Posts by Varenka

According to my Spotify, it's because they've never released a bop. Their discography leaves a lot to be desired, which is a consistent issue with HYBE girl groups.

I'm tuning in. (I'm tuning in to every K-pop release this year though.)

Leaving her retirement home to teach the next gen. Always good to hear from Sunny.

Then I'll tune in

When do they debut?

Quote from Yama-Chan

He just spoke what everybody already knows and some try to deny.

Whose era is it? It's NewJeans' era. And when they return bigger than ever, look TF out, because I will be UNLEASHED

We need a Yama/NJ compilation akin to Bayless/Tebow.

How much did you pay this man to have him say this on video?

Quote from selfmate

there is nothing inherently wrong with Edward's comments...

since until the group becomes somewhat successful what company would give more artistic freedom to a bunch of teenagers and barely adults???

if such persons wished to have more artistic freedom they wouldn't get into kpop in the first place

This. Oh wow K-pop idols don't know anything about the music they do. Well, yeah. That's why they're K-pop idols and not indie musicians. Most of them probably know little about the releases the company has them doing.

Supernova

Quote from BIGnorBANG

Is it possible that everyone can get back to the matter at hand, instead of slagging eachother off?

Followers are cheap. Let's wait and see how their next EP/album does, which is a realer metric.

The only presently active group that has no skips is FiftyFifty, and even they have a skip.

I feel like I could pick any page, and there's always going to be at least one person crashing out

Quote from Popper-of-Ks

Just because you don't care if the artists you listen to are terrible people, that doesn't mean we should all be so accepting, or that the Kpop industry should stop listening to our voices when they do something wrong. Yes, some people do go overboard with their PC agendas, but if the criticism is valid, then they deserve to hear it, and avoiding western audiences so they can be as offensive as they wish, as you previously implied, is certainly not the answer.

PS: Fuck Kanye and anyone who enriches him.

Sorry, some of the songs he produced are just too good to ignore. I give credit where it's due.

Quote from crystalblues

Ahh I see, it appears I misunderstood what you were meaning in your post. I 100% agree, that if an artist is just making music and has different beliefs, we have no right to tell others what to listen to. We can decide with our wallets if someone is an horrid person to not support them at all but cannot demand others to do so.

Outside of cases like an R.Kelly, Seungri or types like them where listening is helping fund them being abusers and on an epic scale, I see no reason to be mad someone listens to an artist. And even in those cases if someone truly cannot live without hearing "Ignition" for some reason, I simply ask that they choose to pirate the song instead of giving that horrible person money.

This is veering off-topic, but even if R Kelly didn't sell his catalog, I would still listen to his songs. K-pop's system of abuse (which is what it is: abuse from every company) doesn't prevent me from buying an album anymore than me buying products made in inhumane conditions or using its influence to take advantage of people (Samsung) or giving money to one of the greatest threats to the western world (paying taxes to the American federal government).

To stick to the topic: As charming as the Taco Belle pun is or as crazy as showing pics of black guys in early 2000s gangster rap style to your western, liberal audidence is honest, what Kiss of Life did was racist, especially these days (it's not edgy late 00s that I was a teen in anymore). Maybe not intentionally but "intentions" only go so far when you apologize for what you're about to do. Commerically, it's stupid if they actually have a mostly western audience. I don't blame people for cancelling them. They can do that and should if Kiss of Life crossed their line. I'm not going to tell anyone otherwise.

Quote from crystalblues

I would say this is a pretty poor take, regardless of what has happened in the past in K-Pop years, being held culturally accountable for poor behaviors that are distasteful towards another race, is very necessary. I will explain a bit why.

I grew up in a neighborhood with a neighbor who wanted to put box braids in my hair at one point as she wanted to try working on "daintier" textured hair, she did hair out of her apartment to make money. If context clues have not said so already, she was a black woman. She was by far one of my best influences as a kid, while my parents were out doing all sorts of stupid crap and getting arrested. I growing up because of her and her sons, was made very aware as to why certain phrases and things were wrong and inappropriate to say or do. I at one point even asked her about BoA's use of box braids in 2005 ish, and she was very kind to explain the nuance of it likely not even being the artist's choice but that they are used to seeing people trying to pull from their culture for their own gain for "aesthetics", especially in Korea. She had explained it had been happening for number of years already at that point and had lead to kids who did not have the right texture of hair damaging their hair to try to replicate the wigs and temporary hairstyles that idols were doing on stage that was meant as a protective style for black hair. A few years down the line BoA would actually show support for causes against racism and homophobia at a 2008 pride event, and it actually lead to her calling my mom to ask me if I saw it.

But then you have cases like Zico and Block B, and many other having done damn near full blackface makeup in second gen, which was blatantly disgusting. Many Asian and other non western cultures live in a bubble and do not seem to care or educate themselves on why doing offensive things is wrong, and that needs to change. If an 8 year old me who had difficulty comprehending English classes, and is autistic, was able to see something off with appropriation 20 years ago, and think to go to ask an adult about it and if it was okay, there is no reason why grown adults in the K-Pop industry should be ignorant. There is no excuse, especially when many of them study abroad.

They have the ability to educate themselves but have chosen not to, and they deserve to be held accountable for it not to just "stop paying attention" to the rest of the world and focus on Asia.

Mentalities like that are why this type of stuff still persists. Just focusing only on promoting in Asia is not going to fix the problem or make it go away, it is still an problem. The users in this thread who are black are fully within their rights to be upset, especially since they spent their entire lives dealing with racism. Just as I had the right as a kid to get annoyed with teachers who just wanted me to pretend to not be my younger sister's sibling as we had different last names and she was able to be noticed as clearly mixed cultured, by looking at her, as to avoid being bullied as much since "I can pass as white". Or Chinese people are within their rights to be annoyed at the Chinese stereotypes of them all bowing to a dictator or all being wealthy and snobs or any of the other stereotypes.

Now I apologize for being the person who typed many paragraphs in this instance as usually I don't do this but I do not apologize for disagreeing. Honestly, I am tired of people erasing the voices of others just because it is easier to ignore them and pretend the issue doesn't exist. And while yes my own family's cultures are being erased as well by white people in the west these last few years and many of us have been deported back overseas, or in the case of the native side, being sent to detention camps again. It does not mean I need to merely focus on that and ignore the other issues of the world and other cultures.

Display More

You have nothing to apologize for because like Daisy what you said doesn't have anything to what I posted.

Now what you posted isn't anything new to me. I live in NYC, one of the most liberal cities in America. And I'm even friends with people that go as radical as basically being black supremanlcists on these types of appropriation and racial topics, so what you said isn't anything outstanding or even new to what I've been told and discussed with people in-person.

My focus is simply on the music produced and nothing more since that's my only connection with any of these groups or even the music industry at large. I'm sure I listen to music that people that don't believe what I believe or that I disagree tremendously on important topics.

I'm not here to stop people from calling people out. Blackpink, Kiss of Life, Kanye, Swift go at them. But it's not my focus and why I listen to them and my comments reflect that.

I listen to people for the quality of music that they produce and my relationship ends there with the artist. What they did was racist, but it won't affect me any more than Kanye's racist comments do to stop me from listening to Gradution.

Quote from Yama-Chan

This is why these threads exist. So subject matter experts like myself can debate and try to come to some consensus.

I would argue with you, but I did leave you to fend for yourself in the SNSD vs BP thread, so I'll let you have your way for now

Quote from Yama-Chan

This is about the 5 greatest girl groups in history

Which is going to differ from person to person and is thus subjective since what people will weigh varies.

Quote from Yama-Chan

They have the most streamed girl group album in history, which is now on pace to be the most streamed album ever. They have the second most streamed girl group song in history, on pace to the the most streamed girl group song ever.

You sure the rest of the listening public agrees with you?

I'm not sure why I should care what the public thinks when making my own top 5 list.

Quote from bbgc

Kpop is not taking off in the West, as it looked to poised in 2020.

It was never going to take off in the west. It was a fad.

Quote from bbgc

Then what about "BTS paved the way"

If nobody can follow them?

This was always a ridiculous claim because it always implied some level of stability for people to follow. They did not do that as anyone who foresaw K-pop's fad status could tell you.