I resisted most kpop and all kpop fandom for a very long time 😆
I got into visual kei in high school (2007 ish) and one of my online friends also listened to some. She got me into J dramas, from where I got into KAT-TUN in 2010. She also watched K dramas and listened to kpop and she sent me some, but not being able to sing along by ear or through romanized lyrics frustrated me since I'd been able to do that with Japanese since I first listened to anime openings and such in middle school. I did listen to some 2ne1 and Big Bang, but mainly Japanese releases since at that point I was studying Japanese and reaching conversational fluency.
After college she and I mostly fell out of touch, KAT-TUN had slowed down after losing a member in 2013 and then another later, LiveJournal got taken over by a Russian "news" company, so all my sources of music and drama torrents were gone, the two main VK bands I listened two took hiatuses or had record company issues (one came back, the other eventually broke up), and so I was back to mostly listening to top 40 radio.
At some point, I got suggested a "reacts to kpop" video on YouTube, and I was like, "I wonder if I'll even recognize and of these groups." The answer was no, I did not, but one if the songs was Blackpink's Whistle, and I was like, "damn, this song is fun," so I started listening to them. I still didnt keep up with anything beyond just their music (and still dont), but it got some kpop on my radar again.
Then I went to Holiday Matsuri in 2021 and went to the hottest men in anime show, which is a men's burlesque contest. The winning act performed to God's Menu and Lisa's Money, two bangers that I hadn't heard because I wasn't actively paying attention to new music. I went and looked them up and played a Spotify kpop playlist the whole 6 hours drive home to add new songs to my library, but I still didn't look up any groups. I continued like that for about a year, just liking individual songs. Then, around when Time Out came out, something made me look up the Stray Kids youtube. I had watched the God's Menu video that first night I heard the song, but I didn't watch anything else. I subscribed to the channel that time, but u still didn't dive into the music videos or add a bunch to my library. Its like part of my brain new I'd not crawl out of that hole and it wasn't the right time for it lol
Finally, late August of last year, I let myself watch the music videos and listen to full albums. Then I resisted any additional content outside of "making of" videos for another month (which is a while for a disabled person with nothing to do but consume content).
Now, here I am. Awash in the swamp. Watching Han and Chan and understanding nothing 🤣
Thankfully I had already planned to learn some Korean since its the third most common language where I live and I had started watching kdramas, but its hard! I still have some bias to Japanese releases for that reason 😆 but it does vary by song since some don't fit/match rhythmically to the Korean versions as nicely as others. Hopefully I'll get there with Korean. I have to remember I have decades of familiarity with the sounds and basics of Japanese compared to very little familiarity with Korean.
this is a wholeeee journey u did not take the easels to mordor lmao but omg i’m learning so much about how things were found in the 00’s and 10’s when i was content to go to warped tour and never be online lmao but this journey feels educational with all the stuff u were into! and ur bias for japanese releases is understandable especially jyp groups they just hit different so i can understand having spent all that time learning japanese and being into japanese culture would only add to the fondness for them! your will power to get into skz so slowly is amazing I don’t know if i’ve ever done such a good job of avoiding diving straight into something the second i found a part of it i liked, but alas we all end up in the skz swamp one way or another lmao
