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The "Cheating is Okay" Era of K-Pop

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A couple of weeks ago I started this site on the back of a conversation that I had with my personal trainer about how the nostalgia of K-Pop can be affected by actually (and finally) fully understanding the lyrics of songs from the past. I took a dive into this by looking at some of the songs from my favourite girl groups, particularly focusing on Girls Generation’s “Oh!” as a prime example of songs specifically tailored to the male gaze to drive sales and devotion to the fandom. Back then, it was a very clear divide of girl groups were for male fans and boy groups were for girls (something that took me a long while to wrap my head around as it is quite different in the west, if not completely the opposite) But hey, if the girl groups had lyrics specifically tailored to male fans to appeal to and praise them for their devotion, then the same must be true for the boy groups and their female fans right? … right? Well, yes and no. And for different reasons. Of course you had your SHINee “...
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ATEEZ - Three Continents, One Year

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  Despite my lack of concert activity towards the end of 2025, I was pretty active at the beginning of this year. And that was in part to how many ATEEZ concerts I was able to embark on. It’s no secret how much I enjoy ATEEZ’s music- they have always somewhat been on my radar since their debut but they weren’t a group that I followed closely until I was lucky enough to see them perform live towards the end of 2023 for another one of those “K-pop Award Shows” businesses create to ‘recognise’ groups (but in reality are just a glorified indoor music festival) They only performed one song that night, ‘Bouncy’, but I was IMMEDIATELY sold. And I haven’t looked back since. I have been blessed to have the rare feat of seeing them on three different continents this year alone- Asia, North America, and Europe. A couple of people wanted to know what each concert and atmosphere was like; if there were any similarities between the three or if they were all vastly different. I had a thought abou...
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Is "K-Pop Hag" a Fair Term?

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A fun little tidbit of an adventure happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I went to support my friend who was performing on stage for a K-Pop cover dance festival (shout out to you, Nat, please check out her YouTube channel here ). There was a lot of modern songs and artists that were being performed during the show such as MEOVV and ILLIT. Then, out of the blue, the intro to AOA’s Heart Attack started to play and my ears perked up. I looked at my friends and saw that they had the same surprised but excited expression that I had. THIS was the K-Pop I enjoyed! It was amusing to see that we were the only people in the audience who had this particular reaction. One of my friends commented that we had now become those aunties at parties who talk about how ‘old skool’ music was better compared to the new-fangled modern rubbish… but with K-Pop. We then started talking about what other artists would be great to see covers of and oh boy, we came up with some gems. Teen Top. Fiestar. B1A4. Rain...
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What's Next For BTS?

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As of the middle of 2025, all of the members of BTS had served their mandatory military service and were out in the wild, wild world again. ARMY (and I am sure a few media people as well) were crying, sobbing, and shaking in relief. I had a few people asking for my opinion on what I think will be the next step for them. As if I am some sort of oracle able to predict the future of what is going to be the future for one of the biggest names in K-Pop. I mean, I could hazard a few guesses but the reality is… I don’t know. When BTS really started making waves outside of Asia, they were still one of the very few to be doing so on a base level. But what made them and their promotional campaigns different was that they were the first to try and market to a widespread international market. At the time of their debut, companies were only using YouTube as a means of uploading their music videos (and the odd dance practice) on the platform, wanting to instead focus their video efforts on the homeg...
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Why Aren't Sub-Units a Thing Anymore?

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Another thing that has died out in recent years was the formulation of sub-units in K-Pop. An idea where within a main group, there would be another group containing some (not all) of the members attempting a different sound or genre to one that the group is normally known for. Since the beginning of the 4th generation, this is a concept that doesn’t really exist anymore except for pre-existing groups to suddenly debut a new duo or trio sub-unit (such as Monsta X’s HxS, the newly debuted Astro sub-unit Zoonizini, and the entire concept of NCT - these all came from 3rd gen groups.) Whether it is because companies feel that sub-units would not work with these newer gen groups is definitely a question to be asked. Personally, I think its because there is already such an influx of groups in the market right now that having a sub-unit within all of that mess would be a waste of finances and resources for a company if that group hasn’t already made one before. But I am not here to have a de...
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Influencer... Choices

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The world of social media is definitely not one to just be joining in without much forethought. First of all, I would like to ask you all- if you were in the world of social media marketing and wanted to have a K-Pop group to work with an influencer or influencer team, what would be the most important factor with regards to your decision making? Is it who the influencer is and what they are known for? Is it the number of followers they have? Or is it if the artist is a fan of the influencer? Or is it how the audience skews in terms of their geography and audience? The reason I ask this was due to the questions that I was having after seeing the influencers that Stray Kids were linking up with during their US/EU leg of their world tour. Now, Stray Kids are by no means a small time group. They are currently one of JYPE’s biggest successes, taking on sold out stadiums in locations such as the U.S., the U.K., France and so on. Their albums consistently chart on the Billboard charts glo...
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Girl Group Messaging

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This is something that actually came to my mind a short while ago and I had to think about it for a long time. I was chilling out listening to some classic K-Pop tracks when some classic Girls Generation (SNSD) came through as the next track. It was the classic, “Oh” which was something that I probably had not heard fully since I moved to South Korea. But in hearing the song again and enjoying the rhythms that took me back to my late 20s, I clocked the lyrics in the chorus: Oh, oh, oh, 오빠를 사랑해 Oh! Oh! Oh! Oppa I love you Ah, ah, ah, ah, 많이, 많이 해 Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! So much, so much 수줍으니, 제발 웃지 마요 I’m shy so please don’t laugh 진심이니, 놀리지도 말아요 I’m sincere so please don’t tease me 또 바보 같은 말뿐야 Again it’s only foolish words    Oh. OH. (And no, I am not exclaiming the song title but actually realising something.) This was basically declaring their love and/or interest in a man. And that was it. After the initial shock, I sta...
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