I stared at this exchange in the group chat for a beat.
“Oh,” I replied again. “Hmmm.”
I feel like I understand this, in theory. There’s always been something about the look of K-pop that makes it different than any other genre I’ve ever experienced. Not that I’m some big music buff – in fact, my tastes are probably considered fairly “basic.” I grew up on Top 40s and Disney-approved pop, all which included a healthy rotation of your standard boy bands: Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, 98 Degrees.
But even with the insane visuals of a music video like “The Call,” there’s something about a single K-pop video that has the ability to unite people around the world … and I want to understand what it is.
The learning curve, however, seems steep.
So steep that when I bring this up to my friends who are not engrained in that world, they say similar things: It’s fascinating. It’s interesting. But it’s a lot.
My first fandom appeared at the other end of a dial-up tone in the early 2000s. With websites like MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron, the waiting period between the release of Harry Potter installments felt non-existent. On the internet, I connected with fans through message boards and fanfiction forums to discuss theories and rant about character traits and ships. By the time J.K. Rowling’s official series came to an end, the Harry Potter fandom had fully taken on a life of its own that continues to this day in an active – and massive – way.
For me, the fandom wasn’t solely online. It was how I connected with friends at the start of high school, and it led us to form relationships around other things too: actors, film series, anime. We embraced being called “fangirls” and plastered photos of our faves on our binders and lockers.
In college, that extended to reality shows like America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway – but by then, there was an uncomfortable association around the word “fangirl.” It felt juvenile as I became increasingly aware of the stereotype of the “hysterical” and screaming fan that the media sometimes portrayed. It’s only been recently that people have been vocal online to defend young female fans – and of course there’s Harry Styles’ infamous Rolling Stone interview:
“Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That’s not up to you to say. Music is something that’s always changing. There’s no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they’re not serious? How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.”
In short: I like being a fan of things. I appreciate people who are fans of things, even of the things I don’t quite know much about. And I know that not all fandoms are safe and perfect, but it doesn’t make me want to understand them any less. It’s actually just the opposite.
Minh and Stephany gave me a list of 10 music videos to watch. The first looks like a high-energy pop song, with a thumbnail of nine women dressed in shades of blue and in the middle of a coordinated dance routine.
It’s a song called “TT” by a group called Twice and was released October 23, 2016. As of writing this sentence, it has 484,425,938 views.
“Nearly 500 million views,” I nearly shout at my colleague who I made watch this video with me. “Five. Hundred. Million.”
The music video begins like a mini-film, with two young children in Halloween costumes entering a dark and imposing home. Twenty-eight seconds in, the first member of Twice pops into frame. By the 36 second mark, all nine have appeared and the dancing begins, and 30 seconds after that, I’ve stopped paying attention to the English captions trying to tell me what this song is about. Twice is trying to tell me a story, I think, but all I can pay attention to are the costume changes. One is dressed like a bunny, surrounded by actual bunnies; another is a Tinkerbell-like fairy.
It’s a bit surreal, in the same way a Lady Gaga video pulls you into its universe of high fashion, sharp choreography, intense direct-to-camera gazes. But as I watch “TT” for the first time, my mind is a bit blank. It’s only when the video ends and the “To Be Continued…” slate pops up that I begin to jot down some questions: What was the song about? What story is this video trying to tell? How is this different than other videos? And what is “TT” exactly?
You can watch the video on your own (and you really should). You don’t need me to describe it. I don’t want this newsletter to be of me telling you, in some professorial way, what K-pop is. What I want to do is understand what K-pop is about (both the good and the not-so-good) and what makes it so influential on such a large, global scale.
And I want it to be a conversation too. I genuinely want to learn. Like I said, I grew up in fandoms and I grew up loving boy bands and pop groups. K-pop feels like it’s something that should (and can) be for me. Right?
By the way… as of finishing this newsletter, 25 minutes later, “Twice” has 484,428,461 views.
-Traci
Next newsletter: The 10 music videos