As I sit typing this (10:30 PM EST), the decade is coming to a close and I am feeling…a way. I started this blog as a way to sort of write my feelings about K pop songs and be a reviewer. I liked hearing my own thoughts so why not. Before that I had started transitioning into a media reviewer blog via tumblr. People at one point had started sending me artist to look into and I loved it. With K pop, I wasn’t fully invested just yet. I essentially followed groups my sister liked: The Wonder Girls and SHINee. Hello and Ring Ding Dong were two songs I grew overly attached to. Eventually I learned about SNSD and was aware of their music and popularity. Ultimately I had a very limited scope of K pop for the years of 2010-2012. It had actually been my fave that really forced me to dive deeper. It was not until a performance of Hyolyn singing Spend My Life With You dressed as Fiona from Shrek that I fully started exploring more K Pop. 2013 was really the year. This was also when K Pop’s most DIVISIVE song debuted with I Got A Boy…I wore that shit out y’all. I dived into K Pop, learned as many groups as I could and developed a strong taste for girl groups (as I should). However with time…I kind of just…meh.
Over the last year or so K pop had started getting…well I felt like I out grew it. For transparency: I am a 28 year old Gay Black man from the US.I got into K Pop when I was about 19/20 however my sister was a fan of the Wonder Girls and I was aware of them early 2008. I technically got into K Pop in 2010 thanks to the WG. I started getting into more K Pop when I was becoming slowly dissatisfied with what was happening in the West (no new girl groups and R&B was slowly evolving into what it became today). Now…K Pop has always been a young man’s game and I think I am just too old for the new kids.
Itzy released Dalla Dalla and Icy. I found the songs to be fine. Not bad. Likable and have memorable moments. But…the songs are so childish. Like not even in a bad way. These songs are like Weki Meki…made for younger demos. I actually am a proponent of these companies making accessible content for kids with Kids at the helm (WITH MAJOR RESTRICTIONS AND LAWS TO PROTECT THESE KIDS AND NOT SEXUALIZE THEM). But I realize that K pop is not just targeting kids and so it feels like Itzy, a group that clearly is age appropriate in their content (sans styling but like…lol)…
Even as an adult I love cartoons. Not just adult cartoons (Bob’s Burgers, Bojack Horseman and the Tulca and Birdie were some of my favorite pieces of television this decade), but content aimed at kids have been some of the most fascinating pieces of media I have seen over the decade. Still I am aware that this content is aimed at children and don’t feel like I am intruding when watching. With music…it’s something different. Especially K Pop which is known to sexualize in both overt and confoundingly round about ways.
The idols are getting younger, and I am getting older. While I still listen to it I just don’t carry the same interest that I had when I got into it. I am not excited about many artist and really only listen to the acts that I have grown attached to, mostly girl groups. Does this mean that I am shutting this blog down?
No.
I still want to analyze K pop, but I have grown bored of listening to K pop songs as often as I do, and I have many other responsibilities. Plus…I want to get back into talking about movies and tv shows like I used to. So I am opening a separate blog for all media content discussions while keeping this K Pop blog open. I want to find a love for K pop again. Not force one, but really nurture the fascination and willingness to look at K Pop deeply again and get back into the review game. 2020 is a fresh start, a new era in life. I have so much I want to do, and I will accomplish it. Eventually K pop will become nothing more than some side interest as it started, but I want to make sure that the acts that I love get as much of my attention and critical eye as I am going to afford my Western faves.
Here is to a new year. See you in 2020.
Huzzy Pop 