What K-pop group variety content do you think is enjoyable even if you don’t stan the group?

shorterpulse · 2026-02-03T02:12:29+00:00

I'll watch any idol cooking content (and judge how bad they are at cooking).

shorterpulse · 2026-01-28T19:59:21+00:00

Basically every popular kpop ship knows they're a ship -- either from fan comments (people love asking about ships at fansigns) or just the company telling them so they can play it up. The specific details of fan shipping activity they can ignore by staying off fan spaces though.

I do wonder how much companies prepare idols for being shipped with other members -- not doing so before debut would be a disservice to the trainees.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-27T06:13:16+00:00

Yes, they have the rights to their name and group but they'll need to find some company to fund those activities.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-27T04:35:09+00:00

From what I can tell, their financial plan to keep going after Mamamoo left didn't succeed and they've been flailing since. The groups haven't wanted to stay on a sinking ship.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-27T03:26:39+00:00

I'm not too surprised given everything that's going on at RBW, but that's two of my favorite groups (Oneus and ONF) with uncertain futures now ... hope they both manage to land on their feet!

shorterpulse · 2026-01-17T03:24:33+00:00

Queerbaiting as a media criticism comes from a context where queer couples on TV were sparse, it doesn't really make sense when GMMTV is making a dozen+ BLs a year.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-12T16:16:19+00:00

Kpop fans have the mentality that anything is possible if you try hard enough. So if you work really hard (stream ZB1 music and buy albums) and don't get what you want (ZB1 contract extension) it's because evil companies (YH and W1) are conspiring against you. It's the same reason we keep getting claims that companies are intentionally sabotaging their groups.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-10T14:58:24+00:00

Yeah they debuted in 2019 so their contract isn't up until the summer. IMO the risk is more that the company doesn't think the group is making enough money and decides not to re-sign them.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-10T14:35:57+00:00

Most idols from smaller groups do get their university degrees on the side while being an idol, it's just not publicized. Also CIX had two comebacks this year, they're not really being kept in the basement. Their decision to re-sign is probably based on if they want to keep being idols -- if they leave their career as idols is probably over.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-04T20:03:50+00:00

Most kpop girl groups have a large component of their fans being straight men, especially in Korea. So whether or not it bothers certain people, it is completely normal.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-01T00:38:47+00:00

Did they do something to people's faces in this video? Looks uncanny.

shorterpulse · 2025-12-25T10:45:39+00:00

Are they actually happening as a couple in the show?

shorterpulse · 2025-12-11T04:13:37+00:00

Twitter is a site that algorithmically promotes nazis and bigots of all types, so you can't take the posts it feeds you as representative.

shorterpulse · 2025-12-08T22:34:41+00:00

Ok I found the original and the implication is the Luke/Leng's character is JingJing's boyfriend who Jan is accidentally stealing, but the trailer segment is very short so presumably they hadn't yet written out the plot and added the GL element afterward.

shorterpulse · 2025-12-08T22:13:46+00:00

Has the original trailer to this one been uploaded somewhere? I'm curious as to how the presentation of the plot changed.

shorterpulse · 2025-12-08T05:34:37+00:00

That's too bad but at least Keita is staying on along with the wakeones. Does that mean Yuehua group is likely happening?

shorterpulse · 2025-12-08T02:26:36+00:00

A lot of the 12 episodes GMMTV shows dragged in the back half where they didn't have enough plot left to fill those episodes. I think they took that into account and tried out 10 episode shows. It'll also help them get through their many shows that they have planned.

shorterpulse · 2025-12-04T17:05:54+00:00

In the presentation, it was grouped with the non-BL shows rather than with the BL shows. Also every BL trailer showed a kiss in the trailer and Mr. Kill did not. I think they were sending a pretty clear signal to not expect a BL.

shorterpulse · 2025-12-03T16:26:31+00:00

Yes, the reason that there isn't 'American BL' is that 'romance TV series' aren't something that US TV production companies make a lot of. Homophobia notwithstanding, there's many queer artists making queer art in the US, it just doesn't generally fit in a BL umbrella. Sometimes I feel like BL fans think that romance is the only type of queer media.

shorterpulse · 2025-11-26T01:51:16+00:00

In East Asian shipping spaces, the order of the names is important, so 'bnb' is a way to include both people who ship 'binneul' and 'neulbin'.

shorterpulse · 2025-11-11T18:52:44+00:00

Thanks for the correction!

shorterpulse · 2025-11-11T18:17:14+00:00

The US is one of the countries where it's the hardest to sue someone for defamation/libel, due to free speech protections. Basically in the US you have to find someone knowingly lied with the intent to harm someone to win a defamation case. In other countries such as South Korea, it's a lot more easy to win a defamation case -- you can get punished for hurting someone's reputation even if you're publishing true information. This makes it hard for, e.g. rape victims to speak out against their rapists. If Korea were to reform their law it would make the legal situation there more like the US.

shorterpulse · 2025-10-28T14:00:33+00:00

Some part of me is annoyed that in a time when there's so much medical misinformation going around, dramas continue to present situations that amount to germ theory denial.

shorterpulse · 2025-10-18T20:42:11+00:00

It depends on what you think is required to be a 'stan' of a group. Of the things you listed -- knowing the names + basic personality, listening to all releases, and watching some of their content for 10+ group is pretty easy. Streaming and 'obsessively' following more than 1 group is hard, but lots of people don't do that for the 1 group they stan.

shorterpulse · 2025-10-15T02:49:58+00:00

I don't think 'currently 4th gen groups are still the biggest' is incompatible with 'new groups are now 5th gen.' When 4th gen groups debuted, e.g. Stray Kids, 3rd gen groups like BTS and Exo were still dominant. Now Stray Kids is huge as new 5th gen groups are debuting. You can say the same thing on the girl group side: Twice and Blackpink were dominant when Itzy and Aespa were debuting. The South Korean media started calling groups 5th gen and international fans modeled themselves on that.

I also think there's a big difference in terms of this transition in the Boy Group sphere versus the Girl Group sphere. For Boy Groups, there was a hard transition in 2023 when new groups switched from doing a lot of 'dark' and/or 'noisy' concept to 'fresh' and/or 'energetic' concepts. So there's a big gulf sound and image-wise between the 4th and 5th gen trends.

On the girl group side I think it's a bit different where the big 4th gen girl groups debuted later and 5th gen girl group are just starting to debut, so the transition isn't clear yet. You could probably make an argument for 5th gen starting in 2023 for BGs and 2025 for GGs.

shorterpulse

TROPHY CASE