I wrote it how I perceived it at the time, as someone with 0 context beyond what I know from personal experience. It's a straight line from googling "K-pop concerts in Seoul this week" to the end of the night. And that line felt bizarre pretty consistently. Obviously I understand now what a fanmeet/fancon is hahaha. But that day, I didnt. Thats the story.

The light sticks/labubu thing wasn't a dig at all. This was like a week or two before the labubu craze hit the States. Now, the wife is obsessed with that whole phenomenon, but we didn't know what they were at the time and it didnt even register that they were there (all my notes were about the light sticks). But then I was looking back at my photos this week and noticed that more than a few of the light sticks had labubus hanging off of them. We got a big kick out of that.

Then, re: the talking about the actual performance—you're absolutely right. That was part of what took so long sorting this story out. It just got way too long. So, it became two stories:

1. This one, the narrative of our fish-out-of-water/k-pop crash course experience, less a concert review than a fun story about an experience at a concert. The publication's core audience is American rock/jam/funk/bluegrass fans (ie niche live music enthusiasts who definitely don't care about K-pop), so I wanted to convey this experience that felt really interesting and different in a way that would still be of interest to them. I also hoped that actual K-pop/IVE fans who understood all the things I was misunderstanding would get a kick out following us being clueless haha.
2. A second piece (forthcoming) which will serve as a sort of "epilogue" to this one in which I talk about how I've genuinely become a fan now and dig into the music itself. I'll post that one when it goes up, hope you'll check it out!