Current Events > The Kpop feed somehow slithered into my Twitter, and damn the toxicity...

(+) Yeah! (+)

Probably because I follow a lot of Jpop artists. I think It all started with Kohaku 2023 (A huge Japanese show where the biggest artists perform at the end of the year) and they had really popular Kpop groups dance around Yoasobi (The girl who sang the "idol" song).

A lot of kpop fans were pissed that they were dancing for a Japanese artist, saying that it was degrading. Forgetting the fact that they were literally IN FRONT of Nogizaka46 and Sakurazaka46, the two biggest Japanese idol groups in the world, and you could barely see their members behind the Korean groups.

I think from there, a lot of my feed has been infected with Kpop stans doxing people, going after other accounts, badmouthing new groups or other Japanese artist. Its actually kinda sickening. I swear some of these people are angry teenagers or just bots, itching to start arguments and division everywhere.

I kinda fin the whole K-pop explosion weird considered it kinda pushed Jpop from being more mainstream in Western Media (least from what I observed like there are sections dedicated to selling K-pop in retail)

Baha05 posted...

I kinda fin the whole K-pop explosion weird considered it kinda pushed Jpop from being more mainstream in Western Media (least from what I observed like there are sections dedicated to selling K-pop in retail)

I'm seeing from the media apparently Kpop is losing steam. I don't know at all from that side, but from the Jpop side, a lot of shit has absolutely exploded. So many more artists and genres in Jpop, even idol groups have become varied.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a resurgence of Jpop in the west. The only thing holding it back is Japan themselves. They have their own economy for music and entertainment and most companies/labels don't give a shit about foreign sales, since they're one of the biggest music industries in the world.

SpiritSephiroth posted...

I'm seeing from the media apparently Kpop is losing steam. I don't know at all from that side, but from the Jpop side, a lot of shit has absolutely exploded. So many more artists and genres in Jpop, even idol groups have become varied.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a resurgence of Jpop in the west. The only thing holding it back is Japan themselves. They have their own economy for music and entertainment and most companies/labels don't give a shit about foreign sales, since they're one of the biggest music industries in the world.

Apparently many Koreans today stopped listening to K-pop since they feel K-pop has been too internationalized and are targeting foreign audiences at the cost of domestic audiences. They moved on to other forms of pop like trot, an older style of pop that sound more like disco.

Fenriswolf posted...

Apparently many Koreans today stopped listening to K-pop since they feel K-pop has been too internationalized and are targeting foreign audiences at the cost of domestic audiences. They moved on to other forms of pop like trot, an older style of pop that sound more like disco.

Trot boom is so stupid. Even like around 30 years ago, it was deemed a pretty dated style of song. This is like if suddenly old flamboyant hair metal suddenly became the biggest genre, and you get muscly dudes in spandex and long dry curly hair being the forefront of media

It's also silly because you have genuinely really fucking good singers trained classically also take up the genre cuz it's so popular. It feels like a waste of talent but it's not like he was earning bank on his original genre.

This boom happened because of a tv show competition (Mr. Trot) and persisted probably because it's the most Korean centric thing in the goddamn world. Also it appeals to like a 50+ year range of audience, and modern K-pop realistically only appeals to like 10-20 years of range of ppl.

I hear the kpop industry is only owned by a handful of companies? Like 3 or 4?

SpiritSephiroth posted...

I hear the kpop industry is only owned by a handful of companies? Like 3 or 4?

Wouldn't surprise me, considering that only a handful of corporations basically run the entire South Korean economy. If megacorps do become a thing, they'll start there, first.

J-Pop wasn't mainstream enough like K-Pop. There's some famous groups like Morning Musume or AKB48 some people can recognize very easily. As you say, they new bands like Babymetal or LadyBaby (Kawaii metal bands) who became popular for crossovers like Super Mario Maker. And a lot of other pop bands became very popular for their Anisongs from ClariS to Momoiro Clover Z.

K-Pop was popular back in the late '00s, games like Audition and the Dorama mainstreams made these songs popular, after that, Gangnam Style made Korean music a main focus, and now, many of the japanese store are now selling Pepero and Poporo merchadising.

The Japanese media has to promote their own music, like in the early '00s, when you can find people who talk about L'Arc en Ciel, Orange Range, Rip Slyme, Nobodyknows+, HOME MADE KAZOKU, Sukima Switch, Kumi Koda or Asian Kung-Fu Generation because of their songs appearing as an opening/ending song for a certain mainstream anime.

SpiritSephiroth posted...

I hear the kpop industry is only owned by a handful of companies? Like 3 or 4?

Yep. It really reminds me of the boy band/girl band trend in the West of the late 90s/early 2000s, where the image of the band members are heavily controlled by the suits, and most of the songs were written by professional songwriters from some European country, which is why they sound so similar.