Please share all your Jopping thoughts! I am now exceedingly curious.

L;AKSDJF;LASDKJFL;SDAKJF ANON I LOVE YOUUUUU

i dont remember if i kept this in my maximalist kpop post or not but i had wrote a whole section about how the concept of superm as a group is maximalism and everything that they did is probably the purest form of kpop performance spectacle that we've seen in the last several years. kpop has always been about taking random americanisms and extrapolating them into a weird and altogether new conglomorate of cultural hybrid bizarreness and superm ramps that up to 100 (pun intended). the disparate visual western touchstones (cars/motorsports, cowboys, big tech + machines, superheros, military, collegiate gear) all crammed together with choreo that goes extremely hard for no reason, stupid and cringe (complimentary) english lyrics, completely over the top studio set pieces, and all done by a group that's literally assembled from defining groups of the last three generations, from the company that pioneered the industry? how can it be anything except the pinnacle of modern kpop? people can make the arguments all they want that sm was attempting to pander to the west in the vein of bts, but what those people miss is that superm was never totally westernized in the way that bts has been in their recent endeavours. superm maintains a sense of koreanness throughout not only their music (promoting i can't stand the rain on the ellen show along with jopping, none of their title songs being fully in english) but also visually with tiger inside, which has become their most popular song second to jopping. sm was very careful not to sacrifice the threads of what makes kpop korean with superm, and that's what makes everything about what they were doing work.

handsome Baekhyun answering fans’ concerns and revealing secrets (he is an ESTJ now :p)

kai, taemin, and krystal for w korea issue, "daisy illusive vol. 1 & 2", july 2015

for mel @njaems 💕

mark lee 🍉 990802

super one really was such a a superb album. i hate u all, super m haters 😭

i always knew superm would come back to me 🙏 they literally changed the trajectory of my life forever

I love your point about maximalism and embracing the spectacle being backbones of kpop and part of what sets it apart from other genres because I think that’s very true. I don’t listen to kpop expecting some heartfelt authentic song that I personally relate to. If I wanted that, I could go listen to any singer at almost any bar in my city sing about their depression or something. I want like an insane fantasy unattached from my regular life that isn’t about girls/cars/money, which is the only alternative reality you find in most western pop. Bonus points for insane production to go with the insane lyrics rather than just more of the same 2-4 measure instrumental motif repeated for an entire song.

(Also, gotta say - SM had serious confidence showing up in America with lyrics the level of cringe of Jopping, because a lot of Americans have way too many mean opinions that they shout confidently, especially at non Americans. But honestly SuperM’s unironic embrace of the cringe made me like Jopping even more. It’s also a crime they didn’t promote their full album in 2020 more. I know it was the early pandemic and they couldn’t figure out what to do if they couldn’t come to the US, but that album was 100% bangers and it deserved more)

exactly! even within the k music industry you can find musicians that make 'authentic' music, it's not that hard to find at all. but you cannot expect it from idol music, because idol music is a specific form of performance. idol music is engineered to be about spectacle; you cannot separate the visual element from it because it was essentially formulated for television and large scale broadcast. expecting idol music to forgo that element is like expecting the same from an opera. the point of an opera is that it is every art form combined together to make the greatest spectacle story possible, and kpop has exactly the same function, just crammed down into four minutes instead of four hours.

It's been years i'm still so mad about jon kent getting aged up

kai for w korea

minnie film strip, yuqi poster & pc, shuhua pc & lucky draw.......and miyeon lucky draw :D

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Why There Was Barely Any Good Canon Het Ships on YJ - an essay by Coffee Booh

me, staring at the rumor tweet that superm will no longer be permanent:

i mean YEAH? like you’re asking the members of that group to have two “full-time” jobs so of course they’re gonna be more loyal to their first/debut fanbase?? this isn’t like a solo or unit project where it’s your side hustle. you were literally trying to get these guys to have two full time commitments ?? what did you think was gonna happen ???

sm the ballad, sm the performance, younique unit, smtown albums...all those collabs were fun because they weren’t permanent !!

i literally said this to my former coworkers the other day but people at the c/exec suite are crowned clowns that know nothing about what clients want or what their employees think