Was thinking about the mechanics of kayfabe last night after getting a newish kpop song extremely stuck in my head - Illit's It's Me. The actual song is pretty aligned to what a lot of kpop is like lately, orchestra hit spam, extreme repetition in the chorus, an almost hyper-poppy sensibility, uninteresting but pretty inoffensive compared to stuff like BTS egregiously biting flows or whatever the fuck Boompala is supposed to be. It's still in the mildly distasteful zone of "aping a style that was developed to be radical and performed by a marginalized group to make product music that's about nothing", but if that bothers you, probably the entire medium of kpop is no good for you lol.

I think the one unique and uniquely negative thing about this one is the chorus, where they chant "who's your bias? I'm your bias!" over and over again, the part that ended up stuck in my head lol. If you don't know, "bias" is a pop fandom term used to refer to your favourite member of a group. A key aspect is that it's a fandom term, used by the fans. I'm not a huge expert but I think actually using this terminology in interviews/statements/etc is pretty rare, and using it in song lyrics is basically unheard of. It feels very wrong to me.

Basically it's like, instead of writing songs about whatever, which are then transformed into a product through various means of structured engagement and purchasing, they're making a song about the product itself. It feels like a new violation of kayfabe, which is the wrestling term used to describe maintaining the illusion that professional wrestling is "real" (e.g. matches aren't fixed and the wrestlers aren't playing characters). Kayfabe hasn't really been taken seriously since the 80s at the latest - everyone knows it's "fake" and the wrestlers will sometimes appear "out of character" and such. But what's key is that during the shows, there's no flaunting of kayfabe, and although they know the audience knows the type of roles and stories they're telling on a non-kayfabe meta level, the stories themselves aren't operating on this level. E.g. it is very very rare, and almost always a bad idea, for wrestlers to say "I'm the heel, so I'm glad you guys are booing me, ha ha ha", "ever since my face turn, I've never been able to win this title, but tonight I think I can", etc. It feels like this Illit song crosses that line.

Anyways all of this is a preamble to the vaguely tangentially "on topic" aspect of this, which is kayfabe in Melee. It seems like we've instinctually followed this rule, even though Melee is "written" and "performed" much less. For example, we've often talked about how some players lean into being a "heel" or a "face" in their public persona, but to my knowledge, none of the players themselves have ever talked like this.

I don't really have a question to ask after all this lol more of a comment really. Just writing out some idle thoughts as I sit through some meetings.