My k-pop story

K-pop, sometimes I wonder what k-pop has really done to me. What would be different if I didn’t like it? But then I realise that I was bound to like it anyway. Being in Korea kind of makes it hard not to like it. Some of you might wonder how I got into k-pop so here follows that story. I started liking k-pop when I was in Thailand with my friend. We did and intership at a school on Phuket in spring of 2008. While we were there we kept seeing this MV on TV all the time. It would play almost everyday during the evenings when we watched TV. We both thought it was thai, because we never really listened properly to them singing we just watched it. One day at the school some of the kids had brought a thai star magazine and they were flipping through it. So I sat down with them and they started telling me who everyone was. Suddenly I recognized the group we had been seeing on TV and the girls told me they were Korean and that they were called ss501 and then had a 20 min lecture about k-pop. They showed me more pictures of Super Junior, DBSK etc. During the rest of our stay in Thailand I did not care that much for the whole k-pop thing, the MV (it was Deja Vu) was still stalking us and we would laugh when we saw it and eventually we even learned some of the lyrics. When we got to Bangkok before we were about to go home we wandered into a CD shop and we found their CD so I bought it just for the crack. When I got home I started casually You Tubing and as you know on You Tube one video leads to another and then you are lost. So during that summer I watched a lot of shows mostly Super Junior because they had the most things with subtitles, but also stuff with DBSK and SS501 of course. I didn’t really become that attached to k-pop until I found Big Bang, who released Haru Haru that fall and later when I started watching Idol Army with 2PM (if you haven’t watched the show WATCH IT it’s hilarious) and the rest is history. I rather miss being a k-pop fan back in 2008-2009 for some reason things were a lot nicer back then, more calm, more chilled, not so crazy. I remember when Allkpop was just some random gossip site. K-pop has exploded, especially last year, on one side it’s great but on the other it’s not so great. I don’t know, it was just funnier loving k-pop a few years ago. Also I think that k-pop has lost some of it’s quality, lately there are bands popping up every day but not many of them bring something good out. Well maybe I don’t know what I am talking about but all I am saying is that liking k-pop ain’t fun any more, or not as fun as it used to be. K-pop stans are so aggressive these days and crazy and annoying. I kinda want to go back and stan k-pop in Korea again, that way I don’t have to deal with Internet k-pop fans haha. Liking k-pop while living in Korea is chill. I miss it, picking what you want to go to and not stressing about stupid fan stuff, just chilling and for some reason I like Korean fans better. They are CRAZY too but somehow I like their crazy, it’s more fun, totally not making sense.

Stanned SHINee during their debut days too…

Also, some of you might think I went to Korea because of k-pop, WRONG. When I got back from Thailand I started to prepare to go on an exchange to Ireland and I was dead set on it. But then I became a mentor for two exchange students, this is something I had been doing for a long time at uni, and both of the students were Koreans! The three of us became really good friends and when I told them about going on an exchange one of them said come to Korea. So I thought about it, I would be lying if the k-pop aspect didn’t play a small part in my decision but it was not the major point. It was more about the fact that I love to travel and to experience new things. Also being in Thailand made me fall in love with Asia, so I really wanted to go back there. If I did not get them two girls as my buddies then I never would have gone to Korea. I don’t think my love for k-pop would have ever been that strong that it would have driven me to go to Korea just because of it. I bet that if I would have gone to Dublin instead I would have forgotten about k-pop altogether. So there you go, this is my k-pop adventure. I shall leave you with a video that I love and hate, it’s so bittersweet watching it…