The World of Kpop

K-pop. What is it? A world of wonders? Depends? A place that sucks you in like a black-hole and you can most likely can't get out of once you're in? Most likely. You'll end up in a place where fanwars happen and learn about sasaeng fans.

When you find that one group or artist, you just want to dive right in, look up for all their music online then you might, just might, find yourself researching on past groups. Welcome to the World of K-Pop. You might not come back to the real world.

First Discovery

It all started in late 2006 to early 2007, where I've discovered the world of K-pop. The world where it pulled me in and couldn't get out for a couple of years. Yes, that's right years. It was the time that I discovered a boy group named BIGBANG on a advertisement in the Korean newspaper for a Korean Music Festival in Los Angeles. The group for some odd reason intrigued me. Now, don't get me wrong, before BIGBANG I knew almost zero to nothing about the world of Korean music or the culture. Even though my siblings and I spoke in English to each other, we would have to speak in Korean to our elders. Besides language & food, I didn't really know anything else.

Back to the point. Let's face it, BIGBANG weren't that good looking back then and honestly, that was the only thing that was there: their picture on the advert with other artists performing. I'm not going to write the whole history of BIGBANG even though I could, we could all use our friend Google for that. But this is the group that got me all started.

Throughout the first couple of years, my love for K-pop was almost obsessive? But not to the point like sasaeng fans*. Back then, it was music that only I seemed to know. People around me didn't know was K-pop was back then. I felt like I had a secret that I only knew, but on the other hand it was weird when someone asked what kind of music I listened to.

The early 2000's to the mid-2000's was a classic in my time as fan of K-pop. It was more mellow, not a lot of scandals and just time where not a ton of idols were debuting.

Groups like Girl Generation, BIGBANG, TVXQ/DBSK (OT5), Super Junior, SHINee (R.I.P Jonghyun), Wonder Girls, 2NE1, f(x) (R.I.P Sulli), KARA (R.I.P Hara) and many other idol groups paved the way for the 3rd generations.

Fast Forward to 2010's

The 2010's. The years where idol groups where getting pumped out almost every month it felt like. The year 2012 was a breakthrough for the number of rookie idols that debuted that year: 33 boy groups / 48 girl groups. The 2010 was almost like a blur. So many groups that debuted, but not many that caught my attention. There were just too many!

When PSY's "강낭스타일" (Gangnam Style) became a hit, slowly, people started to get a sense of K-Pop. To be honest, it felt like my little secret of the K-Pop world and knowledge was been spilled out. It was odd. I wanted people to know the world of K-Pop, but yet I didn't. It was feeling that was complicated.

This era was the era that I was in & out of K-Pop. I wasn't too into it like I was back when I was a a young teen (did my age show?). The dark side of K-Pop started to come out at this point too. The deaths of the idol stars within two years. 2017, SHINee's Jonghyun has tragically passed away. 2019, another two known idols had also passed, KARA's Goo Hara and f(x)'s Sulli. K-Pop behind the scenes is not all about the money and fame, idols too have a private life and the stress that the life has unfortunately took a deep dive into their passing.

The year 2019 was the biggest scandal in K-Pop history, involving celebrities, idols of popular groups (unfortunately involving former BIGBANG member Seungri), and police officials. The entertainment and sex scandal involved non-consented sex videos, group chats, people pointing fingers and whole lot of s*** (excuse my language) going down. That whole year was mostly one news article after another. It was a huge headache.

Now where I stan(d)

I've been in the K-pop game for a very long time, over a decade. There are thing that I know that newbie fans probably don't know or didn't bother to do any research.

Did I survive? Yes and no. I do still love my groups (I only have few favorites), but nowadays I take a breather from the K-Pop scene now and then. A little advice to the newbies out there, don't start a fanwar, it's not cute. And if you do, please do some type of research before spewing out non-sense, thanks.

*Sasaeng fan, a fan who is completely obsessive to the point of invasion of privacy (breaking in idols' or other public figure's apartments), stalking, or just point blank crazy behaviors.