they got me
oh no, a certified midwit moment.
EDIT from 1:39 AM on 3/2/22: this is a pretty good example of me “thinking out loud.” you’ll see several twists and turns in this article. it was written over the course of a day.
EDIT FROM 4:00 AM ON 3/2/22: this is after completing this post… it’s not super high-quality (in my opinion) and i’m not super proud of it. i feel like it should’ve stayed in my private notes journal… but, i’m going to keep it up bc i think, at the very least, this sort of internal conversation / flow of thoughts / rambling is common in my head and in my notes and maybe (hopefully) it’s useful or interesting to someone.
there i was, minding my own business and listening to my youtube mix of japanese pop / rock…
until suddenly,
the korean nation attacked.
i’m talking about… k pop
they tricked me too. youtube gave me the japanese version, so i thought it was another japanese idol group at first, but to my shock, it wasn’t.
it was k-pop.
so i checked out the OG version and dayum does it slap.
i’m sorta conflicted abt how shiny everything is tho. if you were to purify and condense female asian beauty standards into one 3:20 minute video, you’d have this k-pop.
who knows if it’s as simple as “normal beauty standards get optimized to make poppy k-pop subgenre of beauty” or something more crazy:
k-pop influences asian beauty standards → mimetic rampage → programming young people → reinforcing these beauty standards / trends → more k-pop
i wonder if future generations will look back on these trends as we look back on fake tans and fake duck lips.
whatever the case, i’m here for it.
the music is catchy, and, for better or worse, i have been programmed and have surrendered to the product-ganda.
this is all just to say that i can’t stop listening and watching and their pseudo-sexual video vibes are working as intended. like, i don’t even know how it’s working and wasn’t aware of the extent i was programmed to like certain things beauty-wise until it was just so blatantly obvious here.
it makes me feel a bit icky and embarrassed, but also… HAHA CATCHY POP SONG GOES BRRRR.
but y’know, it’s actually a little scary. i can see how crazy (male) k-pop stans can get sucked in. this also applies to incels who engage in para-social relationships, etc. to state it as bluntly as possible (which i’m hesitant to do out of general embarrassment lol): bad things happen when you confuse lust and love / affection / human connection / other things.
“i’m subbed to her onlyfans bc she GETS me bro”
now i’m just spitting random unthought-through thoughts, but i wonder how female beauty standards have affected mens’ confidence, mental health, etc… this isn’t me blaming anyone or women or beauty standards, but just logically:
female beauty standard / picture perfect image of what “love / relationships” are → men / boys go, “hmmm i see the ‘perfect’ female beauty standard. but what’s the perfect male standard?” → it’s sort of enigmatic / fragmented / not properly defined, so you get a bunch of pockets of men’s issues → those men who obsess w/ money and status are different from the gym bros are different from the red-pill pickup artists, but they are all linked by the same general insecurity of not living up to what it means to be the “ideal man” and get the prototypical “ideal girl.”
of course, nobody processes these things consciously… and i’m expecting that if this theory is TRUE, men would react defensively: “wtf? this is stupid.” even when i was trying to decode these weird untouched recesses of my mind, i felt icky / embarrassed… so there’s something there, but i’m not entirely sure what.
could be “i don’t like to be programmed in how / what i think”
could be “i don’t like how i’m objectifying the performers in the video”
could be “i don’t like k-pop”
dunno.
anyways, midwidiot, out.
EDIT 9:36 PM on 3/1/2022: i realize that there’s a non-zero chance that all of this was just me using logic / rationalizing for a thing that’s not really that complicated or weird. still gonna keep this as is though
EDIT 12:56 AM on 3/2/2022: i think part of the ickiness comes from consuming a product that is so blatantly fake, almost over-the-top, and enjoying it. this video clarifies the kinds of things that idols do to maintain their beauty / image, which sort of also contributes to the ickiness i feel for having been programmed to think a certain thing is intrinsically beautiful, simply through frequent exposure. basically, it’s unnatural… and since these groups are mainly organized and managed by music executives, it feels even worse…
EDIT 1:02 AM on 3/2/2022: yes, this video above addresses many of my concerns. it’s cognitive dissonance. it’s almost like knowing something is blatantly propaganda and still believing it wholeheartedly anyways.
EDIT 1:30 AM on 3/2/2022: although, idk if this is the correct take. it might just be my brain rationalizing. like, i don’t personally think abt the kids in the cobalt mines when using my iphone. and i don’t think about the nike sweatshops that much either. and, even though i think that music should be about self-expression and creativity (which stuff like this flies in the face off), music also must be listened to and that requires considering the demands of the market. meanwhile, there are lots of hidden costs to things. we don’t think about the abused h1-b slaves when we use giant internet products. and we don’t think abt the regular guy working 80 hour weeks bc his boss is abusive and misses time w/ his kids. or the guy down on his luck who makes our fast food. so yeah, it seems like a rationalization.
i guess i’m just embarrassed / guilty about liking the sexual / mass-produced nature of k-pop. which then begs the question, “why don’t i feel that for american pop idols or even porn actors?” i think it’s because those don’t feel “real.” they feel foreign. i don’t know or see many ppl that try to act and dress like miley cyrus or pornstars… but i do see a bunch of young asian people trying to dress in this k-pop style… and i guess that just reminds me of the humanness of the performers.
yeah. this is starting to click. and then cue the “feeling brainwashed” part… because i then realized that i, like those who began dressing like idols, was also part of the charade because i enjoyed and expected it as a normal beauty standard, which is, at the very least, unhealthy.
it does double damage to me bc i’m always telling myself, “think abt why u want something. and if you want it bc other ppl want it, rethink it.” in this case, my standards of beauty came from others, so i broke my rule.
this is distinct bc recently i’ve broken down a lot of conventional beliefs for myself. one example is “work hard,” which seems ubiquitously accepted as something ppl should strive for. but i’ve detached myself from it and now my thinking in a (very nuanced) nutshell is “work hard if YOU want to.”
so it’s sort of a slap in the face to realize that something as blatantly mimetic as beauty standards was something i overlooked.
EDIT 2:17 am 3/2/22:
“Could it be that maybe u just like k pop? and it’s not any more complicated than that?” Nah it’s more nuanced. I had already thought abt why I liked Asian pop / rock music and certain tambres of the female voice and determined that I liked them for non-mimetic reasons (or so I told myself lol), but I hadn’t thought through why I preferred certain beauty standards, which indicated that it was likely mimetic.
On that note, one might say “u like those beauty standards simply bc of horny teenager urges. Maybe u just think they hot and that’s that.” This is possible and maybe physical preferences are genetic / intrinsic...... or, maybe not bc in ancient cultures very very different things were considered beautiful. So yeah, that’s not it… which means, new discovery made: beauty preferences are largely mimetic. “Who’s hot” is a giant game of micro-mimesis at the subconscious level, which is similar to how a lot of traditions and cultures propagate (ie value systems). Seems obvious now that I’ve thought it through but clearly it caused some cognitive dissonance in me earlier.
all this just to understand why I think a few k pop idols are hot lmao.
Call me the Isaac Newton of beauty standards: “why apple fall on head????”
also last thing, this whole thought train all started with the thing i was embarrassed abt from the start. i think exposing myself in 4k will finally put that embarrassment to rest lmao.
i was like, “aight watching this video. wait hol up why am i getting aroused by this video? bruh i didn’t watch this video for that purpose. aight well i gotta commit now.” and now in hindsight im like, “aight if it was just random teenage horniness, it is what it is, but this video is just so obviously created as horny-bait, so now im mad and gotta turn on the thinking cap”
like, maybe this is wrong. now re-watching the video, i can see an argument for it just being a regular music video, which is totally fine.
i ended up learning a lot abt my pre-conceptions, hidden shames / insecurities, beauty standards, etc. and if it came at the cost of me lookin like a horny midwit, so be it!
now that i’ve thought things through, i think this is my stance on k-pop:
i like it. of course, i won’t like every song, but i don’t have an issue with it.
the music is catchy.
the performers are beautiful (according to my preferences) and enjoying that isn’t morally wrong.
the industry is not squeaky clean, which means u gotta be able to split fact from fiction. this music / entertainment is just that—entertainment.
even if my beauty standards are influenced by other ppl and by extremely-optimized products like this, that’s ok with me. maybe that changes down the road, but for now it’s ok w/ me. i don’t think i have any strong personal preferences on what’s beautiful vs. what’s not.
i just have to be conscious abt my biases and remember that k-pop is not real life.
practically, this means that i should be more conscious of how much of my opinion of someone is based on how they look or present themselves. in k-pop, it’s not just looks that creates attraction. it’s also how they present themselves: confident, playful, seductive, or whatever other trait suits your fancy. these traits are also somewhat mimetic. ideally, (for me personally in a non-romantic / non-sexual context), its impact should be near-zero, since i want to value a person’s ideas, actions, beliefs, etc. above all else. if someone walks around hunch-backed, is soft-spoken, has a lisp, or whatever else, i want to give them a fair shake. i know i’d want that fair shake.
as for the romantic context, i’d like to keep looks / fashion low on the importance list as well, but i’m unsure if that’s practical or possible, given the ambiguous nature of sexual attraction.
i think one way to approach this is to see more beauty in more people… though, i’m not sure if this is actually helpful in any way aside from sounding kind.
truthfully, IDK! maybe discrimination based on physical appearance is okay and desired in the romantic / sexual context.
it makes sense. in the platonic context, filtering potential friends and colleagues based on attractiveness seems stupid and sub-optimal, since you’re prob not F-ing your friends. the aesthetic qualities of your friends also seems like a weird thing to prioritize, at least to me, since i don’t really admire or think abt my friends’ looks or aesthetics. the only other conscious benefit i can see is increasing social standing while playing “the status game,” where befriending attractive people leads you to more attractive people.
meanwhile, in the romantic context, part of the deal is ur gonna do da sex (or so ive heard) and maybe beauty standards apply in the genetic / animalistic framing (i.e. “wide hips = good chemicals”). i dont really know though.
i think if ur a normal functioning human being, all of these things are obvious. i just gotat confirm w/ myself that i’m a normal functioning human being sometimes LOL
more seriously, all this just means “treat ppl like humans.” and i knew that, but sometimes a reminder is helpful.
holy it’s 3AM now and i’m hungry and tired lol. FFS KPOP.
EDIT from 4:22 PM on 3/2/22:
i thought a bit more abt this and i think i’ve clarified for myself parts of the “ickiness” i felt. it’s interesting bc i realize i never really had a clear definition of things like sexualization, etc. until now:
first, sexualization isn’t “bad” as a hard truth, so long as its consensual among the performers. i’m not bashing k-pop or whoever else.
with that in mind though, there are some parts where i’m personally a little conflicted about.
on the one hand, i enjoy the music videos and end-product for what they are: catchy, subtly suggestive girl pop groups. i’m fairly confident in my ability to handle boundaries and whatnot, but there are situations in other ppl that i worry about.
see these reddit comments; i generally agree w/ them and they helped me articulate the ideas i wasn’t able to put my finger on earlier:
“To be fair I prefer the overtly sexual stuff by a mile to the "cutesy/love me oppar" stuff which often features skirts just as short and ass close-ups to cutesy smiles and often is just borderline creepy to me because some of these concepts feel like they sexualize infant/childish behaviour.” source
i don’t have a problem with the cutesy stuff, etc., but i can definitely see how it could cause problems in ppls expectations of reality
“I've said it before but the kpop industry relies a lot on the intentional cultivation of romantic parasocial relationships with vulnerable young people.” source
yup yup yup yup yup. again, i think i’m okay personally, but y’know… it’s just worrying.
what’s also interesting is that i realize i felt UNSURE about calling something “sexualized.”
in my head, i thought, “hol up if i call this music video sexualized, and other ppl think it’s not, does that mean i’m just pervin on random ppl in wrong contexts???”
so i was like constantly doubting my sense of if it is or is not intended to be sexual.
which is absolutely CRAZY because now looking at the video, it’s pretty clearly suggestive.
thinking abt this more, i was thinking abt how this uncertainty extends into my personal life. at first, i was like, “maybe idk what the line is in terms of complimenting ppls looks platonically vs. catcalling, etc.” but then i was like, “nah, I’m pretty sure i know what good vs. bad looks like and when it’s appropriate to comment on those things. it’s more that i’m just not used to expressing my thoughts on sexuality, beauty, etc. in an unironic way, because i always viewed as unimportant and somewhat taboo before.” yet, what this thoughtspam pointed out to me is that I DO have preferences / opinions when it comes to that stuff and it’s probably a good idea for me to understand myself in my biases / preferences / misconceptions / harmful thought patterns / etc. before going out into the world and potentially offending someone else or embarrassing myself
now, i’m legit exposing myself for being inept LMAO. but hey, i wanna be honest. ppl aint born knowing how to interact w/ other humans. they get taught by the people around them and, as for me, im still learning.