that time and thats why he also was one of the most famous male idols in the 2000s.
• YG was a lot more space-ier and came off more futuristic to many people which is why they gained so much popularity in the 2000s. They did stuff most KPop-companies didn't do in the 2000s and thats why people loved 2NE1 and Big Bang so much
• JYP menaged to sell the conept of Wonder Girls and Miss A very well to the Korean public and thats why these groups were seen as "the shit" in Korea back than, even if seen now some of their songs were actually bad
• Every girlgroup tried to be something else to gain people's attention, but boygroups were mainly looking and sounding all the same
• People didn't really cared that much for music show win since many music shows either didn't existed back than or didn't had a show win-system at that time
• Since the artists were not on streaming platforms and it was quit hard to buy merch and CDs outside of Korea most people were quit jealous of KPop-fans in Korea

I'm a Sone. Overall, I liked more the contents, SNSD was everywhere, every single variety. The interactions between groups were more common too, if we had groups like 2pm and SNSD making collabs touching each other in 3rd and 4th gen, it would be a mess. I loved special episodes like running Man ones with lots of idols from different groups.

I started to find other kpop fans in real life in 2015, before I only knew kpop fans in the Internet.

It was great when I first became a fan in 2011. There were so many girl and boy groups with such iconic songs. Second gen was also iconic in the music videos and hair, outfits. 2NE1 became my bias girl group and back then it was Super Junior. My daughter actually was the one who got me into it when she was 9 at the time. We both love that era but sadly imo none of the groups today compare.