I’m OFFICIALLY no longer a Shawol anymore. (For real this time.)
I know I made several of these posts but this is now serious. On March 2025 after going to Taemin’s London show and had the greatest time ever, I finally felt like it would be the best time to close my chapter with SHINee as my ult K-pop group.
While it was due to constant harassment and having to deal with people bringing up Jonghyun’s you know what, it wasn’t really just that.
For the past 16 months, I’ve been getting off social media in hopes to better my mental health due to whole situation causing me to deteriorate and disallow me to move on effectively. While I did meet some Shawols in person and I had the greatest time ever, even being able to chat to the most wonderful Shawols who were so understanding of my situation and took me in with open arms, I’ve also realised that this situation caused me to be in a mindset where I felt like I had to fit in with the other Shawols and lie about who I was including how long I’ve been a Shawol due to the fact that some of the people that were harassing me were those who were unfortunately proclaimed Shawols. And the worst of all, all I could listen to was Generation 2 and 3 K-Pop groups, and wouldn’t allow myself to get into other groups no matter when they debuted.
The group that broke that mould for me was ATEEZ. I’ve always loved them ever since 2020, but at that point I wasn’t actively stanning them. However, from 2024 after the release of Work I started checking them out as well as going to cupsleeve events. They were almost like a safe haven for me whenever I wanted to take a break from SHINee for a while. I went to their day 2 London show on the 28th of January 2025 as advised from the Atinys I met from the events I went to and I enjoyed myself so much that I decided to buy a last minute ticket to their Manchester show despite me possibly getting in trouble by my parents and me never been to Manchester before since it was far away. That what led me to realise that ATEEZ were my new ultimate bias group and has replaced SHINee’s place after couple of years.
It was no longer just a place for me to go after a while, it was my new home. And even though I had the greatest experience at the Taemin concert where I managed to stand in line where I was able to see him come out from his taxi, managed to be second to barricade and got noticed by Taemin during his Pansy performance, I just knew that it was the best moment to finally end my chapter with SHINee after 3 and almost a half years of service, so it could be on a good note.
I feel much more welcome in the ATEEZ fandom. I don’t feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells and instead I’m able to talk about my bias in peace without having to worry about making anyone uncomfortable, having to change the topic, having to go into debates, or anything of the sort. I can just be treated normally, and that was the point.
And of course, SHINee released Poet | Artist which I haven’t heard yet due to its heavy themes, but I’m seeing people talk about it like it’s nothing. Due to that, I haven’t been interacting with any SHINee content since I’m not ready to listen to Poet | Artist yet. I will eventually, just not right now at this moment.
I’m currently looking forward to ATEEZ’s comeback and I’m noticing that I have a much easier time listening to it — possibly because it doesn’t contain something I’m sensitive about. Either way, I tend to find it harder listening to SHINee’s new music and it doesn’t help that I’ve been mocked over the fact that I openly said that I didn’t want to listen to them right now and I’m taking my time with it. This is mostly the reason why I don’t interact with Shawols online anymore, especially on Tiktok.
I just wanted a space to talk about how I’m doing so apologies for not making an update but I’m doing alright. I’m starting to deal with Jonghyun’s you know what better now that I’m not needing to deal with it being shoved down my throat every week or couple of days. I’m doing so much better, I’m interacting with other people and I’m glad to say that I have a safety net now. I have people that I can talk to if I’m dealing with stuff.
All I can say is… thank you for being there for me when I was dealing with stuff. I’m not sure if anyone has been reading my posts, but making posts has been my safe space since I barely had people to talk to at that time. Now that I do, I don’t really make posts all that much, especially now I’ve been on Tiktok speaking up about the mistreatment Shawols have to go through, especially if they are Jonghyun stans. My videos have been doing very well, so I am so grateful that I could use my experiences to get others to talk about theirs or just to speak up and realise that this isn’t ok.
Thank you for reading. I’m going to close here now. Stay safe. 🩷













