Post your "UNPOPULAR" Japanese music opinions! / aka "HOT TAKES" :P

Japanese Music
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This is my facial expression right now after reading this article that surfaced shortly before I went to bed.

Let’s put all the obligatory “end of an era” and “I remember when I used the Classic with the scroll wheel” praise aside. This is not a good development and it has been on my mind all night and even this morning. It has me concerned about a few things, including how I’m going to manage my music in the future.

Long story short, in a very indirect way, I think that Apple discontinuing the iPod is really bad for fans of Japanese music and visual kei. Here are some quick reasons why:

  • There are some releases, especially from around the boom, that may only be available on iTunes. They would be hidden deep in the search algorithm and wouldn’t pop up unless you knew exactly what to search for. You can surf the seas for some of these but the links might be dead. These might not be long for this world. This ties into my next point which is…

  • iTunes on Mac has been decomposed into several apps and is functionally Apple Music now. More on that in a second, but iTunes remains on Windows primarily as a way for Windows users to sync their iDevices. However, this article suggests that Apple Music is coming to the Windows Store. With so much effort being pumped into Apple Music, there’s no reason to maintain iTunes. Some will say they’re functionally the same program, but their intent is different. iTunes’ intent was to help you manage your local library and maybe you can buy stuff from the iTunes store. Apple Music’s intent is to sell you a streaming service and oh, you can import your local tracks too! But for how long is that a temporary arrangement? I view the deprecation of iTunes as an attempt to make the development stack more lean, and killing off the iPod is a necessary step in that direction. But then that leans into my next point which is…

  • There’s no device on the market that does what the iPod touch does at the price point it does it at. There are $1000 Walkman’s with no Wi-Fi, $1000 SONY Devices I have to import from Japan with special dongles to communicate with my PC, and for as much as people say “slap an SD card in and use your phone” there is utility in having a separate device just for music so I don’t have to sacrifice videos, pictures, or other apps on my phone in exchange for more music. No sharing battery life either. An iPod touch is much smaller and more comfortable than an iPhone or iPad. Also, managing all of those other devices are a pain in the ass and iTunes just handles it for me. Not only that, the device is physically solid and has really good audio output. Apple really thinks that there isn’t a market for audiophile enthusiasts who want a separate, easy-to-manage device? They have it all and they’re literally throwing it away so that you have no choice but to buy into their subscription service, which leads me to my next point (yes, this does have a connection to Japanese music)…

  • I do not like that paying for streaming services is becoming the norm. You might advertise “millions of songs”, but all I read it as is “you can only listen to what we provide for you”. If they can’t or won’t put something on the streaming service, you may never hear it! I’ve warned about Spotify disintegrating time and time again and I thought Rogangate would set the ball rolling, but only a few disgruntled artists ended up breaking ties with the platform. But even so, there is precedent of music becoming temporarily unavailable (ex. DEVILOOF outage for a few days last year), music being region locked to Japan (ex. most doujin artists like Thousand Leaves and Demetori), music not being cleared for the service due to licensing restrictions (ex. KIDS by Mac Miller didn’t get cleared until after his death), or just never put on the system to begin with (you can fill in the blanks here). With the death of the iPod touch, I can see them rolling iTunes into Apple Music as the next step, then phasing out the iTunes store so you can no longer digitally purchase music (they will say no one does it anymore but in all honesty they will make it so hard to do that piracy will be the easier option, and then they have numbers to justify this action), and then simplifying Apple Music so that it no longer reads from your local library. They want a future where everyone is paying a subscription to listen to music, and that’s what horrifies me. I won’t be listening to music on my terms, I’ll be listening to music on theirs.

I just bought a replacement 256 GB iPod touch to replace the 128 GB one I had. It did well, but the space was becoming an issue and the battery life wasn’t great. I’m well aware that I’m kicking the can down the road, but I’m hoping that some other company sees the massive opportunity that Apple has left in the market and rushes in with a dual software+hardware solution that basically is the iPod in all but name before I have to replace my new one. But long term? This is definitely not a good thing for the scene and I only see it as the grip tightening around piracy in a way that is not a death blow, but makes it marginally uncomfortable for people like myself who have large local music libraries and prefer the power iTunes has when it comes to cataloging and organizing music as well as a separate device for managing that between the PC and the device. Dragging folders around folder hierarchies is so 2001 - auto sync or die. In addition, we all know Japan is an insular country. When their industry finally gets on board with the streaming mentality, how much music will be region locked to Japan? There’s already a ton! If that entire mentality is normalized, and bands start only releasing music on streaming services, then that’s another road block between a new fan and discovering visual kei.

That is not good.

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I’m kinda used to using Spotify as my main music player (student subscription helps). If I want to listen to something else, then I go for Youtube adVanced. I stopped having my music on the main phone’s memory/sd cards, since it’s not as convenient as adding stuff to my spotify playlist.

Sadly, this limits my options when I want to listen to some random stuff like aforementioned Demetori (life would be much better if I could have some Desire Dream while working out or smth like that). I could say that I don’t really need like EVERYTHING I listen to when I’m outside… but I would prefer to have everything anyway, lol.

And yeah, I do have a separate device as my music player. 1st gen iPhone SE. Small, comfy, battery lasts okay (replaced it recently), and having earphones with buttons to play/pause/skip/rewind is godsend. I work as a part-time delivery driver on the scooter, so being able to change songs while driving is so comfortable and risky. Don’t be stupid, kids. So, yeah, kinda sad to hear about iPod being discontinued.

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rip ipod. worst news since starbucks discontinuing melon syrup that used to go into matcha lattes, I’m literally not kidding.

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I’m coming for the Twitterverse with this one.

The sick, para-social relationships that seem to be endemic with visual kei fans on Twitter needs to stop. It is detached from the real world and bordering on group psychosis. From thirst trapping on a post in a language they won’t be able to understand even with translation tools to starting witch hunts to rectify whatever moral lapsing of the week gets someone triggered, I see nothing of value from engaging with the larger community en-masse and trying to pass on knowledge, artists, or even just banter. A lot of this younger community has only ever existed in the post-boom phase and they have zero interest in learning or trying to be a part of what came before, just trying to ride the wave and live in the now.

That’s perfectly fine until one runs up against the wall of unacceptable behavior, with good intentions on the end of a stick shoved so far up the ass it comes out the gullet. It’s probably been going on for as long as broadcasting your stream of consciousness into the void has been normalized, but it only came up when I got wind of people on Twitter dragging gulu gulu’s vocalist Ai through the mud. This wasn’t an isolated incident either - this has aftershocks where people suddenly remember that “he did a bad thing” and they go off to tag him in demeaning, demoralizing, rude, and frankly horrific tweets while hiding under the shield of absolute relative moralism and pretending that this insanely small digital hill symbolizes the ultimate binary choice and you’re either with them or against them. Never mind that those same people would be crying in the corner if an equal level of vitriol was spewed at them out of the void because a group of people willingly misinterpreted your actions as a pretext to get angry - not because they’re “weak”, but because what they’re spitting online is that corrosive. They can dish it out but they can’t take it and I bet by this point, they’re ready to switch tabs back to Twitter to cancel me. Hold on, I ain’t done yet.

Then, I was alerted to the endless thirst trapping of fans fifteen years late to the scene either digitally prostrating themselves in front of bandomen profiles or similarly detached individuals taking to reddit to disappoint their parents and become a visual kei hoe (bring condoms!). That existed as a part of the boom, but at least that kind of lunacy wasn’t able to synchronize like routers. Now everyone’s entertaining the delusions of others until this becomes a normalized experience where you can tell your favorite band member that you don’t know and have never met that you would like to have babies with him when he’s trying to promote his next live. I bet that goes over real well via text.

What grinds my gears into a perfect circle are those very detached individuals who feel the need to call out band men on other’s behalf for inconsequential transgressions. Key word: inconsequential. I do not subscribe to the ideology of applying my cultural perspective on another, especially one that I don’t fully understand. We have Setsuna involved in a botched murder-suicide and SHINTARO raping and recording underage women a lot like y’all, and it’s curtains. Someone wears black body spray? I AWAKEN! Die from Dir en grey wore a Nazi armband two decades ago for a photo shoot? Turn off “children”, delete all your Dir en grey, then cancel him without determining more context and if he still espouses those same beliefs, or if he was just putting the “shock” in “visual shock”. I don’t understand how people can froth about cultural appropriation until they are Twitter blue in the face behind the safety of their anime avatar and weeb-influenced handle, all because a band man wore braids or spray painted himself black.

Self-awareness zero. Nuance and detail are things that are lost when restricted to communicating your every thought in five sentences or less. Don’t start fires from now on - that’s appropriating caveman culture.

I finished the first paragraph the way I did because visual kei is such a rich and interesting topic, and a lot of us fans have very few people to talk about it with IRL. It wasn’t all roses before the boom, but I really miss the time before everyone and their dog had easy instant access to the internet and Twitter, especially in relation to the visual scene. Fans would talk about music and would be excited to share news of new bands, new releases, and new looks. There would be tangible sadness when a beloved band breaks up. News was so much harder to come by and translate so everything was appreciated that much more. Even sampling music wasn’t easy because there was no YouTube and the internet was much less developed. The dedication of those that came before built the foundation of what became the visual kei boom. That dedication is the only reason why anyone is reading this now. It took a long time between when visual kei was booming in Japan and when it first became an international export because Japan is an insular country that likes to keep its culture close to the vest. Every single thirsty tweet, off-the-cuff comment, or witch hunt is taking the scene several steps back to those times where none of them wanted to interact with international fans. They have enough of that to deal with at home.

To me, there is a very THICC line between what Setsuna/Shintaro have been found guilty of doing in a court of law, and someone that makes a choice that is distasteful to your culture but has no offensive meaning in theirs. If you’re too busy subdividing the hair follicles of reason to determine if it’s an acceptable time to turn up, you’ve missed the plot. These social media algorithms have hijacked brains into believing individual opinions are far more important than they are, but the paradox of that observation is that the sum of these toxic tweets is greater than the parts.

And because it’s 2022 and I know how online discourse works, I have to add this disclaimer - I am not a Nazi apologist, pedophile, disgruntled white man with a bag of Doritos on his shoulder, grifter, spokesman for a visual record company speaking on their behalf, or your mother. I’m just one of the few old guard left who has been around long enough to know how things used to be, and I have no desire to go back there just so people on Twitter can look morally pure for the next two weeks. Don’t miss the point I am trying to make in an attempt to write another Tweet, push your agenda, and get your dopamine fix. The online behavior of the international scene is absolutely atrocious and it’s been allowed to fester like a cancer because there’s no oversight.

Oh, and none of that was my unpopular opinion. That’s all fact. My unpopular opinion is that for as notorious as it’s become for it’s toxicity, I find everything I discussed above far worse in comparison than anything on Batsu or MH. At least Batsu had moderators…

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Gya and noodles complain about this shit on tanuki too, so nobody can even say it’s just us being grumpy old people. It literally gives them more fodder for hating foreigners because there are more annoying foreigners than weirdo gya on Twitter half the time.

It’s BAD when you out-weird gya…

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It’s somewhat related to the above comments, but one of the reasons why I never considered myself a vk fan despite liking a few vk acts is precisely the fact that I liked acts, not the scene. When I think about it, I like some types/brands of vk music (rock obv but also oshare or goth kinda stuff) much more than I like kpop for instance, at least in principle I am more likely to listen to and enjoy vk songs … however I never liked or even understood the scene itself because I always felt that the linguistic and cultural barriers against this understanding are HUGE . And when this happens, different scenes develop - even though these people (in English speaking Japanese vk fandom vs Japanese bangya) like the same thing, they may like it in VERY different ways.

And the truth is I never vibed with English speaking vk fandom much. We don’t tend to like the same bands or even musical genres (Idc for metal or hardcore …) and no matter what anyone claims, I was around 20 years ago and I know for a FACT that creepy fangirls were already a thing. So yea, the only “vkboo” thing I do like is fashion. No idea if I would like Japanese vk fan culture any better. Maybe, maybe not, don’t have any way of knowing because of the big cultural/linguistic barrier I can’t be a part of it even if I wanted to.

And when (Western) people pretend to not notice this barrier, it makes me… confused. The barrier exists. Of course, it was much wider back then. In the past maybe 30 years (where I live it’s only like 15 … ) we had numerous overseas lives and events, a few foreign bandomen, many attempts at translation, many fans who learned the language and went to Japan to try and overcome this barrier and, by doing that, voluntarily or not helped others overcome it … It’s better but it’s far from non-existant and part of it can hardly be surpassed. The part that requires being Japanese ie born and raised there for one.

I suppose this is why I feel okay claiming that I am interested in vk but not claiming to be a fan. Maybe it’d be different if I was musically trained since that is an universal language but right there you create another barrier - many fans of vk overseas are musically trained while in Japan many of them just wanna headbang and even vk artists aren’t always musically trained lol. And so these groups of fans tend to like different bands and like vk in different ways etc.

This is why I mentioned kpop - I feel comfortable claiming to be a kpop fan even if I may not even enjoy listening to kpop THAT much but since it’s been made with foreign audiences in mind for a while I don’t have to feel like an outsider or alienated. Everything (ie. lives, voting, news etc.) is harder for foreign fans (particularly non-Korean speakers) but often still … doable by reasonable human methods. Because they are fully aware that we - foreign fans - are a thing, a crowd, we exist (and spend money …) .

Anyway, point being, I don’t even get non native vk fandom. And I suppose this is the best place to ask. To me it’s kinda like way back when we were fans of 4kids anime, we loved the thing but it wasn’t even the same that the Japanese loved lol. Except now the product is the same, but as I see it the original meaning is lost in semiotics. So vk fans can be very different people bc their readings don’t come from the same place IMO …

And I don’t think having different readings in a fandom is bad. More conflicting, sure, but art should be interpreted in different ways anyway. Again, compare this to kpop fandom where everyone knows what the discourse is like … Sometimes that sucks bc cancelling culture, kids being harsh cyberbullying other kids etc. This was the entire point that I forgot to mention, I kept thinking “these fans are braver than the Marine” lol. Also damn gotta do laundry

But to me there is one objectively wrong stance on what @zeus said which is the idea that algorithms made everyone believe that individual opinions matter. Which isn’t true. The internet made us believe that every opinion matters as they should in a democracy ; the algorithms actually made them matter far less.

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I think we’re saying the same thing from two different angles. In general, I find social media crowded and stifling. There are so many people on these services that you have to go viral or be an influencer to have impact beyond one’s local sphere. For the purposes of my rant, that circle is the online international scene. Everyone implicitly recognizes it, which is why there’s been a trend towards saying radical, out of pocket opinions online - it’s the fastest way to get ahead of the crowd and get eyes on you so you can possibly cross that gap into Influencer territory.

That’s why I think we’re saying the same thing. I say all the time that you are not in control of what you see on social media because the algorithms choose for you. But what I said is that these algorithms hijack the pleasure centers of the brain to make you think that your opinions matter more than they do. It’s the only thing that explains the cycle of radicalization on social media. Then, fans with an exaggerated sense of self importance start tagging and sandbagging musicians/random strangers they have formed a sick para-social relationship with for not being their specific definition of perfect, and lumping in anyone who disagrees with them. That’s psychosis induced cyber bullying if I’ve ever seen it.

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I can see everywhere topics we disscussed on our discord in Zeus his “unpopular opinion”:wink:
But i have to agree with @zeus and also with @gilnyangi
There are times where it was right to call out bandmembers and even tanuki agreed with foreign fans here and there.
But the opposite is far more common (unfortunatly). Foreign fans complaining and screaming around online and pissing of gya’s and bandomen.

there was something else i wanted to add, but i forgot what

i feel like we need to make a seperation here between people who actually create any content they tag artists over, like fanart, or anything and if a band is fine with getting tagged for lets say new releases or not.
over those that tag bands or bandmembers over shit like selfies. (or other uncreative stuff)

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@zeus Maybe. But what I meant is that as I see it, the only thing the Internet actually does is make everyone’s opinions weigh the same (some text on the web) which in turn makes it more pleasurable/psychologically rewarding for any average joe to express opinions online. And in turn maybe that makes experts express their opinion less often too. But yeah, totally agreed on playing with algorithms on this influencer race. Of course saying radical shit that gets a lot of engagement can make one “e-popular” . But I do think many people do that for more … innocent reasons.

Behind herd mentality exists a sense of community which is the best medicine against loneliness. You know, nothing strenghten bonds as much as a common enemy. And if the artist (and their views) is the common enemy so be it. At least this is how I see.

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I agree with all of this.

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As a non-Korean living in Korea that used to be into kpop, I can tell you very confidently that kpop is NOT made for overseas audiences at all. More recently, certain groups have been marketing themselves abroad with success, but that’s purely for the purpose of grabbing foreign money and hopping out. Korea is still quite xenophobic, and the kpop industry is no exception, it’s just a bit more tolerant for the sake of hypercapitalism. Korea is more open to the west, but it really isn’t that much more inclusive of foreigners. This is a common misconception that kpop creates, with its multicultural (yet always ASIAN) groups and sounds borrowed from hiphop or western pop. It’s all about money and public image. Kpop is for Koreans, first and foremost. Koreans LIKE things that seem foreign but AREN’T (hence garbage decorative English and inexplicable rap parts everywhere). That’s not made for foreigners. It’s similar to the common misconception that Korean beauty ideals (pale skin, tall nose bridge, double eyelids, etc.) are based on Western ones. They’re not, it’s just that eurocentrism is a tough mental habit to break.

Kpop fans are insane too, but seem more accepted because that’s what’s trendy now and the parasocial relationships are actively fostered by entertainment companies, to the detriment of artists. Frankly, I think kpop fans are worse because they actually act out in real life, and that’s why I think fan culture has just gotten out of hand.

Also, I’ll say that loneliness and longing for a sense of community is a garbage excuse for the abusive behaviors that are so commonplace online. So rarely do I see “communities” so much as “mobs” (in vk and otherwise).

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Except when it is? Hallyu is really the Korean equivalent of Cool Japan except it actually worked. I don’t mean using gibberish English and random raps as marketing to a foreign audience though. I mean collabs with foreign artists since the early 00s, which vk hasn’t done in a while AFAIK, regular world tours, not to mention actively allowing overseas participation, though some voting apps now ban it (some changed in regulations?) but it’s still more accepting of or welcoming to foreigners than vk has been at least in the past 12 years. Maybe that’s gonna change. Don’t live in Korea but being in kpop fandom for around 8 years now (… as I took a long while to enjoy it … ) there is difference between filling a profile in English and putting your location as “overseas” vs filling a profile in Japanese and pretending you live in some district. It’s not that they care desperately for foreigners - but they acknowledge us. They have kpacket. They make our lives easier. They know plenty of foreigners enjoy and consume kpop.

As far as I know a lot of Korean people dislike kpop (for fair reasons, of course I am aware of industry downsides …) and it found a better market overseas. I don’t see how that is hypercapitalism - to me that is merely… capitalism. And a good selling strategy. Disagreeing seems like fetichism to me, in a “protect our products from nasty foreigners” way.

Never said kpop fans can’t be insane? On the contrary and I mean if there is one thing that we should have learned from Britney it’s that show biz is Crazy, and it’s like that everywhere. And some psycho fans believe that they are allowed to invade celebs’ lives. I do believe it’s bound to happen more often in cases that profit directly from parasocial relationships ie idol culture.

But that and internet engagement as I see it are different things. I wonder if behind these small mobs there are also attempts at being noticed as foreign fans … Consciously or not. It’s not something I see or even can imagine how it works because yeah don’t really engage with vk fans elsewhere … . I have never seen such a mob in vk fanbase ; ; ; But personally I may even support some mobs. “Everyone fight this artist who drew a canonically brown character of a fictional race 1 tone lighter than they are” ? Oh please don’t. “Everyone fight this nazi artist” ? Count me in. And some people disagree from me which again is why I said I think there are upsides to having a lot of different stances in one fanbase.

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This is 100% untrue. Kpop is just POP to Koreans. Pop music is, by definition, made to be popular and marketable. Plenty of people hate pop music from their own countries (I remember hating on Justin Bieber and Hannah Montana when I was an edgy kid) but plenty of people like it or are just indifferent to it. I don’t know where you got this idea from. My previous students were CRAZY about BTS or Twice (since they skewed younger) and when older songs came on in a pub everyone would join in, some people dancing the actual choreography (I have seen a mid-30s man dance most passionately to Gee and he killed it).

The thing is, pop music is also generally aimed at young people, so you’re not gonna see lots of adults talking about it because it’s seen as something you usually grow out of (we’d think it was kinda odd if adults were going crazy over boy bands and teeny bopper-type singers too). Being a kpop FAN generally implies that you’re part of the complicated fan subculture as opposed to a casual listener, which isn’t the societal norm AT ALL.

Creating a complex fan culture that rewards excessive purchasing and parasocial relationship is part of the money grab. If other countries wanna buy stuff, they won’t say no to money, because the industry is owned by corporations that have the money to invest in internationalizing their sales (unlike vkei, which is a much smaller affair with less capital overall). You’d have a better argument if you were asking why the idol companies in Japan like Johnny’s haven’t expanded overseas, because comparing a music genre that exists to be a product to a niche music scene with very limited reach isn’t a great comparison. America is a HUGE market that every industry wants a piece of.

Kpop has also been a fantastic propaganda machine for Korea, so there’s that. It’s literally become their calling card, on purpose, because the government has known it is a major source of soft political power before it even came to America.

TL;DR Kpop is a major international business and govt.-backed propaganda machine selling a product, while vkei is a VERY niche music scene that is commerically unviable.

Giving kpop kudos for expanding internationally while vkei didn’t is like praising McDonalds for being global-minded and international while wondering why the local mom-and-pop burger joint won’t open more locations.

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To add my own opinion to this point, visual kei has always been commercially unviable. Now is the easiest time that it’s ever been to get your hands on things both old and new; I remember how difficult it was to get even commercially released albums back during 2005-2009. Forget about live distributed releases unless you had a special connection. There were less online stores, proxies were more vital, no streaming services, YouTube just got started, worse translation services, and also it seemed like the bands and the record companies were erecting artificial barriers and wanted international fans to work harder for their cut. Note that I’m only talking about visual kei here; indie Japanese music was leagues more impenetrable and @CAT5 is the one most equipped to tell you all about that.

If I compare that to my nascent knowledge of K-Pop, the only thing I can add to the conversation is that I have never seen the words “live distributed K-Pop song” in a sentence together. Like @gilnyangi said, Korea turned boy bands into soft political power and are content to create a business that sells to foreigners who want it, while Japan went in the opposite direction and tried to run a business off making their music as inaccessible as possible. It’s a no-brainer which one actually worked; I had a BBQ last weekend with some friends and one specifically requested K-Pop to be on the playlist (we gave him BTS’s Dynamite on the condition that he dance to it if it came up but it never did). Visual kei was not present and I managed to sneak a Tokyo Jihen song on there, but only because Shiina sings completely in English and it’s the piano loop sampled from Adult Swim so everyone goes “hey, that sounds familiar” and it’s the only way I can get anyone into Tokyo Jihen, let alone Japanese music on a wider scale.

That right there is the difference between a state-backed propaganda machine and a niche music scene (or in the case of indie Japanese music, one that the government doesn’t seem keen on pushing and making accessible). It’s one thing to leave it there for anyone to take; it’s another thing to go out of your way to prevent people from purchasing, and until just a few years ago that was the reality of the scene. Even now, it’s not uncommon to have orders cancelled on Mercari/Rakuten because I’m using an international proxy so the sellers connect the dots and only “want to deal with someone Japanese”. From a preservation standpoint, I’m grateful for media curation services such as Apple Music, YouTube, and even Spotify for existing because they’re preserving at least a small record of what exists and it makes it easier to find and get into new stuff. That was leagues more difficult just five years ago. 5! That’s how recently I feel that Japan has warmed up to sharing their culture with others, and it’s not that much, and even then it’s not uncommon for me to find entire albums locked to Japan on Spotify for opaque reasons. It is much more difficult to find a K-Pop band with an album or single that isn’t available internationally frame one.

It sucks, but that’s just the hand we’ve been dealt.

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Sorry, you sound like you are attacking me so I will try to refer to each point to understand like … what was your issue with what I posted. I mentioned kpop because it’s what I know, I am in kpop fandom so of course I can take that as example. I could have mentioned IDK, Scandinavian metal for comparision effect if I was into it. I merely meant that I (me, myself) am comfortable calling myself a kpop fan much more than I am calling myself a “vk fan” because in my head, and I suppose in the industry/bandomen’s heads a “vk fan” is the kind of (Japanese) person that attends lives etc. and that’s not me lol. As opposed to kpop where they KNOW they have obsessive foreign “fans” and it feels okay to be a “fan” even if you are foreigner. Where’s the lie?

And my second point was that I also think that, since vk is made with the Japanese in mind 100% (at least nowadays) a lot of its meanings and references are probably “lost in translation” or at least that’s how I feel when I try to watch videos of 99% of smaller (ie. 10 minus years old, no sect. In other words: not even that small but they didn’t live the 90s-00s pop vk era … ) bands and such. And also because of that I feel this barrier between me and a Japanese fan for instance (like @zeus mentioned you get “no dealing with foreigners, too much hassle” messages when you want to buy some shit so there is that too) . And so, I think the local vk fan community is very different from the overseas vk fan community as it has always been because of all that. But if you compare that to kpop, there’s still a difference in fanbases but not that huge - other than the language barrier there isn’t a LOT. Money is a much bigger barrier. Overseas fans get gigs and they even sell lightsticks in queue for people who didn’t get theirs from online stores. Do you get my point now?

And because foreign vk fan community is like this I suppose people interpret radically different things from acts/lyrics/etc depending on where they come from culturally because there isn’t an unified or guided (by local companies) overseas fan culture. This is what I meant. No judgement of value here and as I said I think there are upsides (if I thought it plain sucks why the hell would I be here ??) .

So let’s go through your reply now. Where I got this idea from? Exactly from what you just said, many people hate pop. Pop isn’t just music - it’s a whole industry and I get hating it wherever you live. But from having only, I don’t know, x% Koreans liking it, if they could have x% + some foreigners that’d be best don’t you think? We seem to agree on this ???

This. The “complicated” fan culture part is just you adding. “Obsessed” ? Yeah would say there are a lot of obsessed fans in kpop as the culture BEGS for it - but pretty sure there are non-obsessed, casual listeners too particularly in Korea (but elsewhere too - I don’t talk to Koreans much but most of my 25+ kpoppie mates are from SEA ; we don’t always have time for voting and streaming etc. but we like it? ) .

Creating a complex fan culture that rewards excessive purchasing and parasocial relationship is part of the money grab.

And yeah - that’s what I called the “idol culture” . You are explaining this to me as if I haven’t known it for ages. You seem to want to prove me wrong in some way but I still don’t get in what way.

You are assuming that I am comparing kpop to vk (which I could be but am not - I have talked about this before, tl;dr it’s plain silly but of course you can compare ANY music industry or genre to another to a more or less successful degree) when in fact I merely mentioned why kpop makes way more of an effort to go international than vk because those are things (ie music industries) I personally like and can compare. The reason for comparing is: … my life experiences, it’s really as subjective as this. But even more I was trying to compare what happens in overseas kpop fan culture to overseas vk fan culture (which are both different from respective countries’ fan cultures) which are the ones I am more familiar with. [As an added side note that may complicate things for the nitpicky but is worth adding, we know a lot of overseas fans “migrated” from jmusic and vk (because not few people who listened to vk also listened to Johnnys raises hand ) fanbase to kpop fanbase way back in the late 00s (and I never got it as I saw few similarities but we were pirating from the same websites anyway and hey … guess I like both now lmaoo.) ] Again, Johnnys makes no effort to go international and it never did. (Lol remember how hellish it was to find videos of translated Japanese TV broadcasts in the 00s cuz everything earned a JE strikedown?? ) … and yeah, the whole fan culture isn’t welcoming to foreigners at all, it’s very live shows based etc. Again as opposed to kpop. So I wanted to mention an example of … something that is marketed with foreigners in mind (even if at the back of their minds) and actually worked in that sense. That is kpop. - [ that’s NOT: roasting things for not wanting to go international, roasting jmusic or even vk etc. But hey. As a foreigner is it shocking or a sin that I love when industries I like … acknowledge me? ]

Kpop has also been a fantastic propaganda machine for Korea, so there’s that. It’s literally become their calling card, on purpose, because the government has known it is a major source of soft political power before it even came to America.

Of course. That’s why I mentioned the term “hallyu” ie. hallyu phases. Don’t get where we aren’t aligned.

Sounded like I gave kpop kudos for expanding internationally, is that it? Oh, no, I do think vk hasn’t expanded internationally even further (but still expanded, uh, way more than JE lol) because it never intended to. No idea how my point about vk fan culture vs kpop fan culture (merely mentioned as an example because I am involved in it so I know it lol) sounded like a race between these two industries. (from experience I think that some vk fans take “well I like kpop…” personally.) But we had enough conversations here on this stuff. We don’t know exactly why vk took a turn for the obscure and “the less international the better” in the 10s because again, we are on the other side of the wall and this is what I meant by “IDG how some people don’t see the wall” . Bad marketing strategies like @zeus said? Actual choices and internal ruptures (what I tend to believe in and I am sure we all have a lot to say on this) ? Internal political issues that we don’t know because we ARE on the other side of the wall? Who knows.

But you know, a lot of vk bands play overseas gigs (as opposed to say Johnnys itself which dgaf) but it’s funny how even more vk bands were playing overseas gigs back when internet music piracy was rampant and people pretty much shared by word of mouth and “hey check this out” . Because … legal streaming services have few vk acts. Because, as I said, you can’t really fill in a profile in Japanese and give a fictional address and I say this because I wanted to join Nightmare’s fanclub but I didn’t have a Japanese address and spending on a PO box or trying to get acquainted to a Japanese fan so they could receive the goods would be too much so that had to go, so I had no access to the online stuff because they wouldn’t openly accept foreigners. On the other hand my kpop faves’ fan clubs freely accept foreign members and even send them packages (as an added note, they charge extra for the shipping but I believe some groups’ fcs don’t even do that and just add extra costs to everyone’s membership) . During lockdown there were online fansigns/M&G and foreign fans were allowed like any Korean. And yeahh it IS funded by the government and such. Which means they have big marketing heads on it. But hey can’t major label-signed vk acts copy some of the best ideas? :eyes:

And I believe that bigger vk bands are well aware that they have foreign fans because of back when vk was somewhat pop (in Japan too) . But bands that didn’t live that era go through … a wholly different experience that I don’t really get because again, huge barriers. The experience of “live distributed songs” , a whole fan culture that … seems to be really aligned with (like the goth lil sis) Johnnys / whatever jpop idol experience. And seems to be as anti-foreigner as their big sis tbh.

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Sorry, I got too fired up, didn’t mean to sound aggressive :sweat_smile:

My main point was to refute your claim that kpop is made for western audiences as opposed to native ones. Hallyu and kpop aren’t the same thing.

Kpop and vkei both:

  • are made for domestic consumption
  • are open to foreign consumption
  • are generally closed to foreign participation (as artists, not fans)

What I’m trying to say is that the difference is that kpop is INTENTIONALLY exporting itself as a product, backed by corporations, while vkei rode the wave of popularity overseas but was just too small and lacking in capital to support a more global presence. Even if, during the heyday of vkei, every vkei band wanted to perform overseas and ship goods internationally, they just don’t have the money/logistical skills to make it happen, and the audience was that much smaller to begin with (because rock/metal/goth are scenes within scenes already).

I don’t think vkei shuts foreigners out so much as it just doesn’t see our business as worth the money (which, yknow, fair play to them if they’re that much smaller and have to do that much more work for whatever small profit there is to be made).

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has flashbacks to the XodiacK x HearJapan debacle

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Idk what this is, SPILL :coffee::coffee::coffee::coffee::teapot:

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Scroll down a bit.

I love how much this has aged (not mentioning it was a nonproblem in the first place comparing both markets), since many bands are on streaming platforms nowadays.

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RIP in peace, yoikes

Concerts and merch sales have always been the financial bread and butter of rock music, vkei even more so, so I’m not surprised that bands have no desire to spread their music around to people who won’t bring them any “real” income after a debacle like this

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