yk what the cannibal gets a hella bad rap like vhagar is out here nibbling on arrax and meleys for the whole world to see and she doesnt get branded as a kinslayer
hotd s3 e2 like wow. emmys. oscars. nobel prize. ryan condal... my faith in you wavered for a moment there but as long as you keep giving me caraxes scenes and letting emma d'arcy and olivia cooke COOK then its all good
The Cinema of ARTMS Part I: ‘Virtual Angel’, The God In The Machine, Greek Theatre & The Exploitation of K-Pop Idols
So remember like a year ago when I said I was going to write this. I wrote about 750 words of it and left it to gather dust in my google drive until I had time to come back to it. And I've done all my a-levels now (yay), so for the first time in 2 years I basically have??? nothing to do for six weeks????? So here it is !! It's less so an analytical essay of 'Virtual Angel' and more of a bit of a ramble, but I hope you like it anyway. The part 1 in the title is optimistic, but if i end up making a part 2 it will be about club icarus (which hadn't even been released when i started writing this... yikes). Anyway, i love loona and artms and greek theatre and I hope that comes through despite the kind of pretentious language lol x
The Latin phrase ‘deus ex machina’ is most commonly used in reference to a shoehorned-in plot device that solves all the unsolvable problems in a narrative, but the phrase itself is a Latin translation of a concept from Greece, or more specifically Athens - the birthplace of theatre. It literally means ‘god from the machine’ but it comes from the use of a crane (or mechane in ancient Greek) to lift an actor into a scene within a play. This was often used to represent a journey to or from the heavens, and so was most frequently used by actors representing gods, or mortals blessed by them (see Medea in the final scene of the tragedy named for her by Euripides). You must also understand that theatre in Athens was inherently religious, being foundationally a method of worship to Dionysus, and being performed at religious festivals (see the City Dionysia), in the presence of altars and priests of Dionysus. Gods are a standard inclusion in Greek plays, tragedies and comedies alike, and if they are not present in the narrative themselves they are guaranteed to be brought up frequently in dialogue, choral odes (sung poems by the chorus), or present via a proxy such as a prophet. In many ways, entertainment in Ancient Greece was synonymous with religion and worship, and humans have been using man-made machinery to simulate godliness for us to worship literally since the dawn of visual entertainment. ‘Simulate’ is the key word there - the machine and the actor are understood to not be the god themselves, but that doesn’t detract from the religious significance. The god in the machine is fake, but the worship is real.
The kpop idol system as it exists today functions on a similar basis. Most fans generally understand that we are seeing a highly processed fraction of who an idol truly is, and yet, through the lens of the internet that the vast majority of kpop fans see the industry through thanks to the international influence of the genre, they still love them. We use the internet and the videos and songs that these companies produce of their idols to experience our adoration of these people - just as the ancient Athenians simulate godliness with their machinery, we simulate a form of godliness with ours. The question is, have we forgotten that the god is only a simulation - that the angel is purely virtual?
This is the question ARTMS seek to explore in the 2024 music video for ‘Virtual Angel’. The general plot of the video goes like this: five young fans adorned with ARTMS tattoos and surrounded by ARTMS memorabilia cross paths with a sixth girl, a passive observer with a camcorder. The original five watch the ARTMS members through old-fashioned televisions and modern VR headsets alike, and slowly the sixth girl becomes closer to them. The original five sink deeper into their obsession, and the line separating real from imaginary blurs - eyes turn opalescent and emit beams of light, the ARTMS lightstick causes sparks on electricity lines, and one of the girls, surrounded by her four friends, levitates, and glows in a sort of divine headlight. The five girls laugh and hug each other as well as the sixth girl, who still holds her camcorder, still observing. The bridge of the song hits and the fans return to the place of the levitation. The sixth girl records, and the five step towards each other in sync and the glowing light on them intensifies. The lone glowing saviour appears in their place, before splitting into the five ARTMS members who perform in their glowing glory while the sixth girl appears. This motif, of the ARTMS members splitting from one person, is notably repeated in the dance portion of ‘Icarus’ (2025). The scene is spliced with shots of the five fans, not levitating or glowing, but laying on the ground. The television flickers off, and ARTMS flickers away with it. The sixth girl puts down her camcorder and the sudden darkness is uncomfortable. She stands there, alone on the rooftop in the darkness. There is a sense of disappointment - was any of it real? Five dark ARTMS symbols hover in the sky above her, dissuading our (and the sixth girl’s) upset perhaps, but leaving us with no answers to our many questions.
The stunning visual style of ‘Virtual Angel’ would have been enough to cement it as an all timer for the genre, but the substance in the themes of parasociality and internet obsession elevate it even further. Just as the five girls are swept up in their adoration of ARTMS, the camcorder girl is slowly pulled in, taking the viewer with her. We see the girls lose themselves to the obsession, lying still in their VR headsets while thoughts of magical powers take over their minds - in their perception they are ascending to something greater, experiencing something truer, but in reality they fade. This speaks to the reality of being a kpop fan on the internet, I think. It is easy to get swept up in the endless drivel of ‘fan wars’ on Twitter and TikTok and the rest, endlessly measuring meaningless statistics and justifying why your chosen idols are better than their peers or seniors or juniors. There is a perception that having a highly followed fan account or owning a lot of albums or attending tours makes you a higher calibre fan than the average Spotify listener, that you are closer to the idols. This is of course a construct the industry relies on to sustain itself - it sells you closeness to these perfect people in the form of albums and photocards and merch and tours and fan-calls, at the detriment of both the consumers and the idols. But, like the girls in the music video, we see the industry through the shining veneer of our computer screens, and it (by design) is easier to focus on the glitz of it all rather than the grime.
The ARTMS members know this first hand, of course. Them and the rest of their bandmates in LOONA were famously (allegedly?? Do I have to say that??) taken advantage of and mistreated by their contracts with Blockberry Creative, with the company even (allegedly (?)) baselessly slandering member Chuu’s name and removing her from the group to prevent her from working in the industry. This is certainly not a unique story, as the NewJeans vs HYBE labels debacle proved, with the South Korean Ministry of Employment and Labour confirming as a result of the trial that kpop idols are not legally seen as workers, but independent contractors who are not protected under Korean labour laws. A bleak statement, certainly, but not shocking. What was somewhat surprising was the response of kpop fans. Much of the discourse devolved not into discussions of the plight of the people working as idols, but into inter-fandom hatred. The NewJeans members were scrutinised and attacked more than they ever had been, and the situation became more about NewJeans vs ILLIT (another HYBE girl group with a similar sound) than anything else. The successful fan boycott of the proposed ‘LOONA - The Origin Album [0]’ by Blockberry Creative following Chuu’s forced removal from the group demonstrated that organised fan efforts can make a difference, ARTMS couldn’t have released this music video without it, but addressing the truth that the executives who run these corporations are exploiting all the idols they have under contract, and NewJeans members having the bravery to call this out could only benefit their own favoured artists was a lot harder than finding someone easier to blame - someone who we know the name of, the face of, even the height and weight and MBTI of. It is easier to hate NewJeans, or ILLIT, or LE SSERAFIM, or Blackpink, or whoever than it is to blame the faceless CEOs and investors and lawmakers that perpetuate the exploitation. Sadly, it is easier to worship the machine rather than question its cruelty.
This is not to say that kpop is the devil. The hyper-capitalistic/consumerist/exploitative nature of it certainly is, but the creatives beneath that are still to be celebrated. Yes, there is a discussion to be had about the rise of slop in kpop, about manufactured trends and uninspired, repetitive content, but if you know where to look there are still innovations being made. The collaborative process is so unique to the genre but so amazing to me - the vocalists and the producers and the choreographers and the SFX artists and the videographers and the directors from all around the world all combine their skills to create an end product that could not exist from one of them alone. And the community kpop creates can be a great thing, even though it can turn sour - I myself have found lifelong friends who I met through kpop, and we see this in ‘Virtual Angel’ too. The sorrow of their disappearance in the end doesn’t diminish the joy the six girls find in their friendships with each other. The particularly memorable line ‘I’ll be there for you when your wings break’ is a reminder that many of us find solace in our favoured internet obsessions in hard times, which isn’t necessarily negative. Religion and art have helped us navigate our lives as far back as the Ancient Athenians, and earlier still. Art and music and theatre are core tenets of the human experience because they are cathartic and meaningful and satisfying, and enjoying art with your friends, be it the new ARTMS music video in 2026 A.D., or the new Euripides tragedy in 426 B.C., is as necessary as it always was. ‘Virtual Angel’ functions as a form of cautionary tale - find joy in the music, but don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking the bright lights and the beauty are anything other than a construct, a simulation. Sometimes, you have to shut off your computer and touch the damn grass.
I am actually so sick and tired of straight women complaining about WLW media and in the same breath overly sexualising MLM media. You aren’t an ally. You’re a fetishizer.
my wish for akotsk s2 is that anytime egg wonders about his family while on the road with dunk we get a 5 second cutaway gag of aerion bored and annoyed in lys. or daeron drunk and depressed in summerhall. or maekar
yousharknotpass
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pixelskylines
gracieabrams
baratheonpilled
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart
jacobvanloon
snowghoul
