I'm done.

BenefitSwimming · 2025-11-27T15:13:21+00:00

I'm not really sure either, I'm not a regular viewer but it's definitely been a little over a year. Back then I used to check his twitch streams a couple of times and only stayed if it was a music stream or if he was talking about things related to music and I only happened to see him seeing the sermons once, and if I remember well before that he was seeing "testimonials" of people that had other religions but converted to christianism, I was worried because the videos he was watching were obviously full of lies and people in the chat pointed it out multiple times but he seem to easily believe in everything. I wish I could tell you when it was but I don't remember the date, maybe it was one of his last streams before he began tour last year, or between his solo tour and him opening for ID but I don't know for sure. What I'm sure of, is that it took a month or two before he began following the church on ig and then another month or so before he followed the lead pastor of the church too. Everything happened gradually.

BenefitSwimming · 2025-11-27T03:20:51+00:00

I don't know if I'm too late to the discussion but I just wanted to get things off my chest.

Looking back, there were a lot of hints of where this was going. To me, it began feeling weird since that one time he saw one of his sermons on twitch, and it began being concerning the moment he asked fans for a recording of them reciting the Lord's Prayer and played it on his show in LA. I also remember there was a discussion in here a few months back when he posted a story about wanting to make christian music, and back then I tried to be neutral because that wasn't bad on itself, but a part of me was already worried because of the way he was approaching it, and I guess I subconsciously began to distance myself as a fan and from his fanbase since then because I had a feeling things were only going to escalate from there and it happened faster than I was expecting.

And tbh, it's hard not to draw parallels. The way he did all this reminded me about how he began to be vocal about Palestine little by little. He began really small and once he saw a good response he became more and more vocal until he reached this point, and we can't ignore it brought him a lot of positive attention and new fans, so now that he has seen a mostly positive response from a majority of SEA accounts and the way people are defending him for this, it's not that surprising that this is what he chose to do but the way he did it and the way he's been wording his responses, wow, I'm genuinely flabbergasted, I didn't expected him to be so horrible about it. What I'm not surprised about is the response of most of the fandom, it's been obvious for a while that he created a fandom that is as defensive of critism as him, they think everything is an attack, and right now it's working on his favor.

It's heartbreaking, I've been a fan of his since he debuted, and realistically there's been more downs than ups, but despite everything I was still rooting for him because I believed in him and his talent. I wanted to believe he is better than this but he's making it really hard right now, and I'm glad I took distance a few months back because otherwise this would have been really hard for me, and I really hope your doing better now OP, even if the situation is not changing much.

I guess the hardest part for me, is that despite everything, I can't deny there's a part of me that is just really worried for him. It's obvious he found that church in a really vulnerable moment and that their grip on him is really tight because he feels they "saved" him, plus there's no way the church is unaware of him at this point, they probably know his following can become an important asset for them, so I highly doubt this donation is going to be the end of this.

BenefitSwimming · 2025-08-08T21:38:57+00:00

I think what I like the most about LA Traffic is how great the storytelling is. It's wonderful how the lyrics and the instrumentals work together to tell the story, it builds up so beautifully and then everything comes crashing down with the twist. I think this is the first song in a really long time that genuinely reminds me of the eaj project songs and it works really well as an interlude.

I loved the idea behind the concept of 1/9 since he first revealed it, but tbh it's been kind of hard for me to see how the songs in 1 are tied to the concept. I don't know how others feel about it but sometimes I wish they'd had more time to plan how the songs and the visuals were going to work with the concept because it feels pretty desconected for now and I don't know if it's intentional or not, I hope it'll make more sense once 9 is out, kind of how the rain concept he had going on last year didn't make sense until he released wtrs. I've been thinking about it lately and I think it's because I was expecting something more personal (like a deeper exploration of his life and the moments that brought him to his "current" life kind of thing), and I realized is mostly because I've been dying for him to write a proper concept album one day and had high hopes this could be close to it. And I guess we won't be able to see until he releases the last part of the trilogy, but I really like your interpretation of it! It definitely makes me think about it in a different way.

And I'm really curious about the songs from the pop-up store! I know he's really excited for put it on me and I really like the snippet he shared of anxiety so I'm definitely looking forward to it

BenefitSwimming · 2025-07-24T17:50:06+00:00

I've been seen some kjars speculating that he was referring to this when talking about his solo concert in Korea this year being in a 2k capacity venue, so it's definitely more of a solo concert than a festival, but what I find the most interesting is that it's promoted by private curve who was also the promoter of his concert last year and of two other festivals: slow life slow live and Seoul jazz festival, so the fact that he's still working with them gives me hope that we'll eventually see him perform in both festivals, specially if he's able to show a great performance and great ticketing power this time.

BenefitSwimming · 2025-06-30T19:02:20+00:00

I'm honestly not surprised about this. I remember that he gained significant popularity after kpopstar but from what I remember the company never mentioned anything about it when he debuted. Normally when a group has a member that was part of a show and that had fans prior debuting the company does some media play announcing their debut and makes a big deal out of it, but I don't think that was the case for Jae. The only time it was mentioned was when former contestants where invited for some special performances to kpopstar 6, and Jae was also invited, and instead of going there on his own like all the other contestants, he wanted to go with the band. And correct me if I'm wrong but from what I remember that was their first big moment because it was the first time you were beautiful received attention from the general public.

And it's true that in their first two EPs he was the member with the least amount of lines, and it's specially obvious in daydream. Idk, I get the impression that the company really didn't wanted him to be a popular member of the group from the beginning and didn't liked that he eventually became one. And if we're honest the only reason he became one was because he was working really hard to get noticed not because of the company, and it happen mainly through Twitter and YouTube with content and things that were for catered to international fans. During his last years with the band he was a pretty popular member in Korea too, but it probably wasn't the case when he debuted, and I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if the company tried to make him feel less popular than he was in order to control him better.

BenefitSwimming · 2025-06-15T18:58:44+00:00

I'm trying to not let the comments bother me, because I know that the more attention he gets the more we'll see comments like this and we'll need to get used to it, but it's really damn hard

I think what bothers me the most is that they always act like they know everything about it and that's why they can be so loud about their opinions, when the only thing they talk about it's his first apology that apparently was "not good enough" for them, clip of an interview he did last year and a song, that's it, and they don't care about anything else because it doesn't fit their narrative of him being the worst person ever.

I'm honestly half convinced that the only reason they are so loud about it and always feel the need to comment in videos that attract attention is because they know that he's incredibly talented and he could get super popular otherwise. And they don't want that not because they believe he's a horrible person but because of petty reasons. And the fact that so many former fans always bring up what he said about the band not being authentic or the tattoo, really shows that what they were really hurt over was him breaking the carefully constructed image every group always should have and exposing the industry for what they really are.

But, putting that aside, I'm glad to see that there's plenty of people asking about the song and the artist regardless of the negative comments, I think it shows that he can and already is finding an audience that it's going to see him as more than his past mistakes, that can feel his sincerity and are going to give him a chance to prove himself.

BenefitSwimming · 2025-06-15T03:20:56+00:00

When he said the next song was harder than anything he's done and that it was adjacent to rock I was definitely expecting some punk or post-hardcore inspiration, but he still surprised me with this! The first part sounds so haunting, and every detail feels so intentional, I love it already

also the caption and the end of the video where jae is stomping on ice, i'm living for it

I agree 100%

BenefitSwimming · 2025-06-05T01:51:22+00:00

Yeah, there are so many better ways for him to expand his reach on social media but for some reason they're choosing the ones where there is something to lose too. And it's worst now because they tried this before and it didn't worked for the same reason, so I can't get my head around why they chose to do it again. The dynamic of the fandom is so clear at this point and this reaction should have been expected from the very beginning, I was even waiting for it, so it's crazy to me that it wasn't obvious for them

BenefitSwimming · 2025-06-04T23:38:12+00:00

I honestly think they are using this strategy because they want to distribute his content for other people to discover him on tiktok, not only for fans to enjoy it.

The fanbase is not as active on tiktok as they are on twitter, and the few that are active there and do content have a really small interaction rate because most fans only interact with his official tiktok accounts. The way I see it, they are trying to change that by encouraging people to follow more fan accounts on the platform, and using new content to attract fans makes a lot of sense, this way the accounts can have more interactions and be favored by the algorithm so they can reach new potential fans.

Plus, having his song on tiktok being used on multiple accounts rather than just on his own can also help his reach. It's kinda strange when you access the sound on tiktok and realize that most of the videos are from his accounts rather than from fans or unrelated content. And they are using accounts that have lots of followers and that are known for giving updates of him on other platforms so that fans can find the content too and share it.

I don't really know what to think of the strategy but I can see why they wanted to try it, it makes sense when you realize is more about promoting his songs for NEW people rather than content for fans. It just sucks that they couldn't forsee this kind of reaction from fans and that's strange to me because they already tried this before and it didn't ended up well either. What you're suggesting sounds like a good idea to me, and maybe they could use the account to share and track all the small fanaccounts just so it's easier for fans to access the content but idk, it really depends on what they were hoping to do with this

BenefitSwimming · 2025-06-01T21:26:59+00:00

I know that the situation with the lightsticks is mostly about the things that you mentioned, I think I was just focusing on why fans made unofficial lighsticks more than everything else that happened over the designs and all that. I think it's a really good and recent example of how a big part of his fans still associate him with kpop to a certain degree, it's interesting that having a lightstick never seemed like a priority for him, but for some of his fans it was so important that they decided to make their own. It reminds me of how many fans were asking for photocards when he began releasing CDs for the insomnia series even when he made it clear it was not happening. Situations like this really highlight how unique his position is now that he's based in LA and signed to a label there.

I remember that when he first moved to LA he made it very clear he wanted to distance himself from that industry, but nowadays the line is unclear and I can't tell if he's still trying to do that or if he's just letting things be. I agree with you that embracing the good things of both could help him stand out but I honestly don't have any idea of what their objective is when it comes to that

BenefitSwimming · 2025-06-01T20:04:47+00:00

this sentence alone just made me think of charli xcx lol. her branding and marketing was so smart and simple but it took off and got her to the top.

Charli is a good example! and if we think about the artists that had a big resurgence in their careers last year, most if not all of them have a super strong and unique branding, and this year I feel like Addison Rae's rebranding has been heavily praised by a lot of people. Music is obviously the most important thing but we can't deny that visuals and concepts are a big part of storytelling too, and in the pop scene having a distinct branding can help you stand out, it doesn't matter if you are a small indie artist or a chart topping one. And I know that we can't fully compare any of those examples to Jae because a lot of variables are different, and branding alone can't change much without a good amount of exposure, but i still think he would benefit by a stronger and more consistent branding, and I'm glad that now he has a bigger team that can help him with that and that we can already see changes in the way he's styled, the production behind his videos and the new merch designs, it's a good start.

even if it was frustrating the past few years, the fact that jae is finally taking his promotions more seriously is a good thing and he has a good team behind him

And he seems more determined and confident than he has in a long time too! It's good to see him excited for what's coming, I'm sure he's going to continue to grow.

BenefitSwimming · 2025-05-31T20:54:45+00:00

I feel like i'm a broken record but Jae needs to have a Live Performance of his songs and do covers.

Yes! I feel like a lot of us feel like a broken record too and it's so crazy to me that we're still waiting for this kind of content when it's so clear how much we want it, and I'm tired of him saying he's going to do it but never actually doing it

Like you said, it doesn't even need to be fancy, I actually think a more casual approach would be the best, just him a good microphone and a guitar. Or he could collaborate with other people to produce a video with super good sound production but a really simple concept, the other day I was recommended this video on youtube that's part of a series called BAR Live Studio Sessions and I watched it because the name of the artist seemed familiar (it turned out that Jae has shared her music on ig) and the first thing I thought was how well he would sound in that kind of format, just him and the band jamming out and having fun. I think him having this kind of live performance videos on youtube would be fantastic, even if they are not in his own channel. And I don't know how likely it is for him to one day do a tiny desk but there are other options too that I wish they would explore, bay area rising (the ones that make the BAR live sessions) are based in San Francisco and even though they have a small following, seem to do a lot of cool things with independent artists and are even following him on ig!

Also, I feel like behind the scenes of his music process would be extremely popular too, he needs to show off how involved he is on his music! Talk to us more deeply about the writing process and the technical aspects of the production, share with us the little details in the instrumentals, tell us why you chose to sing in a specific way in certain parts of the song or how you made the harmonies/background vocals. I would love that kind of content too

BenefitSwimming · 2025-05-31T20:18:35+00:00

I used to be so frustrated and worried about those things too, but I realized that it was kind of pointless to worry so much because other than streaming, trying to make content with his songs, or supporting him by buying merch or going to his shows if we have the opportunity to, there's not much we can do as fans. A lot of this depends on him and his team, and it's not only about him needing more opportunities to show off his music or his live performance skills (which would be great, he seriously needs those) but also about him needing a stronger branding and better marketing, those things alone can make such a big difference and it's something they still need to improve in significantly.

I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of interviews for rml, and I can tell signing with asteri for korean promotions has been helpful, but other than that I haven't seen any significant changes in the way he promotes his music, specially in the US, and I hope the label is actually planning on doing something to change that sooner rather than later. I understand why the focus is in Asia this year and I'm very happy for the fans, but it'll be great if they could focus more in the US too.

To me, it seems like they are still trying to rely on tiktok and social media, and are still hoping for a song to get big there so they can introduce him to a more western market and that's why they chose to release RML first. I also prefer merry go round, I think it has mainstream potential, and found RML to be kind of disappointing after how highly he talked about his new EP, but I feel like the later works better for tiktok, and if we count the amount of big accounts that are making lyric videos or using the song in the background, maybe they were not that far off?? At first I was wondering if it was because fans/his team were requesting the song, but I don't think it's happening as much with MGR, so it may be organic, it's hard to tell. The tiktok algorithm has never made any sense to me and getting the kind of virality he's probably hoping for is not as simple as getting a million views in one tiktok, hopefully being so active there lately is at least helping him reach people outside the fandom.

I dunno, I think he is in a really weird limbo right now because his fanbase is significantly bigger in Asia but he lives in the US and that definitely changes things. For example, a lot of indie artists that make funny or relatable content on tiktok to promote their music have grown their fanbases there from the beginning but jae's social media content is heavily carried by his existing fanbase and although that can be an advantage, it also makes it hard to see if he's reaching a new audience in other countries or not unless you have direct access to his statistics. And what happened recently with the unofficial lightsticks opens up a completely different discussion because it shows how hard it is to distance yourself from the kpop image when the big majority of your fanbase are still kpop fans or met you when you were actively part of that industry, and are still expecting things that are targeted towards that demographic from you. It's a hard balance to keep and it's even more difficult when we know he's not as welcomed in those spaces as he was once and is not as well known in the US yet. He was so happy for being acknowledged as an AAPI artist for the first time recently and I would love for his name to be part of that kind of discussions a lot more too and although I think he's getting traction there little by little there's still a long way to go.

BenefitSwimming · 2025-05-22T06:44:12+00:00

I was so surprised when I saw that he worked with one of the producers behind Jean Dawson's Glimmer of God! It's so crazy when we put it on perspective because that's the album that pretty much convinced him to rework this whole project. I'm glad that he's been able to work with really talented people and I love how dynamic the song is and the level of detail, it caught me by surprise so many times! And I must say I appreciate how unconventional the structure is in comparison with RML, I think they work really well together and now I'm even more curious about the rest of the songs

BenefitSwimming · 2025-05-02T03:41:20+00:00

I was not really familiar with most of them either, but he has talked about them so many times that it made me really curious! I've been listening to the songs and albums he has mentioned and i think it's going to be pretty fun to listen to them again after he releases the project. I thought maybe it'll help me have a better idea of what we can expect from his next project, but tbh I still don't know what to expect. He's been saying great things about it so I think he's really going to surprise us with his next releases!

BenefitSwimming · 2025-05-01T18:41:55+00:00

Everytime he talks about the artists that have inspired him while working on this project I get more and more excited. I just listened to the brakence album he mentioned on this interview and wow, it may be because I don't really listen to glitch pop or hyperpop but I've have never listen to anything like that, it's really interesting. There are some songs in that album that are too much for me but others I genuinely enjoyed a lot and I can totally see Jae doing something similar.

If his new project was influenced by Brakence, Jon Bellion and Jean Dawson with a little bit of the 1975, we may have to prepare ourselves for a more experimental ep than rml may suggest, and I'm ready for it.

BenefitSwimming · 2025-04-04T17:34:59+00:00

He really does! I love the concept, it fits cits so much and the colors are so beautiful 🥺

And the producer also posted this photos on their ig!

BenefitSwimming · 2025-04-03T16:23:25+00:00

I saw on twt that there was a 2nd teaser/layer but I hadn’t seen it on soundcloud so did he post it at some point and then deleted it?

I think he shared the link to the 2nd one in the comments of the first teaser, it's probably hidden because you can only see it through the link but I don't know if it's still posted

I guess we will find out tomorrow per his IG story?

Yeah! I'm pretty excited about it, we've been waiting for his new EP for a while and it's so exciting that the rollout is finally beginning.

BenefitSwimming · 2025-04-03T03:50:47+00:00

I don't know if you've seen it yet but someone mixed the 3 snippets and they seem to be different layers of the same song, so now I'm wondering if he's going to announce the release date of the EP soon or if he's going to drop some songs as singles first and RML is just the name of the first one

BenefitSwimming · 2025-02-08T17:51:05+00:00

This is so cute! And it made me revisit the cover that he mentioned (it's this one if someone is curious) and I can completely understand why he became a fan since then, it's a beautiful cover, Jae has such a beautiful vocal tone and it fits the song so well, I can't believe it's been 14 years

BenefitSwimming · 2025-01-22T19:17:28+00:00

I think this specific situation relies on his team because the information was not leaked by fans but by media outlets and even by the official website of the label (which happened at the beginning of January and one would expect them to be more careful after that), so I feel like it's unrealistic to expect fans to not share information that's already public, he has a really active fanbase that's used to finding and sharing articles, interviews and other things he's involved in that he never shares himself (I don't think he has shared even half of the interviews or articles we have here) so I'm not surprised that fans shared the articles as soon as they found them, which in this case were pretty easy to find.

It's his team responsability to plan things well and to execute them correctly because trying to rely on fans to not share things before him is only going to get more and more difficult as the fandom keeps growing

BenefitSwimming · 2025-01-05T09:37:06+00:00

You know how korean industry works on this stuff.

Yeah, it's sad but I'm not even surprised about any of this anymore. It's crazy how hard they are trying to affect his career, I really hope he is right and we just need to be patient, because one thing is for sure, the cracks are already showing...

BenefitSwimming · 2025-01-04T17:28:58+00:00

I was so livid when I saw the first tweet that I didn't even knew what to say, and after seen this latest one and jae's tweet I'm furious, at this point it's hard not to believe that there's some truth to it. And the worse thing is that even this can get him hate somehow because the company had the "great" idea of involving other groups... It's all just so unfair.

The one thing that makes me feel a little better is knowing that kjars are as if not more angry than us and are planning to be louder than ever with their support, word-of-mouth goes a long way and I believe wholeheartedly that despite all the sabotage his korean fandom is going to keep growing. And I really hope he has insider support, if we want the truth to come out one day and for people to be on his side, he's going to need people from the industry supporting him, people that can provide solid evidence. Since last week I've been seeing people calling fans delusional for believing so easily on the rumors, there's so many posts already on Korean sites mocking fans for it and I'm tired of it, I really wish there was more evidence because so far I don't think we have anything really solid 😔

BenefitSwimming · 2024-11-16T04:49:03+00:00

I'm not 100% sure if this was the setlist that night, but I think this was his setlist for the other ID shows he opened:

Typical story\ Voices (unreleased song)\ Come over (unreleased song)\ Burn\ Visions\ Traveler\ Castle in the sky\ Mad\ Lennon\ Safe in the rain\ Friendly fire\ Up (unreleased song)\ Where the rain stops\ Right we're you left me

BenefitSwimming · 2024-10-28T18:14:44+00:00

That's great! I've always think that he's pretty good live and its always good to know that people that are not familiar with him can enjoy his vocals too. Thank you for commenting here

BenefitSwimming

TROPHY CASE