Social media communities

The only social media community I'm a part of is a kpop comminutity. It's more of a world winde family actually. My community is twitter based, so all of my friends are there. It's the reason I have two separate accounts: one for my personal life and one for kpop. I usually out my personal life on my kpop twitter account, but never the other way around. It's not like we only talk about kpop though. We talk about our problems,relationships,and everything else. Our common ground is kpop though. 

Social Media

So social media. What is it? Well it's more than liking your friends' picture on Facebook or retweeting on Twitter. Social media is a world of it's own filled with different ways to contact, relate to, and reach out to various audiences around the globe. Until recently, I thought social media was used by people of younger age. Never did I even suspect that companies looking for future employees would use social media to finalized their decision. It makes sense now as to why they would, but I never really thought about it. There's even a website for professional social media, something else I only knew of recently. I mostly use twitter and sometimes Facebook to express what I feel, but there are other ways as well, and example being storify. Creating stories out of tweets? Who would've thought it! All it takes is a few keywords and you have tweets relating to those words. You can pretty much sum up your life with storify. Though I may not ever use these new social media tactics, I'm glad I at least know about them now.

Open Your Eyes

K-pop is a music genre that is not only popular in South Korea and Asia, but in other various parts of the world with the exclusion of America. Unlike other countries, America refuses to accept K-pop and we, the supports of K-pop, have had enough. Because of this closed-minded way of thinking, most Korean artists will not hold concerts in America for the fear of being rejected. This has to end now. Recently, a Korean girl group named T-ARA performed at Palms Pool in Las Vegas, but they weren’t greeted with warm smiles and loud applause like they would have received in Korea. No. they were booed off of the stage. This rejection was started because of Chris Brown’s action. While they were performing, he interrupted their performance to announce his own album. The music was started again and the girls of T-ARA had to scramble around to find their positions. They were eventually booed off of the stage. What Chris Brown did shows how afraid of change most Americans think K-pop is unimportant. He deemed himself worthy enough to interrupt a performing group to promote himself. Did the audience mind? No. of course they didn’t. They were so star struck by the oh so famous and spectacular Chris Brown that they didn’t even care about T-ARA’s performance. If Chris Brown hadn’t have interrupted, the crowd might have gained knowledge of a whole new world and culture. Instead kept to their roots and booed right along with everyone else. Another girl group named The Wonder Girls decided to test their fame in America. Needless to say, they weren’t very popular. The music industry in America and in South Korea differs in many ways. In America, girl or boy groups aren’t popular anymore whereas in South Korea they’re more popular than solo artists. The costumes and hairstyles don’t grasp the American market either. But the most intimidating thing to Americans is the language. “I can’t listen to something I don’t understand.” We are supposed to be a country of all different cultures yet we can’t accept South Korean music because we “don’t understand the language”. This is said more times than I’d like to hear. Half of the time, no one understands these pop singers at all due to the amount of auto-tune used to make their voices sound somewhat decent. In the end, you still have to look up the lyrics to their song. How is listening to Korean any different? For a diverse country, America is very narrow-minded. We stick to our electronic, auto-tuned, gaudy pop music sung by people who have probably never had a singing lesson in their life. We cling to the awful rap music with lyrics speaking of sex, drugs, money, and women. These artists are worshipped and loved by all when they’re not really artists at all. I can name ten artists that sound so much better than your beloved pop celebrity, but will you give them a chance? No. why not? Why not listen to something that will not only put you in a great mood with their amazing vocals, but could introduce you to a whole new genre of artists like this rather than listening to two different songs with the same instrumentals and meaning but sung by different artists? America, you need to open your eyes! We the K-pop supporters are ready to take a stand. We’re tired of being criticized for our love of K-pop and the Korean culture. We’re tired of hearing our genre of music being called ‘ching chong’ music. We are tired of being treated like outcasts. No, we don’t want to be Korean. No, we aren’t acting like Koreans. NO, we aren’t denying our own cultures and races. We are simply enjoying music. Why can’t that be seen? We, the K-pop supporters, have come up with a solution to this problem. We demand that at least one K-pop song be played on the radio a day. This way, Americans can be more exposed to K-pop. This will allow people who are intimidated by change to warm up to the idea of this new world of musical culture. We also demand that derogatory comments toward K-pop be blocked. Saying that K-pop sucks or is stupid adds no constructive criticism nor is it even relevant. These comments should be blocked and removed by the site. We, the k-pop supporters, will not rest until k-pop is included in the Billboard’s Top 100 and other American music charts. If k-pop was advertised in these charts or on the radio, k-pop would have more publicity and then maybe k-pop artists would have more publicity. They’d have a chance to be successful in the one country they desire to please the most. Allowing k-pop to become a part of our world would show that we indeed ARE as diverse as we say we are. It would show that we can be accepting towards other cultures and their music. We, the supporters of K-pop, request that K-pop be considered a genre and taken seriously. Korean artists work just as hard as American artists, if not harder, just to get some recognition. They want to be famous and known worldwide and they deserve it. For years, they train with other aspiring stars. They’re giving singing lessons, dancing lessons, even acting lessons. It high time they receive the respect and acknowledgement they’ve worked so hard for. To the narrow-minded Americans, can you hear us now? Can you see our determination to change the way you think? Are you ready to succumb to the world of K-pop? Well, you have no choice. We, the supporters of K-pop, will see to it that our idols, the Korean stars that we love, will receive the love they receive from other countries. We will make sure to shower them with praise when they perform concerts here in America. We will show them that yes, they are wanted here. The Hallyu wave is here and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Yes, I'm mad.

Before I start my little story, let me just shed a little light on how Korean artists' Japanese albums work. For some reason, Korean singers think they just have to be successful in Japan, so they join a Japanese record label. Usually, the albums they release under this label come in three different versions: A standard edition with just the songs or single and a limited version with bonus tracks and a DVD that includes the music video and music video and photo shoot. The limited version can come in two forms: A or B. Both will have the music videos but they could include a different version video or the music video shoot. So now let me explain why I'm upset. This whole "let's put different goodies in each goody bag" gets quite annoying and expensive. Now, the album that I bought, SHINee's Boys Meet U single album, came in three version as well. In August when it was released, I planned on buying all three because I though they all came with different items that i just had to have. I wasn't able to buy them though for I had a few tuition fees to take care of. Last week, I finally had a little bit of money that wasn't going towards anything so I decided to finally buy the albums. But I didn't buy all three like I planned. When I researched the albums again, I figured out all three had the same three songs and the versions that included the DVD also had the same content. So why buy all three? So I ordered it and picked it up on Tuesday from the post office. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I'm all about my photo cards. That's really the only reason I buy albums. Even if I get a card of a member that's not my favorite, I still hang it on my wall because I love them all so in the end it doesn't matter. The post office workers decided to be extra slow that afternoon, so I ended up being late to class that day. Luckily she was just doing her opening introductions to the lecture and passing out a study guide for our test. I had some extra time and really couldn't wait until I got home to see which member's photo card I got, so I opened it in class. Let me tell you, I was so upset. It didn't come with a photo card. I took to twitter to ask why it didn't and my memory was refreshed. Japan decided that they just love draining the fans of their precious, heard earned money, so they decided to only put a photo card in the standard version rather than all three, which is why I planed on buying more than one version in the first place. I was so mad. SO MAD. I still am actually. I have two albums to buy that I never ordered from the lack of money AND an album to pre-order because SHINee decided that releasing two full Korean albums, a Repacked Korean album, a Japanese full album, a Japanese single album, and a Korean mini album wasn't enough for one year. Dear SHINee, please go to sleep until next year or something because I have no more money for you five gorgeous idiots. You have drained my bank account enough for 2013 so please go away. Sincerely, a very broke college student.

*Queue dramatic intro* SHINee's back!!!!

So there was a rumor that SHINee would be putting out their 7th release this year. 7th! I didn't believe it because they're currently active in Japan as well so it wouldn't make sense for them to make a Korean comeback so soon. Well, I was wrong!



SHINee's back with their 3rd mini album titled Everybody. This album with have seven songs. Earlier today, the music video for Everybody was released and for the first time I was disappointed in SHINee. Their music never fails to amaze me but it seems that this song just wasn't their best. There was way too much dubstep and the dance to this song seems kind of silly. There are some really great parts in the song and dance, but as a whole, it didnt impress me. Will that stop me from buying this album? No!

If anything, I'm buying the album for their song Symptoms. That song will probably be the death of me! The dance is amazingly sexy and goes great with the slow R&B style of the song. This dance and song, in my opionion, is a thousand times better than Everybody. I'll post the links of the live performances from this morning below. Let me know which you think is best!

Rothrick: An Aspiring Artist

Rothrick: An Aspiring Artist

Interviews over the phone are thought of as inefficient, seeing as you aren’t able to make the same connection with your subject as you would in a normal, face-to-face interview. That’s not always the case though. When I spoke with Rothrick Currie, I didn’t feel as though we were on the phone for over an hour or that I was doing an interview for a grade. It felt like we were old friends catching up after being apart for some time, though we hardly knew each other.

When I ask if he would allow me to interview him, he was more than happy to talk to me. He answered all of my questions, even if they were personal. That led me to believe that he wanted people to know more about him and his music. “I’m an opened book,” he stated, “I have nothing to hide.” He also portrays this image in his music.

In the beginning, Rothrick, only composed instrumentals for his uncle, who was a choir director of his church in Michigan. These instrumentals were used for special dance performances or recordings composed by choir members. As he continued to play around with the instrumentals, he learned how to make them sound even better than they did before. His uncle even started paying him for them. At that time, it was just for fun or to make easy cash. He never thought he’d ever want a career in music until he was asked to write lyrics to go with the music he was making. “I’m no poet, so my first answer was no. I thought about it some more though and figured I could at least try.”

He went on to say that he’d never even written a poem before let alone a song, so he had no idea where to even start. Putting his best foot forward, he started on his first song, which blew said friend out of the water. “He kept saying how good it was and that I should write lyrics more often, but I thought he was being nice.” When asked how he could write a song so impressive when he was so inexperience, he spoke of the one person who inspired him the most: Michael Jackson.

Rothrick has been a Michael Jackson fan for years, so when he decided he wanted a career in music, he used the King of Pop for his inspiration. Their music styles are nothing alike, Rothrick pursuing a rap career while Michael was a pop artist, but what inspired Rothrick the most about Michael was his perseverance and will to move forward. Through all of the scandals Michael went through, he still kept his head high and dominated the charts as well as world records. That’s what Rothrick dreams of doing. He started on making his dream a reality, making instrumentals and adding lyrics to make them full songs. The only thing he needed to do was record which turned out to be a problem for him.

“Recording equipment is expensive and I didn’t have the money to buy it, so I waited until my cousin came over to record.” He was in a tough spot at them time. The only income that was in his household at the time was his father’s and it wasn’t much. That left Rothrick unable to afford the equipment he needed to make his dreams come true. Luckily, he had family and friends that shared the same dream.

His cousin, Phil, would come over often and Rothrick was then able to record his music and upload it to various websites. One day, after Rothrick’s recording, Phil sampled the music and really enjoyed it. He suggested that they should do a collaboration. They tried writing lyrics together, but it failed a countless amount of times. Their rapping styles clashed too much for them to write an entire song together yet they wanted to be on the same song. Their solution was to bring in a third opinion. Their friend Freddy read their over their lyrics and added a few lines of his own and the song flowed much better than it did before.

            

     “Freddy was only supposed to be the tie breaker; he wasn’t supposed to join our group. But he did.” The three member group was formed over a small argument of who was right and who was wrong. They didn’t stop there though. They wanted their group to be bigger and a few of their other friends were also aspiring musicians. In the span of a week, the three member group became a six member group called The Wanted Team.

Rothrick realized that he liked being in the group more than being solo. “It’s less stressful when you have friends to help you with your lyrics,” he stated. When he can’t think of anything else to add to his own lyrics, he takes a look at his friends’ papers, curious as to what they were writing about. It gave him inspiration because he thought their lyrics were much better than his own. So to him, it was like a challenge. It gave him the fire and passion he needed to write and compose more music.

They were a group for a while before they were even close to making it big. Their first big gig was at a local club called Cloud Nine. They took their CDs and mixtapes to the music director and were given a spot opening for another local rapper. Rothrick was nervous. Never before had he been in front of so many people before in his life. “It felt like a dream and a nightmare at the same time.” As it turned out, it was more of a dream than a nightmare.

The crowd loved them. Everyone was dancing to their music and shouting their names. For a moment, it felt like they were performing their own show and not the opening act for another rapper . When they wrapped up their set, they were all walking on air, or at least it felt that way. Rothrick wanted nothing more than to go back on that stage and perform for the rest of the night. As they were leaving, they were approached by the same music director that gave them their slot. It turned out that the crowd loved them so much, that he was willing to give them their own show. “It felt as if my dreams were finally coming true. I was finally going to make it.”

Korean Idols Stole My Money

     I was in bed last weekend, being super unproductive, when I realized I had yet to buy SHINee's new Japanese single. It's been out since August and usually I pre-order their albums before they're released. So why don't I have this album yet? Because I have no money. Part of that is because of school: books, tuition that wasn't covered by financial aid, GAS MONEY TO GET THERE. These are only some of the reasons my bank account is a bit on the low side. The other reason? Well..............





     Those are just SHINee albums and they're not cheap AT ALL. The Japanese albums are always more expensive than the Korean albums. The concerts are TWICE as much. Sometimes, three times as much, but I buy them to support them! That and their music is REALLY good. I don't only buy SHINee albums though.





     The big Super Show 4 concert was $150! I don't even like that group that much, but my sister wanted it so I bought it for her birthday. The rest were decent prices: all around $20 or $40. Albums and concerts are great, but what's the point of getting them if you don't get the posters or photo cards?





     I prefer photo cards (small photos in the middle) to posters mostly because they come in the album and are FREE. Posters are usually $10 extra, so I've opted out of the poster option. To make things cheaper, I could just buy them on iTunes, but I wouldn't get the photo card or photo booklet that I get with the physical copy. I've only bought two albums on iTunes and that's because I was too excited to wait for my physical copy. Yes, I bought a digital copy AND a physical copy. To sum it all up, I'm a broke college student with an expensive hobby.


Side Note: I edited my Memoir post and added SHINee's Lucifer video. Go check it out!

Let me get excited

So this isn't my significant post for the week, but I just had to get a little excited over Jonghyun writing and singing with IU. He works so hard and I'm so proud of him!!! Jonghyun is a member from SHINee and IU is a very talented solo singer. Their paths have crossed but never like this so I'm really excited. 

K-pop: The Beginning of an Obsession

Three years ago, I embarked on a journey to a world that would not only consume me fully, but would hold me captive and would never allow me to leave. Yes, I’m talking about my first experience with K-pop and how it’s changed my life completely. I’d just gotten off of work that night and the first thing I did was check my Facebook notifications, like always. I had a few, most of them were replies to comments I’d sent earlier that day and a few likes on a picture I’d posted, but one stood out to me. It was a link to a video on YouTube, that was sent by a close friend of mine, with an attached comment saying I just had to listen to this song because it was so good, but I was instantly turned away from it just because of its title.

The song was called Lucifer and the thumbnail was of a guy with spiky hair wearing heavy eye-makeup in a dark setting. Now, I’m a Christian and this friend really wasn't so I was always kind of put off whenever she recommended music to me. Since the song was called Lucifer, I figured it was another song that would ridicule my religion or God, so I lied to her and said that I’d listen to it after I’d woken up later that day. I didn't.

Every time I got on Facebook, I saw that video link. In a way, it was haunting me. That guy with the dark eyeliner always greeted me whenever I logged in, like he desperately wanted me to listen to his song. But I didn't give in to him or his anti-religious song. To me, God was first and I never let myself indulge in anything that would ridicule him.

After a few months, I started to get annoyed by this link. There was no way of getting rid of it and no one had sent me any other links in a while. Sometimes, I just wouldn't even log in because I was so ashamed of having this anti-Christian music on my Facebook page. What if my mom or the people from church had seen it? What would they think? I’m not one who cares about what people think of me, but having someone believe I wasn't a Christian was unacceptable.

Finally, after about three months, I clicked on the link out of curiosity. It turned out to be an upbeat pop/electro song sung in Korean, a language I wasn't sure of at the time, by five guys. I remember replaying the beginning over and over just because the tutting section of the dance was so interesting. Sure, they were saying Lucifer, but I ignored that because I didn't know exactly what they were saying about Lucifer. They didn't look demonic either. In fact, they were extremely attractive.

I listened to Lucifer for a while, but eventually the song got old to me and I didn't care for it as much anymore. I continued listening to the mainstream pop music of America and underground metal until my sister started to show me music sung in the same language as Lucifer. She was instantly hooked while I was rather indifferent: the songs were ok but I didn't like them enough to actually listen to them on a daily basis.

It went on like this for several months. My sister made me listen to different songs and tried to get me to love K-pop as much as she did. I still didn't have a feel for it, at least, not until she showed me SHINee. Yes, I’d shown her the five member K-pop group first, but only for the dance since she loved to learn new dances. Now, she was showing me one of their older songs. I remember thinking where have I heard this song before? while I listened to it. It was so familiar and I nearly drove myself crazy trying to think of where I’d heard this song from. Then, I remembered that it was originally a song sung by an actor that eventually sold the song to SHINee. In the end, I was glad he did because I instantly fell in love with it.

Not only did I fall in love with that one song, I fell in love with them. My love for them escalated to the point where I knew everything about them, including their likes and dislikes or their pet peeves and odd habits. I even know things about their childhood upbringing and their family’s names. It may seem a bit obsessive from a non-K-pop fan’s point of view, but it’s not, especially for an international fan.

Being an international fan is difficult in many ways. You’re a world away from the group you adore. Tours, fan meetings, live broadcasts, none of those events are opened to you unless you live in Asia, or sometimes Europe. Learning everything you can about your favorite K-pop group gives you a sense of closeness and sometimes an understanding. Like knowing their backgrounds, knowing their hardships as well as their achievements makes their life more relatable to your own. Staying up until four in the morning just to stream their performances online makes you feel like you’re really there in the crowd rooting for them. Watching them smile and cry because they've won an award that you've voted for gives you a sense of happiness because you helped them and they are sincerely grateful to their fans. K-pop isn't just a hobby or just music, it’s a lifestyle.

I’m proud to be a K-pop fan, to be a fan of something that a lot of people don’t understand. To them, K-pop is just a bunch of Asians singing and dancing. To me and other fans, it’s so much more. Life for me has actually changed since I've become a fan of K-pop. I've become more confident after hearing SHINee tell me that, yes, I could succeed. Sure, they weren't talking directly to me, but to their fans as a whole, and I listened. I look to them for support I can’t find in friends or family. I recall the struggles they went through then look at where they are now and think if they can achieve their goals, I can achieve mine. I don’t ever regret becoming completely obsessed with K-pop and I don’t think I ever will.


Side Note: This is the Lucifer Video~

Welcome to my blog~

I was stumped for the longest as to what I could possibly write about music. I mean, it's such a broad subject and there's so much I could talk about. So how could I possibly talk about music in three paragraphs? Let me tell you, I still haven't figured it out. There's a lot I could talk about. A lot. 

I guess I should apologize in advance for getting over excited because I will eventually talk about my various kpop groups, especially SHINee. So again, if you're not into kpop, I'm terribly sorry. Not really. All of my posts won't be kpop related though. Some will be personal others will be fun and some could possibly downright depressing, depending on how I feel. All of them will relate to music though, since it's my theme. 

Forgive me if this is extremely boring. It's only an introductory and I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I want to say and how I want to say it. I'm thinking about reviews of new music or a weekly playlist or something. That sounds interesting right? I think so.

I'll probably only post once a week though. That is, unless SHINee outs out another album. Then I'll be all over this blog with pictures and links and it'll just be like "BOOM KPOP IN YOUR FACE!" I won't be like that all the time though, I promise. ^____________^ 

Bye for now.~

-Kenesha