I’ve been listening to K-pop ever since about……2018-2019? That shouldn’t be a long time but it kind of is now at this point. I still consider myself a K-pop fan because while I have definitely seen my tastes evolve and I listen to all sorts of music now, I spent a lot of the past few years listening to K-pop music and still do.
But to put a long story short, I have not stanned any group in ages. I’ve been entirely passive with my engagement with K-pop culture in these past few years. I remember WJSN’s music being very, very important to me around the years 2023-2025, and I’ve basically swept their discography from top to bottom. But if you try and ask me to name a member of the top of my head? I once told someone I was only familiar with “Bora”. Lol.
Aside from that, I really only get close to stanning a group if I like their music which I will play on loop but that’s about it. If I get recommended lots of content about them and even find their MVs and performance stages interesting then that’s already huge for me. Last group that I actually went moderately crazy for was Newjeans but we all know how that went down. And recently, I’ve had Nmixx and Kiiikii on rotation – because their recent stuff is amazing! Have I watched a single performance stage/lifestyle vid of Nmixx though? Well….I’ve seen short clips of Lily’s funny livestreams! Can I name a single member of Kiikii? Uh….Candy Pink Magic Hole Flip Phone is amazing!
I find it hard to relate to other K-pop fans nowadays, be it on twitter, discord, and even on reddit. It’s probably because there’s a not-too-wide but still significant age gap between me and modern gen fans or that they’re really not my kind of company. I don’t know a lot of K-pop fans irl but the ones I get to meet are either just very casual listeners of the genre, or are very knowledgeable and up-to-date with their faves and have a lot to say about their singing, dancing, issues, and all that stuff. Both of which I’m not.
And also, I just don’t feel like stanning most K-pop groups nowadays. It’s not necessarily that I don’t have the energy but I just don’t feel like it. That’s all I can say. A lot of the groups I found a home in back when I first became a K-pop fan are either inactive as a group now, are problematic, or are unfortunately just not that interesting to me anymore. I got the idea to write this post because every now and then I see news about new groups killing it in the industry and breaking new records. And so one day last month, I found myself being curious about all the newer K-pop groups that are popular nowadays so I decided to re-immerse myself back into K-pop culture. But after getting invested and going like 15 or so songs from different groups (some of which I thought were good), I remember going: “Wow. I don’t find any of these groups interesting at all.” And then I felt profoundly sullen for a brief moment and I still don’t really know why.
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