QRIMOLE – March 2025

It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month!

do you have any insights into the difference in western pop vs Kpop in terms of parental influence? I mainly ask this because it seems idols parents have played at least some sort of crucial role in multiple a scandal – NewJeans parents are repeatedly referred to being heavily involved with Min HeeJin and their hybe separation and even SNSD and Jessica getting kicked out had parental influence from the other members. I know that parental influence exists in western pop, especially with young stars i.e. Britney Spears, but typically its seen as ‘stage parents’ and given a very negative view; whilst it seems as though the public generally support New Jeans parents being involved in their careers so heavily. Do parents play a larger role in the lives of Kpop idols vs their western counterparts? Is it more accepted due to social structures? Is there a higher rate of ‘stage parents’ which are pushing their kids to become famous or is it about the same as America? Just some thoughts and wondering if you had any insight into the matter!

I think the reason why parents being involved in the Korean scene are looked at positively, is because it’s generally known that companies are shady as fuck and will exploit the kids if they can. Also most people are signed underage and it’s usually the parents signing or co-signing off on the agreement. Whereas in the west it’s assumed that things are more on the level and such intervention isn’t as necessary, plus people are generally older, so it seems excessive to have that level of oversight. Of course that’s all one hell of an assumption, the western business can be just as shady! But the short answer is, there are more young people in Korea doing it, and the younger the people in the business, the more parental involvement. I don’t think it’s vastly more complicated than that.

found a familiar looking pussy, what do you think

Yes that’s pretty close to my cat – slightly more white. mrcs

Thoughts on PLAVE members revealed to be failed male idols in their 30s?

I hadn’t heard about it but it makes complete sense and this is in fact what I always assumed they would be. I mean if you were super young and looked like exactly what the market wanted, why have a virtual presence, why not just debut with your real look? I mean look at U Sung Eun, the woman who does Apoki’s voice:

I think U Sung Eun is pretty as fuck but she’s not the kind of image Korea’s idol agencies like to push, so cosplaying as a virtual idol gets around the problem. Virtual idols will never be the “main” thing in idol pop, but it probably won’t ever go away either, it’ll most likely continue to be a route for people with genuine talent who missed their chance to crack it big when they were of “ideal idol” age for whatever reason.

as someone who follows the JYP group more like watching the fan & promotional content etc. to wind down after work since i’m biased to Twice, and just casually checking out stuff from other groups & companies from time to time, i can’t help but notice that when I’m looking at your girl group tier list, JYP girl group have been going downhill for each subsequent new group, something that i agree with. i do think that Twice best run is everything before 202x and if we just based a tier list on that i do think Twice is at least S or A-tier group musically because everything after is sometimes good, mediocre, or straight-up bad, and their hit/miss ratio decline. But i guess JYP still cares about Twice output more than their other group because other group suffers so much more from this like Itzy, NiziU, and Nmixx. If you had to guess, what do you think happened at JYP? do you think covid affects this? like maybe they all want to work remotely now and rarely have an offline session so communication is either delayed or missed out and they are content with releasing subpar material? Or maybe it’s because JYP has so many groups now and the staff is stretched too thin to handle everything? or maybe they are afraid to trailblaze and just release something “safe” to please shareholders? or maybe some stupid office politics that make it hard to speak up and say things are shit since i heard that they fired underperforming people that are responsible for making concepts & selecting songs. i guess it’s really hard to know unless someone works there.

What it is, is that in the early days JYP used to write songs for all his groups. Wonder Girls, miss A, 2PM etc all had JYP-penned songs complete with his signature whipser and he would closely manage those groups. From Twice onward he started a new strategy where he would allocate each new idol group under his label their own management and creative sub-team, so it’s always the same people working on Twice songs, and another group of the same people working on Itzy songs, etc. which is why all those groups have their own “sound” that’s also slightly different from each other. Of course different songwriters and creative teams approaching things differently gets different results, sometimes good, sometimes not, but you lose the “JYP sound” this way of course.

I’ve been avoiding all of MADEIN’s content since Gaeun’s accusations came out, but I couldn’t resist listening to “Love, Afraid” (fitting song title of the year) after you said it was good, and damn it, it really is good. What are your thoughts on boycotting a group’s output to protest the actions of its company?

Short answer is that since nobody makes money from the actual music, boycotting the actual music doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s like boycotting a business card, rather than the actual business. Some information that could be helpful is in this post.

Hey oppar I think mhj’s shaman put a love spell on me and I’m starting to think she’s a baddie. How to stop?

Don’t stop, just go with the flow.

Should I participate in a Kpop training summer camp, given I do not expect to be a kpop? (The deadline to decide is late April.)

If I was younger, I think I’d have a significant chance of being a kpop (at least, better than most people.) I have a useful nationality/passport, speak multiple languages (though only very basic Korean,) am reasonably attractive (and likely could be even more so after surgery from a company’s perspective,) am a very good/trained singer with some performance and acting experience, and have a non-negligible dance background (though this is definitely the weakest part.) However I’m currently 23 and already out of university, and just now learned that this exists. It’d be through a collaboration with a Taiwanese company (so I could communicate with most of the instructors) and a Korean one, located in Seoul. They’ve told me that at my age there’s not a 0% chance of being accepted as a trainee, but it’s much less likely, and probably I would only have a chance with smaller companies that really want foreign idols who can debut quickly.

The pros are:
-I want to. Performing is very fun for me. I’ve done summer camps like this in the past centered around classical music or theatre + collaboration, and had a great time.
-I think I’d learn lots of skills I care about which would make me feel cooler and more self-actualized.
-There’s a high chance I’d learn more about the industry, meeting people who have actively been involved in it, and have some interesting stories to share.
-I can afford it. Give rent and tuition in the city I live in right now, this would cost significantly less.
-I would get weekly opportunities to audition with actual Korean entertainment companies, plus the chance to perform in a final festival where many companies attend. The hours seem sane. The living situation seems chill. You’re not a trainee so they won’t control your life/take your phone/etc.
-Since it’s over the summer, it wouldn’t overlap with my school or work.

The cons are:
-I have a sleep disorder which makes me either sleep for normal amounts of time super late, or sleep at normal times for super long. This makes morning courses kind of an ordeal.
-Because the odds of being accepted at my age are so low, taking auditions seriously might be seen as silly
-I might have no friends, especially with the language barrier. 2-3 months of no friends is doable (I’ve done it in previous summer camps) but hard. Plus the timezones would make it hard to keep in touch with existing friends.
-I have to explain it to my parents. I suspect my dad would think it’s a waste of time and worry about my “at home stuff” (school, work) getting out of order. I think my mom would be excited because she loves Asian dramas and music.
-I’m an idiot and don’t know where my passport is, though getting that in order seems important anyway.
-I’m in a relationship and my partner isn’t doing very well right now. I would worry about leaving them alone for that long, though they’ve said they would support me if I went, they think being apart for 2 months would be pretty difficult.
-I think it’s definitely more likely to give me the chance of being a kpop than just dicking around in my home country, but idk if it’s ultimately more of a “glamour thing” than actually useful training and connections. To me it LOOKS legit. But maybe the cheapest and most efficient option would be to just visit Korea over the summer and audition normally, rather than receive the whole housing/training deal?
-I’m worried people will laugh at me. I don’t even tell people I listen to kpop these days because of how it’s viewed as infantile, and I”m aware that “chasing the dream of being a kpop star” is practically a cliche for “idiot with no life experience.” And I’m afraid of being not taken seriously by people who really matter to me, who are assessing performers for a living. I’m worried it would be a blow to my self-esteem and people who say I’m talented are full of it.
-Because my “weakest points” are my lack of dance experience and weight, I’d need to work on those. I’m a regular/thin weight to most people but around 20lbs above the “kpop ideal.” I do not know if I’m capable of getting to kpop idol weight without going insane (last time I was anywhere near that I either had the flu or was on medication which made me sick all the time/was constantly fatigued and dizzy, and I was still ~5lbs above the ideal.) Dancing is fun and I’ve found a studio nearby which will train me in relevant styles, but I am a busy person.

It sounds to me like you’re already pretty aware of the pros and cons here. No, you probably won’t make it through to anywhere all that special but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing just for the experience if it’s something you’ll enjoy (just don’t forget to tell me all the inside info afterwards, my email is open). I think maybe it could work BUT you’ll need a very thick skin to deal with what will probably be very intense scrutiny and criticism of your body image (and related dancing ability), don’t underestimate this aspect. It sounds to me like you’ll either meet the requirements and suffer health-wise, or you won’t meet them, and then they’ll put pressure on you for underperforming and you’ll suffer mentally instead. I’m not going to say do it or don’t, but I think whether you say yes or no really boils down more to how you’d respond to that type of challenge and pressure than any other factors you’ve listed. It really is very unforgiving and you have to be pretty hardened to get through it physically and mentally.

Do award show wins actually DO anything for an artist/group’s career? I feel as if, in the West, if you win a Grammy, that’s real bragging rights and can help open new opportunities for you/ (Or, well, it used to be, I think they’ve been going downhill for a while.)

But what is the benefit of being 1 of 8 artists/groups to win a bonsaeng? Or winning some stupid “Best Prime Solo” award? Is it all just a pretty participation trophy? Maybe I’m ignorant and it’s regarded as just as prestigious as the Grammys. Barring that, which awards show IS a Grammys equivalent, if such exists?

They don’t mean anything. Awards shows are all about the industry stroking itself. That’s it, nothing more. Getting an award (be it Grammy or some Korean award) doesn’t mean people will like your new song. Nobody ever got hired on a project because they won an award, they got hired because they got a reputation as someone who can write/sing/play/whatever and/or were pro and easy to work with etc. The list of flop artists you’ve never heard of who won some big award is long.

how the hell do you find those super nugus for your reviews? Especially when they have like 200 views how do you even conceive of the knowledge that the song exists

I used to go sniffing through obscure and notorious parts of the Internet, but these days I can’t do that because I AM one of those obscure and notorious parts of the Internet! Most searches that I do these days for things I like just lead me straight back to content that I’ve already posted! I makes creating certain types of articles very difficult. Fortunately, my readers don’t have that problem and most of the Nugu Alert submissions actually come from them now.

An only partially serious question but it’s about fapping and you are an expert in the field. There’s this musician I find so sexy I literally start getting aroused when thinking of him. He’s got a lovely voice and he’s beautiful, but I HATE his music. I’m not revealing who, but he’s not a kpop. I’ve tried watching his mvs on mute but they are old so the quality is ass, he also looks kinda bad in them. But I want to imagine him bouncing on the strap in detail. I want to see him in motion. Staring at pics on pinterest with one hand down my pants makes me feel like a WW2 soldier rubbing one out to a pin-up poster in a hurry. How can I improve my sad wank? Should I just keep looking at photos until I get better at imagining the unspeakable things I want to do to him

If you’d like a fun project try creating an “edited fap highlights” video compiling all the parts of different videos where he looks less shit. Back in the days when I was young and fap material was scarce I’d stay up late with the VCR on “record+pause” ready to make my own such compilations on the fly when relevant late night shows came on… yes these were desperate times before the Internet…

How do you deal with never feeling truly welcome in most groups, having nagging thoughts that people are just being polite but don’t actually want you around and think less of you behind your back ?
It’s a feeling that has never left me throughout my life. That I’m unwanted, I’ll never find my people, that people are nice to me just for the sake of manners. Even though I’m socially much better than before, I’ve never had years – long friendships due to past depression and lack of energy or will. I have a few people who seem chill enough with me, who support me, but that’s not made me confident and sociable wth strangers. Idk, I just don’t wanna die alone, unloved, undesired, and with nobody to give a damn about my wellbeing.
Makes me just retreat into my shell or wanna cry and conserve my pride by not attempting to engage with people.

I’ve had the same issue all my life of always feeling on the “outside”. At some point fairly early on in life, I realised that there was something different about me that meant I would never be truly accepted into anyone else’s peer group, so I would just have to follow my own path and just see where it led. My life is fine now. It may seem like other people are more popular, but more popular people tend to have their friendships spread very thinly – you’re better off with just a few friends who really have your back, than being the “life of the party” type that everyone is secretly envious of and nobody cares about when the chips are down. At the end of the day we’re all alone with ourselves, and we just have to get by with it. Also, pretty much nobody is confident and sociable with strangers, that’s why alcohol is popular.

Is there a reason pop music doesn’t just use good music from video game composers and add vocals to them? Beyond the genre change from pop, is there a particular issue with adding vocals to music written without vocals? Or, I guess they could get those composers to write vocal music as well. I guess my question is more why don’t we see pop music from these composers who’ve had a better track record than a lot of pop music writers?

Instrumental music for things like computer games is often a pure backing track with no topline (so as not to intrude on the computer game narrative too much but rather just provide a mood) – but writing toplines and writing backings are two fairly different arts, composers who are good at one tend to not always be so good at the other. So there’s no guarantee that a person who excels at making computer game music would have those skills translate well to a pop song. K-pop producer Azodi talks about this in my interview with him, check that out for more detail.

If every girl group from your 2025 tier list (in their current or most recent lineup before disbanding) were dropped across the Australian outback and told the 5 who survived the longest without giving up would win, which 5 groups are you betting on?

I bet on Gfriend because we all know Umji is the smartest person in k-pop. She will find a way. Other than that I think they’re all probably dying of something or other.

Fuck this country’s leadership and everyone who voted for them. These are children who absolutely don’t know any better. It’s the parents’ fault for this, and the people feeding them lies are just as culpable. Fuck the school authorities for knowing and not intervening. What can we even do? I want to leave, but it’s not that simple. I have no money.

Well don’t worry, Elon Musk wants to completely defund the Department of Education as part of his quest to make sure people stay stupid enough to support him in the future… not that he even needs support because America is basically a dictatorship now do it doesn’t matter if people hate him, but he’d like to be loved anyway because he’s massively insecure. So those school authorities that you dislike will probably be out of a job soon anyway by the look of it. (Elon you can get this response changed by donating to my Ko-fi at the Elon Musk tier, tysm)

This song from GF4/Girlfriend and the way they dressed up and danced in dresses reminds me a bit of GFriend. I wouldn’t be surprised if GFriend got their name from GF4/Girlfriend though… it would be really funny.

It could be possible. Australia’s Girlfriend were heavily pushed as “Australia and Asia’s first girl group”, that was actually part of their marketing strategy, and it paid off with the girls developing a strong Asian following as a result. This isn’t a question though so JAV of the Month for February is SONE-647.

Hi, hyung! Hope you and your cat are going well. I wanna know your thoughts about cassettes, calisthenics and the progress of technology.

 

Calisthenics are something I find selectively useful and I incorporate a bit of this into my regular workout routine, which I’ll probably share the updates to at some point the next time people insist that I write about some k-pop situation that I just can’t bring myself to give a fuck about.

Tech has really stagnated, yes the gimmicky crap like AI is progressing, but the real shit we actually care about doesn’t seem to be. I wish it would start rocketing along again because hard drive prices haven’t gone down in years and I’m sick of having to cull bits of my porn collection to constantly make room for new stuff. Come on Moore’s Law, I’m counting on you to make my next hard drive upgrade affordable.

Cat is good.

Also enjoy our kookaburra.

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That’s all for this episode of QRIMOLE! This series will return next month!

Oh, and do you have a question that you’d like to see answered in the next episode of QRIMOLE? If so, use the question box below, or if no box appears, click the Qri on the sidebar to open the box as a separate webpage! Kpopalypse will return!