Supply and Demand - SM Entertainment, EXO and the fans

This past week I've been seriously thinking about not following EXO anymore because it absolutely tears my heart to shreds practically every time I see them sick and skinny and seeing that Jongin's practically an old man or a rag doll with all his injuries and Tao's body is just totally abused (by himself!) Who would want to see their babies like that?

It was about a week ago that the news came out that EXO was going to have a second tour and I found out this information literally seconds after it came out, luckily. Pretty much, right then, I witnessed so much of my fellow EXO-Ls being really excited about this news and I was so taken aback. I then went on a rage rant on twitter. My stance on this was and still is that EXO should not be going on another tour, reason being that it is sooo unnecessary as they already toured Asia and probably won't be visiting any places that are very different from where they went to before; almost all of them are either severely sick or severely injured, why do something as strenuous as a tour in that state? They need a break. And then I thought about the bigger problems that underly EXO having a second tour even though they just came off their last one that was 7 months long and resulted in two members leaving EXO and filing lawsuits on their company (yes, if that was not the direct reason, it was certainly the catalyst for their departure), SM Entertainment and the "fans" being excited about this second concert.

But who is at fault here? SM? Korean culture? The fans? EXO, themselves? Before you go on thinking that this is going to be a rant about how SM are monsters and they're treating their artists like machines. Stop, because that couldn't be further from the truth.

Let's stop looking at it that way and look at the bigger picture here.

Some international fans that blame SM for world hunger need to understand something that is a big part of Korean culture. A few decades ago, Korea was nowhere near as developed as it is today and it's because of it's hard working people that it has become what it is. The people work very hard in everything they do. They study hard, they stay in work even when it's time for them to go because their boss is still working. There are workers that live on the Samsung site. People work through sickness, they work for the greater good, for the team. This brings me to my point: SM Entertainment is not a person. It doesn't have a face. It doesn't have a face to save. It is a company. They are a massive business. They don't need to protect  their products health and well being if they can put them on a stage somewhere or put them in a chair somewhere or put them in a recording room somewhere and still make lots of money from them. They can leave out all the humane stuff because they are a company and their sole purpose after a near 10 years of doing this is to make money. It is natural of them as a business (especially in Korea) to work the idols down to the grind. They should not be blamed for doing this, they are company that has found a certain way of doing things like a lot of companies have. They can't change because like I said, they have no face. However, there are humans on the receiving end of things though; the consumer who can make a difference.

This supply and demand is what feeds the machine, the monster of SM. If fans calm down about wanting so much from EXO or any other idol group in a similar situation (SHINee) then there would be less demand and obviously the idols wouldn't have to be driven by such a force. The force is the fans that demand concerts. "Come to my country! You won't regret it." "Give them another variety show!" "They better be at this music festival!" "Hurry up with that album!" "Comeback 주세요!!"

Stop asking when SM will get their shit together. They never will. They've been doing this for so long and they haven't changed, in fact they've gotten a lot worse and as time goes on they will get more and more inhumane. Start asking when the fans will get their shit together. Because that's where there is a chance of change.

When will we actually care for our idols like we're supposed to.

Nasty EXO Rumours

So I've just completely had enough of these baseless rumours about my boys, EXO. My friend sent me a message telling me that Tao was going to leave EXO and my jaw dropped and felt the weight of the world come down on me

only to find out within seconds from my own google search that it was nothing but I tiny tiny rumour that wasn't even on any major kpop blogs. All I could find was a discussion on it on a forum. I'm so pissed off with people that just see a rumour and believe it. I just can't deal with that anymore. And thus my rant commences.

You see, Tao is my second bias and I know him a lot better than that. He's my second bias to Kai (!!), more than all the other members! That also means, I know him better and I know he wouldn't leave. He's so determined and happy in EXO, he would not leave. He was the most upset when Kris left, why would he put the members through that when he and the rest of them went through it twice. What would he do if he left EXO; he doesn't have any acting jobs like Luhan did. I'm not even gonna write about that anymore, cuz it's not gonna happen.

What I WILL write about is this one random baseless rumour, which I found out last night surfaced on Weibo and then expanded to something insane. I'm talking the worst thing that can happen on this Earth before Jesus' return. Basically I saw on a forum, someone had posted the original rumour that one random low life had posted the on Weibo and it was basically that two members of EXO were going to leave; one Chinese member and one Korean member. There was no definite time when these members or one of these members would leave. They didn't say who; it was just that one Chinese member and one Korean member were going to leave and that was it. 

Then there were replies to this thread by English speakers commenting on this after having totally believed it. They were replying saying: The Chinese member is probably Tao and that EXO were probably going to disband after that. And mind you, these are people's own opinions and there's nothing wrong with sharing your opinion which is what I'm doing in this blog but the problem is that someone took the original statement and these opinions and spread it onto other sites and more was added onto it like the snowball effect of more baseless lies being added to that original lie and getting bigger as it went along. And eventually, I saw on tumblr this morning a text post saying: Tao and a Korean member are going to leave EXO in 2015.

Now let me remind you that the original statement did not give any indication of which member was leaving EXO and they also did not say that it was going to be in 2015. This right here is the perfect example of a rumour started by one person being made into an even bigger rumour. Thankfully, some EXO-Ls are pretty past and were already working on cleaning this rumour up before it got even bigger but this highlights an underlying problem much bigger than the EXO fandom. 

There are people in this world that like to make up hurtful things and when they have the possible power to spread that around the internet, they will exploit that power and use that power and hurt an entire fandom of people based on something they completely made up from their not too creative mind.

The EXO fandom is pretty big. There are a hell of a lot of EXO-L's all over the world and people that simply like EXO or just like their music. To be able to effect that much people and hurt that much people in such a small amount of time via the internet is so easy to do and it's powerful. I have a blog, I could do it right now! I still remember that rumour a few years ago that a random made up about Jackie Chan being dead. That was sickening.

It was just two days ago that there were girlfriend rumours to do with Kai. It was absolutely RIDONCULOUS! 

I can't believe it was even believed by anyone. And that alleged picture of them together turned out to be a random gamer couple you could do a google image search and find. I mean, it's nothing short of frustrating how many Kai rumours there have been since day 1 in January 2012 when no one like him cuz they thought he was in too much of EXO's teasers . Since these days there have been so so much rumours of Kai just not being a nice person, being a dick and blah blah blah, it doesn't matter because any EXO fan would know that Jongin is the sweetest little puppy there ever was and he is a wonderful person (yes, he is my ultimate bias and I love him but I'm not biased when I speak this truth). I just hate seeing these rumours because they not only spread this throughout the fandom but they reach the artists and we all know too well when it comes to Tao rumours he knows. He knows them all and as a Tao fan, it hurts. It hurts a lot that people would think less of him because of something someone made up and some more people added to. These people don't matter. These people need to get pure happiness and they're not going to find it from taking it away from others.

Tao and Kai have some real haters and they just love to keep making up rumours about them but as I've learnt in life, people only make up stuff about you when they can't find any dirt on you.

You know what, I'm gonna wrap this up and leave you with an awesome quote from tumblr:

"If you didn't hear it with your own ears or see if with your own eyes, don't invent it with your small mind and share it with your own big mouth."

Thank you.

For EXO 2013

So I was writing about all the good things that happened to me this year, thinking I could make a post about it. When thinking about this year, I have to say, the greatest thing that happened that comes to mind is not really about me but my boys EXO.

YAAAAY!!!!

Kpopmart sent me an email saying my EXO albums have been shipped with a picture of them being packed away (like they usually do). I'm so excited, I just had to upload the picture.

I ordered Miracles in December (both versions) and 1st Album Repackage (both versions) on the day Miracles of December was released. I know I'm super late on the Repackaged albums, and I normally would pre-order EXO's albums but I did not have money at the time and I had to wait until I did. I finally decided I did when their 2nd mini album came out and I was desperate to get it. I need to support my boys!

I thought I would recieve it before Christmas, but I'm thinking that I won't now, unfortunately. I'm expecting it in early January (around the 6th). But I'm still super excited. I already have all the tracks on my iPod and phone so I've listening to it every day since. My favourite song has got to be 'Christmas Day'. (It's Lay's favourite song too! :D).

Hey, should I do a album review soon? Before Christmas?
Haha. I was thinking of doing another k-drama review on 'The Heirs', but I don't know, is there really much to say there other than me ranting my frustration on Kim Eun Sook and how she cheated us Youngdo-Rachel shippers? lol

Update on life! (Studying Korean, Japanese, Uni, The Heirs...)

Arrogance level: 3.8 out of 5

It's been just over a week since I last updated and I left you with a negativity post as well! lol. I'm OK. I didn't get depressed and kill myself. I actually feel quite happy these days. I feel a certain level of security that is rare for me to reach because of the scar left from my high school days. I wrote a post explaining about that scar so maybe you could understand me better but I'm not sure if I want to upload it or not. It might make me look like a loser or will be too sad. I think it's more sad that what you hear in those 'Draw My Life' videos on YouTube. Speaking of YouTube videos, I've been working on doing the '50 Things About Me' tag but as a post on this blog. I think it might me interesting for you to get to know me better by reading some random facts about me. Unless you don't want to know about me. But how could you not. I'm so mysterious. lol
미안...

So, moving swiftly on... I've made great progress in my studying of Korean. Basically, weeks and weeks ago, my Dad contacted our connections to some Koreans to find me a Korean tutor (that sounds weird but I don't know how else to describe it really) and an old friend got back to us saying there was a girl who wanted to tutor me (yay!). When I finally got through to her and spoke to her (because that took a while) we set up lessons straight away and now I have a personal Korean tutor that I meet once a week. Which is awesome!! I'm so happy with this. I mean, we only had our first lesson last week, my next one is tomorrow. We mostly talked. Well, she did most of the talking ...in Korean. I had to really use my listening skills. But it was all good because she's super genuinely nice and we talked about ma boys EXO and watched two EXO videos. It was awesome.
I've been really motivated to study Korean like everyday this week. I've been using talktomeinkorean.com I've known the site for years and watched a few videos from their youtube channel, but I never used it religiously to study Korean, now I do. It's awesome, I really recommend it if you want to start learning Korean or if you already are and want a useful website to help you learn in a fun way. By no means am I affiliated with this website, I just like using it a lot now. I even followed them on twitter, tumblr and facebook as well as subscribed to their youtube channels. With this I believe I can learn much faster (because I genuinely find studying Korean fun) and be able to talk to my Korean tutor better and understand her more.

So yeah, uni. We recently (well, more like 2 weeks ago) did a test in my Japanese class and we found out the results for the test and guess what.... I came first place out of the entire class! Ye-ah. No seriously, it's a big class as well. I didn't even think my %-age was that high. Ya'll should've done better. Maybe I should make a post about how frustrating my fellow Japanese class students are; maybe not. I already put all my pent up annoyances in my journal. I still enjoy my Japanese classes though, just 'cause I love learning Japanese and the teacher likes me because I'm the best. lol.
You don't understand, I'm never #1 in anything (well, apart from my Korean class two years ago).

In other news, the student union STILL hasn't gotten back to me on withdrawing my membership from the Hip Hop classes. It's ridiculous, it must have been like 6 weeks already since I first contacted them. I'm getting tired of their attitude towards this. They obviously just want my money - my entire £20 smh -__-
Oh well.
I'm just laughing at them really. How a group of people that are supposed to be professional operate so unprofessionally.

Well, I could tell you some other things but I might be the only one who finds them interesting. lol. Things are calming down workload wise, so I will be able to upload more often. If I get ideas. I might put up that '50 Facts About Me' post and I'm watching 'The Heirs' right now and plan to do a review of that once it's all over. I swear it's sooo interesting now. With *spoiler alert* Young Do pushing Eun Sang against the wall. I'm sorry (not sorry) but that was so so sexy! I actually like Young Do's character ever since last week. I was forcing myself not to like him (it wasn't that hard) because although Kim Woobin is one of my top favourite Korean actors, Young Do was such an immature bully; I wanted to put a bucket over his head and push him down the stairs (I want to do that Kim Woobin anyway..). But now things have changed: I now accept Eun Sang and Kim Tan as a couple ever since they were staring at each other with tears flowing from their eyes. But I feel so so bad for Young Do. He's kept Eun Sang and Tan's secret (just about) and he's just heart broken because Eun Sang doesn't want him, she wants his worst enemy. Poor baby. He's just such an unlucky little kid, really. I just want his mother to come back and give him a big hug while he cries into her shoulder. It'll be such a touching scene that someone finally loves him. I also want him to get together with Rachael. Seriously, they were made for each other; both troubled, both abandoned by the ones they love, they need each other and they look so good together. In fact, I ship them in real life. Forget that Yoo Ji Ahn.

Anyway, life's good. How long will this last? When will it get better?

Yo, you should follow me on google+ I post some really interesting stuff on there. :D

Negativity post: The dark world of kpop + uni workload

The k-pop world is messed up seriously.
Sometimes I just want to escape it but EXO.
I've been feeling negativity these past two days from k-pop.

• In recent news: Ailee's naked pics from when she was young were revealed online by allkpop. Her ex-boyfriend who was her boyfriend at the time of her taking those photos is the vice-president of allkpop.
• A guard at an airport in Hong Kong forcibly pushed Jessica (my Jessica /sobs/) into a railing where she hurt her head and slumped to the floor. It is believed the guard thought she was a fan.
• T.O.P.'s comeback is in like 3 days. It's very sudden (this isn't negative news but I'm just worried that I won't like his music and that's bad because I'm his fan and have been since the very start of my kpop days).
• Minzy got a nose job. Her nose is visibly thinner. Her reps are denying the allegations of plastic surgery, claiming that she "just became prettier". :3
• Our beloved Boom has a gambling scandal.
• So does Andy from Shinhwa.
• Shinhwa are beating EXO in MAMA votes.

hmm, what else...

I don't know, maybe I'm just feeling negative because I'm running on such little sleep because I have so much uni work to do and it's only my first year. The prospects of having much more work in the second year is looming over me. If I can't even sleep because of the workload now, how will I survive next year?


To leave this on a happy note:
I'm not even sad about EXO not winning the Worldwide Act at the MTV EMAs. The whole ordeal was although tiring, a lot of fun and unified k-pop fans from different fandoms together. The fact that EXO got that far to represent Japan and Korea is a huge achievement in itself. And it's something that no other k-pop idol has ever done. I think one of the greatest thing's we as EXO-stans got out of this was Directioners converting to EXO fans :) Welcome to the fandom!
I'd like to take this opportunity to say congratulations to Chris Lee. She deserved it as much as EXO.

I can't believe I found you!

You know when something good happens in your day (it doesn't even necessarily happen to you) and you just can't help but smile to yourself about it for the rest of the day or rest of the night because it keeps coming back into your head.
I love that.
It's happened twice in the past 2 weeks.

Today... I found a kpop fan! In my uni. I have been talking to this girl for the past two weeks on some days whenever I've seen her because she was a mutual friend but a conversation we had today just kind of ended up along the lines of "cute korean guy" and then "I can speak some Korean" and then "Do you like kpop?" HELL YES! I can't believe it. Just the idea that I've been talking to this girl and she likes kpop! Not only that but she is a huge fan of EXO. EXO are my soul reason for living. Ok, not so much haha, but I do love them a loooot and to find another kpop fan in a sea of what looks to be non-kpop fans, was amazing. It was a God-send really. I now have someone to talk about my 12 boys with in my uni... I could just cry...

Well, that's what I couldn't stop smiling about today.
There are more kpop lovers on my campus I'm sure. I just have to find some, subtly.