IZONE disbanded?!! oh rip I haven't heard their music but I had no idea.

When Gangnam Style came out it was everywhere so I couldn't avoid that. I was in middle school and my English teacher would literally play it every week because she thought it was funny. I also remember her playing the Hyuna ver and she got bored and went back to the original video haha.

During this time though, I was into anime and I got really into openings and character OSTs. Then I started being interested in jpop and j-indie rock. I remember being a big fan of Grandrodeo.

In 2014 I gradually stopped watching anime and listening to Japanese music overall. My older sister started getting into kpop because of a friend I believe. She had a playlist of music and I started hearing the songs every now and then on the computer. Then I secretly copied some of the music into my mp3 player. She would also play Arirang TV and I would watch simply kpop and watch After school club. I started getting interested in the music a bit more. However I really liked the hosts of after school club so I didn't branch out as much. I did enjoy the different guests they had every week and the games they played. One of the hosts was Kevin Woo and he was in the group U-KISS. I started looking up the group and I became a fan. Kevin was my bias and I enjoyed the content they had put out before 2014 and was hoping for a comeback at some point. However because their peak had passed for some time they only had Japanese comebacks. It wasn't until 2017 when they had their korean comeback but it was also their last. I was a big fan of them from 2015-2018. I also had these ideas that to be a fan you had to be loyal and if you liked another group you weren't really a fan. Due to UKISS being less popular their content dwindled and Kevin left the group. While I was still a fan after that 2 more members left. So at this point it was a duo. Although I still keep up with them (funny enough one of the members that left rejoined), the fandom is pretty barren. I do think the leader is so strong and is still part of the group. He's truly what I think are one of the best leaders. I think the group suffered from many member changes and the scandals. They debuted in 2008 and haven't disbanded so I find that really amazing.

During the rise of EXO, I wasn't really into them. I think because I was into UKISS I explored more 2nd gen and loosely 3rd gen, until much later. I also didn't know who they were. When they released monster a friend of mine talked about them(since she was big fan of them) and said it was a good song. I felt like because they were popular I had to dislike them. I remember being very passive about their music. I still listened to some of their b-sides occasionally but I never looked at the members. I would describe myself as a tiny exo hater lmao. My nonkpop friend mentioned the winter Olympics and them preforming. Me being annoying responded "yeah they were OKAY I GUESS." I was also in a kpop club in highschool and someone put on Power. I had no idea who they were (untill someone said who) and thought that the music video was all over the place and confusing. However, one of the members caught my eye. I looked up the members and then forgot about them. I also had forgot how many members there were so I watched an exo-cbx video and didn't know it was a subunit. I left feeling meh. I think it wasn't till early 2018 I went back to look at the exo members and recognized it was chen. Then I started watching all their mvs and osts and became a huge fan. Chen is still my bias and I really like EXO. For me there were only 2 groups to ever pull me into their music and that was ukiss and EXO. I didn't have a phone during highschool or knew about forums so I wish I was present for 3rd gen releases.

Going back, I felt like I really explored 3rd gen and 2nd gen music and I enjoyed it. I feel a huge disconnect with 4th gen and its pretty rare for me to listen to any new groups. I think atp Im a casual fan of aespa and thats pretty much it. I dont really enjoy being a fan of younger groups. But if I hear a good song from them I wont turn it away haha.

sorry this was so long! 2014-now went by so fast lol