mine, too! younger actors rarely catch my attention (blame it on all the ultra handsome ahjussis who won’t let me pause to look elsewhere), but Nam Da Reum always manages to make me sit up and take notice. I got such a shock when I saw he was enlisting… hope time flies and we see him as a main lead soon!
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Happy to see you today, @vivi_1485. I feel like you were absent for a couple days, and I was about to start getting worried.
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yep… I came down with the virus(yes, covid), so I wasn’t able to do much for a few days. Thankfully, it wasn’t very bad and I’m getting better now 
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OH NO, Vivi! I’m glad it was mild though and that you’re on the mend!
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Aw, I’m sorry to hear that. I have just recovered from it myself (except I still can’t taste anything). I’m glad to hear you are on the mend. Take care of yourself.
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I am happy that you are recovering. I tested positive a couple of days back, too. A short break from everything and some medications made me better.
Please take care of yourself. Everything is opening up again in the country, I wish it wouldn’t be like last year.
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Thanks! 
Your info shares keeps me in the know! 
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Year of the Tiger!
2022!!
(*❛‿❛)→ 
check link below!
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May 15, 2021
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So sorry to hear that you are sick with virus, @vivi_1485. Keeping you in my thoughts and prayers that you will have a speedy recovery and no side effects. Hope you feel better soon!
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@my_happy_place @shraddhasingh
So sorry to hear you were sick with the virus! Keeping you in my thoughts and prayers for a full recovery and no “long covid”.
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Thank you for the kind words 
@my_happy_place and @shraddhasingh glad you both are getting better too! Thankfully, my sense of taste never left me, so i think i got a lighter version of the virus. Let’s all get well asap!
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vivi, I hope you are doing well today
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So, I don’t follow DAWN and Hyuna but congratulations to them on their engagement! I love just how low key the announcement was just in the sense of how normal it was. No apologies, no formal letters pleading/begging fans to accept the engagement. Just a post on IG. Maybe K Entertainment Industry is one step closer to treating celebrity love relationships as part of their lives? I hope so.
And can I just say I LOVE their matching engagement rings! They are so cool and different! It’s refreshing to see something other than diamonds. Opals also symbolize love and hope.
https://www.soompi.com/article/1511271wpp/hyuna-and-dawn-show-off-matching-rings-in-surprise-engagement-reveal
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Congrats to them!
I think it helps that they have been very public with their relationship for years now, so their engagement is not really a surprise. When their relationship was first revealed, they did have to leave their previous agency but luckily found an agency that would support them. I love that they were both willing to risk it all for the sake of each other. Best wishes for their future!
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Gosh! That’s terrible that they had to leave their previous agency just because they loved each other and were in a relationship. K Entertainment industry is really too much. I find it just so weird that celebs having a partner is such an issue. I’m glad they were able to find another agency. Thanks for the info.
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Vice Asia kicks off K Pop month (February 2022) with an interesting interview with a former BTS Trainee. From what I could gather, Ji Hun was one of the finalists for the group and was cut at the very end after training together with the other members for many months. It was an interesting story as we don’t really see very much about what happens to former trainees. He mentioned he could have tried to go to another agency but surprisingly he did not. Perhaps by the time his mother’s health situation improved he felt it was too late to try again, or there could have been other factors. The video doesn’t really explore that decision. I found his lack of bitterness amazing, although you could definitely feel his sadness at not being able to debut with the others. I wish him all the best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rli94zPzjM
Also watched this fascinating mini documentary about EXP Edition, the first Non Korean K Pop Group.
For me, music is music and nobody “owns” it, so good luck to these guys. However, it seems anytime someone outside the expected demographic wants to join in a pop music genre, they get backlash.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufR8gapauVo
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I think the biggest issue there was that they lied to the company, stating that they weren’t dating when they were. So Cube terminated the contract stating trust issues. “How can we defend y’all and release proper statements if y’all lie to us?” That sort of thing.
Cube is known for being terrible with scandals, anyway. They’ve kicked other artists out for extremely stupid reasons.
this is always kinda sad to read. EXO’s Suho trained with SHINee for a very long time - and then SHINee debuted without him. He had to wait four more years for his EXO debut - a total of six years’ training, while Chen and Baekhyun trained for only around four months. I guess thats what makes him such a good, responsible leader, but it must have been so frustrating for him.
It’s so nice that Ji Hun doesn’t seem to hold resentment in his heart, because that’s such a sad thing to go through! Not many even know who he is
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I didn’t know the part of the story where they lied about it all at first. I’m not even sure how they were found out. It had been years by that point. I just knew that they ended up leaving and going somewhere else.
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I also don’t think anyone “owns” music, but sometimes it feels like these people are just trying to ride on the popular k-wave. I think people’s backlash is justified - you expect Korean/mostly Korean with other far-east Asian artists to be part of Korean pop. Using the “everybody is part of American pop” argument isn’t really reasonable because then you have discuss who an “American” is. Far-east Asians share similar features and usually fit in a K-pop crowd. It would be pretty weird to have a British or Chinese actor as a main hero in Bollywood movies, even if they spoke fluent Hindi. They just aren’t Bollywood. Even North-east Indians have a hard time getting main roles.
Like the guy in the video said, i thought this was a cash gimmick. guess they’re serious about breaking into the K-pop industry/appealing to the Korean(?) audience and doing their thing… Why would you sing, dance and try to adopt a culture that is not yours? idk. I don’t know where copying stops and a new genre starts. Even though there are bands with lots of non-korean members, i haven’t seen any k-pop groups completely filled with non-korean members. The majority is usually Korean. If the majority is Chinese, they’d sing Chinese, promote in China and be cpop. In the video, they said that the angry non-kpop fans are exoticizing k-pop. So are these group members also exoticizing them by trying to be like them? Again, i don’t know how to define “genre” and separate it from “copying/exoticizing”.
More than the music, i feel like it’s the outward differences that make k-pop a different genre. A lot of k-pop music is written by non-Asians. There’s really very little difference between the sound of American pop and the sound of Korean pop now. It’s the style, the makeup, the choreography and presentation that sets kpop apart now. And the problem is - they can pull it off better because of their genetic makeup. They’re slender and petite, and we all know theyre able to keep their youthful look longer. You can pull of cute, bright, light-colored concepts well only if you look young, like a child. These concepts and color palettes - with multicolored hair and overall “animated” look - are not uncommon to see in Disney Channel shows. Zac Efron as Troy from HSM wouldnt look very out of place in a k-pop MV. But he wouldn’t fit in anymore. Justin Bieber could have been classified a k-pop artist in 2013 - he was cute and smiley, he sang, he danced, he had hair that fell over in front of his eyes. But he can’t pull off those concepts anymore because he looks older. HRVY blended effortlessly into the NCT DREAM collab, but he probably won’t be able to do it after a while. Koreans and other far-east Asians can keep their unreal youthful look for longer, and i think their dimensions make them look like… wheres the word for this? Animated, slender, non-human characters. This is why Asians pull off cosplaying anime characters better than others. The colorful makeup and accessories don’t look very out-of-place on them. Perm Chanyeol’s hair, color it bubblegum pink, let it look bigger than his face, and put him in an oversized onesie - he’d look like a cute, giant five year old even though he’s a 6’1, 29 year old adult - and he’d HATE every minute in it. We’ve all seen Koreans stick people in their 30s into school uniform, paint them a little, and they’re magically fifteen years younger.
But EXP just looks kinda weird because the members aren’t boys anymore, and their genes make them have stronger features and build. There are abundant comments saying they look like “old people”. The makeup just doesn’t work.
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