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halliescomut · 8 months

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To Bang Chan: Social Path M/V Breakdown

Ok, so I wasn't doing this in an effort to write a 3 page essay about the MV for Social Path as Bang Chan instructed, I was just genuinely engrossed with the messaging and visuals that I wanted to talk about it, & then we ended up here.

Alright, so this is going to be me talking through what I was feeling/gleaning from both the lyrics and the visuals for Social Path…

TW: Self Harm and/or suicide (spoken about very delicately, but it's there), anxiety, depression.

First for context: PBP mean Paper Bag Posse and refers to the people with paper bags on their heads throughout the video.

I am using Sweater -- , Post Apocalyptic --, and Red -- to refer to the different wardrobes worn by the Kids throughout the video.

Sweater Kids

Red Kids (Yes, I know not ALL of them are in red, but it’s most and it’s fine.

Post Apocalyptic Kids (abbreviated on PA Kids)

If we are going to create an overarching story…here’s what I see. Sweater Kids are trapped somewhere with the nameless/faceless PBP. The Red Kids come for them, and as the PA Kids they find LiSA and stand together at the end.

As far as the symbolism of the PBP, I think their faceless-ness is entirely intentional, they can be anything and anyone.

Watching Sweater Hyunjin’s story specifically through the video, it made me think of faceless accounts online, antis leaving hateful and hurtful messages, and we start with Sweater Hyunjin just sitting on the bed, the PBP is there, they’re watching him. Then when we return, they’ve come in closer, fully invading his space, even putting hands on him, and he’s afraid, he makes himself small in the face of all of these figures.

Later, when he’s pushing through them, he’s not afraid anymore, if anything I’d say he’s angry. It very much reminded me of the feeling I had when we got the choreo video for Play with Fire. How that was one of the first things we saw after his hiatus. And that performance to me has such a feeling of anger but also defiance and determination, and that’s the same emotion I’m seeing in the final scene for Sweater Hyunjin.

Sweater Changbin, it’s really interesting, because he only appears in the sweater for one scene, almost completely un-cut. He’s tossing and turning from a nightmare, is shocked awake by either the nightmare or the storm outside, it’s ambiguous, but the small flash of nightmare we see is these grabbing hands. He moves from the bed to the window, watching the storm, which combined with the lyrics of the sun rising tomorrow, kind of gives the feeling of him saying I can weather this storm.

Sweater Han also only appears in one portion of the video, during which he is in the mirrored room. He’s also chained, unlike IN who is the only other KID to appear in the mirrored room. We’ve seen the sort of glass case before, in Lonely Street, when Hyunjin is actually inside of it, and Felix outside. In that video it’s an image that gives this heartbreaking sense of isolation and being lost (astray), which is then multiplied when you realize Felix is actively seeking Hyunjin, but unable to find him. This idea of being so close yet so far.

But it’s different here with Han. His emotions here, there’s fear, there’s confusion, even sadness.

I do think it’s particularly interesting that Changbin and Han are the only ones we don’t see with the PBP, which I think is interesting. It almost to me indicates that their ‘enemy’ isn’t other people. For Changbin, this idea combined with interviews and things in the past, makes me think of how he’s talked about how he can get stuck in the dark thoughts of his own mind. That while he tends to be quite silly sometimes, his solitary thoughts do tend towards darkness, and that’s part of why he often finds himself with the other Kids, because that helps to pull his mind away from those things. With Han, it’s a similar vibe, less that his mind is a place of temporary fear (like Changbin’s nightmare) but more that it can be a prison.

One that keeps him stuck in multiple ways even, both being inside the mirrored space itself, and also being chained. In terms of him being in the mirrored room, a space where he sees himself no matter where he looks, it feels like being forced to perceive your true self, and it’s a contrast to IN inside the mirrored room, which we’ll circle back to.

Next, I’m going to talk a bit about Sweater Lee Know. We find him, again surrounded by the PBP, on the bed, and they’re all sort of holding him aloft. And as we watch we see them reaching their hands over the edges of the bed, reaching for him. It comes to a point where the last shot we see of Sweater Leeknow, he has made himself small as well, wrapping his arms around he’s knees, and sort of pulling away from all the edges of the bed.

Now since his scenes are intercut with Hyunjin’s and even Seungmin’s I get the vibe that the PBP here could be faceless internet people, but the holding him aloft thing….that makes me think of holding him on a pedestal, like putting him out of reach in a way. It’s sort of a new layer of isolation. But the other thought I had, especially with the context that much of the lyrics were reflections on their trainee days, was that what if these were trainees as well, not the other Kids, but just other trainees at JYPE. I’ve talked some before about how I think Lee Know’s age combined with his previous experience as a professional dancer set him apart as a trainee. Now this sounds positive, and is in many ways, but being set apart because of your talent or skill level is also quite isolating. I’ve also talked about how I think his skill and experience as a dancer also led to higher expectations in other areas (vocals/rap), leading to greater stress when those things didn’t come as easily as dance. I also don’t think those expectations were all external, I think Lee Know himself was often holding himself to a standard far higher than was reasonable based on the time he was given to learn these new aspects of being an idol. While I maintain that his elimination was essentially done for views, that doesn’t stand in opposition to the understanding that he had nowhere near the amount of practice time or past experience of the others in terms of his vocals/rap, but where he needed to be given grace, instead he was eliminated.

Next is Sweater Seungmin. Like Hyunjin I think he has one of the bigger arcs we see in the story of the MV. When we first see him he’s fleeing the PBP, it’s very frantic, they’re in a small hallway that feels almost claustrophobic.

When we come back to Seungmin, he’s calm. The PBP have caught up with him and surrounded him, but he’s not making attempts to break out, he’s simply standing. They’re also not reaching for him anymore, seemingly satisfied that he’s been ‘caught.’ Now I would almost think something along the lines of ‘music soothes the savage beast’ and Seungmin’s angelic voice is enough to stop the PBP in their tracks, but what I really kind of feel in the moment is more akin to him no longer caring. His casual stance, the hands in the pockets, it’s not just “I’m no longer afraid” it’s “You have no power here”.

It’s a similar idea to what we see with Hyunjin, but where Hyunjin fights back with this sort of passionate fire, Seungmin has instead employed this cold disinterest. In terms of how this relates to Seungmin’s own journey as a Stray Kid, one of the observations I’ve made and seen over the past year or so is Seungmin’s increased confidence. I think he’s always had a level of confidence in his singing abilities, though even in the SS we saw him actively working to improve the way he brought emotion into the lyrics of their songs, making his performance not just technically perfect, but also emotionally touching. This is a skill he’s been complimented on by many, including very notably Changbin. But his own, sort of individualized confidence as Seungmin the person, I think has been building over the last 5 years as he’s matured and he’s very much come to stand as his own man in the last year or so.

IN…Oh, IN is so fascinating in this MV. He’s always slightly different from the other Kids. Firstly, while everyone else shows this fear of the PBP, Sweater IN never does. When we first see him, they're in the corridor again, but IN is completely still. The PBP walk around him, practically not noticing him at all.

When we see him again, he’s crouched, then begins to stand, reaching up to a light. Around him are more PBP, sort of moving closer to him, but still there’s no fear, his movements are calm, fluid.

Where we've see Han in the mirrored space, IN is there as well, but it’s not Sweater IN, it’s PA IN. And again there’s no expressions of fear, and what makes this interesting, is that if the mirrored space is meant to sort of convey this idea of being stuck in your own mind, of having to truly perceive yourself, IN is able to do that without distress.

When you take his actions that are a direct opposite to every other Kid in the MV and combine it with the lyrics he repeats…it tells an interesting story. “They’re making me laugh, it’s so loud. Waking the demon that’s hiding inside.” Now in SKZ lore there’s always been some interesting things going on with IN, whether he’s a villain, or has ulterior motives of some sort. And even outside of the LORE, he’s frequently used as this unassuming but dangerous thing. The most direct example of this being the Freeze MV story, where we find out that IN is in fact the sort of villainous mob boss that they were tracking, and he had infiltrated them. But what makes me pause, especially with the lyrics, especially with IN’s behavior in the MV, is the sort of context we often hear the word demon in in regard to Stray Kids. So, my immediate thought was a clip from Chan’s room, where he says “be proud of that little demon inside you” but it also brings to mind the concepts for maniac about how we often keep our true selves hidden for fear of reprisal. So with IN, I feel like we’re almost meant to feel like he’s become one with himself, he’s sort of reached this level of self-actualization, he’s not afraid to be his true self, so why should he fear these faceless crowds, or looking himself in the mirror?

Channie, oh Channie, this one…it’s affecting, I’ll give you that. So, Sweater Chan’s story seems the most confusing to me. The first clips are of Chan floating in just this dark void, then we find him running from the PBP, who catch up to him eventually, pushing him against a wall and many of their hands coming to his throat. When we find him again, he’s in the red-shaded room, surrounded by the PBP and he’s like starting to float up.

So, the question is: him floating above the PBP, does it circle back to him floating in the black void, or are they separate things? I lean towards separate, since we also get a small glimpse of Chan sort of jerking awake form a nightmare. It sort of feels to me like these are almost a series of nightmare situations. We have total isolation, Chan alone in darkness. We also have Chan sort of floating up and away, and if we stick with his theory of the PBP can be anyone, I almost sort of feel like in that moment they’re trainees again, and this is debuting. But where it should be joyous, it’s reminiscent of death scenes in film, where a soul ascends to a new life, perhaps the death of youth as one moves towards the future? Moving back to the Chan that’s being chased, I’m certain there’s significance to the idea and the visual of all of these hands coming up to his neck, and we have a couple potential options.

In this moment, I almost feel like we’re back to the faceless strangers with the PBP, and that this is perhaps suffocation, but something that kept niggling at my brain was the lyrics “еverуоne keeps turnіng mе down.” It’s incredibly common for all of 3racha to create lyrics that can be perceived in a myriad of ways, and while interpreting this phrase through a lense of social interaction, you think ‘turning down’ as in not wanting to date, be friends, hang out, etc. Turning down the opportunity of your company. But looking at it from the perspective of a musician, it makes me think of turning down the volume, essentially silencing them. And that’s kind of the visual I get here as well, Chan being silenced, or feeling unable to speak, in the ‘face’ of the PBP.

Finally, we have Sweater Felix. We start off with Felix in the bed, just sitting in the center, and while he does, the PBP is surrounding him, but they’re not still, not like they were with Hyunjin.

Here we see something like a timelapse, and Felix is still, but the PBP has people moving in and out of frame around him, which I actually didn’t really notice my first several watches, it wasn’t until I started editing the video to sort of make individual stories that I saw it. And what it brings to my mind is the zoo, like Felix is an exhibit, sitting perfectly while people come and observe and leave. It gives the feeling again of that isolation, but also captivity. When it cuts back to Felix, he’s now standing on the bed (literally taking a stand) and, we hear the lyrics “Them voices in my heаd again, I gоtta shakе ’em off now”. What I particularly find concerning is that when we return to Felix the third time, he now has the angel wings, and the lyrics now are “No way back to the past”.

Now we know that none of 3racha, or really any of the Kids shy away from talking about deep topics, they work hard to put them into their mainstream songs, but even beyond that they tackle very complex and potentially dark topics in things like the SKZ-Records where they have a lot more creative freedom. So, I don’t find it outside of the realm of possibility that the Sweater Felix scenes could refer to instances of people going to extremes to escape negative voices, and it’s not the first instance we see of Felix being representative of such ideas, there’s a similar visual metaphor in Lonely Street, of Felix holding a finger gun to his head before turning it on his shadow.

And the reference to voices could mean negative voices like depression, when we say the PBP can be anyone/anything, it could be ‘Felix’ under all those bags, a concept Stray Kids has touched on before in their song Voices. But it also could mean negative voices coming from other people, things like bullying, and with the facelessness aspect of the PBP, things like cyberbullying. These are issues which everyday people deal with, but are also rampant in the KPop space, not just for Stray Kids, but for all Idol groups.

I will be back with a second portion, I'm out of images :) per Tumblr post rules.

#Social Path #Social Path Stray Kids #LiSA #Bang Chan #Lee Know #Changbin #Hyunjin #Han Jisung #Felix #Seungmin #Jeongin #Stray Kids Stay #Social Path MV Analysis #Music Video Analysis

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