All of the questions sent in were on the subject of male and female groups or something related to said subject, so for the first article, I decided to make a mega-post answering all the questions received based on said subject, and don't worry, fap material will be evenly spread around to keep those who only visit this blog for the sole reason of fapping are satisfied. A gift from me to you, eh?
The first question was from mikeycknowsrnb, who asked:
I'm sure that we're all familiar with the typical 'sasaeng' fans which make up a lot of the male group fans, who are mainly located in Korea, and how crazy they can get.
However, there are a few exceptions. While fangirls tend to be less physically violent toward their actual idols (if they are, it's usually towards themselves in the form of cutting their bias group's name into their arm), but there still are a handful of crazy male fans. Take this video for example:
As for the reason why girls tend to be more 'aggressive and obsessive' cannot be pinpointed to one thing exactly, but in my mind, there are three main reasons:
- As mentioned by deoxix in reply to your comment, women are constantly being pressured by society to 'find their prince'. In Korea, a lot of times there is more pressure on society to find a match because it is expected that by the age of thirty, a woman is to be married and have started a family. This pressure is not as enforced on men as it is for women, but many people start to lose hope in a woman and say things like "they will never be married because they are too old" right to their faces. This leads a lot of sasaeng fans to become overly-obsessed with their biases, as they find them to be perfect in their eyes, and being slightly delusional, would want that idol to become their partner in the future.
- Girls. The thing about guys is that they have girlfriends (unless they're gay), and you know what that means? Jealousy. A lot of girls tend to become jealous over the smallest of things. Of course, there are a lot of girls who are fine with whatever their boyfriends do, but then there are a lot more who get mad whenever "oppa doesn't notice me". I know some of my friends get upset whenever they see their boyfriends simply talking to or even laughing with another girl, because they feel they will "leave them for that girl". The same thing applies to some girls and kpop. Girl groups are filled with a few, or even a cluster-fuck of attractive women who were, more often than not, picked to join those groups simply because they're pretty. Naturally, a lot of girls would have a thought process along the lines of: "Well, he's always on his computer screaming about how much he loves his hot 'noona'... WHAT IF HE LEAVES FOR THAT DUMB BITCH?! OPPA DOESN'T SARANG ME ANYMORE!". However, a lot of males wouldn't get offended if their girlfriends did the same things (ex: fangirling over their 'oppas'), and if they are, they're not very vocal about it. An example of this is my friend and her boyfriend. She's obsessed with Justin Bieber and her boyfriend seems perfectly fine with this, however, the moment he likes a picture of just one girl on Instagram, he'd be better off dead.
- The last reason is because a lot of men feel like it's not 'manly' to fangirl. Yes, there are still those who do fangirl quite a bit, but those ones usually just stick to social media sources to scream about how much they liked their idols' new song. While girls openly talk about how much they like One Direction or 5SoS with their girlfriends, guys tend to not talk about things like that.
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| You've made it this far without leaving? Well, here's Hyuna from Nine Muses, because why not? |
The second question comes from Unknown who asks:
Oh yes, the beautiful topic of sexy concepts by female groups... The double standards packing out the doors, and though a lot of females still deny this, their 'oppas' have done many more things that can be considered more 'suggestive' than a lot, or even most, female idols. However, the reason a lot of these females don't realize this is because they deny that their 'oppas' flashing their abs and being half-naked on stage is highly more revealing than a female idol wearing shorts and a cropped-top.
And going with why some girl groups' sexy concepts seem to be more held back than the sexy concepts of guy groups is because of a few factors as well.
The main reason is the Korean public and their views on the matter. While it's perfectly fine for males to be shirtless and have their videos still air on music channels or be shirtless on live stages, but when Stellar, still more clothed than many male idols, released their music video for 'Marionette', it was instantly banned from music channels and they had to wear 'darker stockings' in order to perform live.
Another thing that I've noticed is the fact that whenever there's a video on YouTube devoted to their oppa, or even their 'bulge', the comments mainly consist of how sexy they are and about how "my oppa is better than your oppa" or things along the lines of "At 2:46 oppa shakes some stupid irrelevant girl's hand!" and continuing on about how they're plotting to murder the 'irrelevant girl'. The worst thing is, people upvote comments like this and people who try to shut them up get hated on because they're just "protecting the people we love, and you'd do the same thing".
While it's perfectly fine for females to comment about how much they want to fuck their favorite male idol and get support for doing so, people who say the same sorts of things on girl groups' videos get shamed and called perverts. A perfect example of this are the comments on Nine Muses' 'Wild' and Jay Park's 'Welcome'.
On Jay Park's video:
Meanwhile when a guy tries to express himself in a way more tame than the comments above on Nine Muses' video:
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| So what he/she/it's saying is that none of us at the blog are 'true kpopers', but simply perverts. Seems fine to me if that is what a 'true kpoper' is like. |
A lot of companies force cuter concepts down their girl groups' throats and only wait until that doesn't work until they start to turn to more sexy concepts to get more attention.
You may be asking, "But noona, if sex sells, why not just start off with a sexy concept?". Well, it's not that simple. Take girl groups like Apink or Crayon Pop for example who have a reputation for being aegyo groups. See where that's got them? The thing is, many/almost all girl groups start off with an aegyo style, making it sort of the 'staple' of typical kpop. Because this concept is so common, it's not always guaranteed that by doing aegyo concepts, a group will become popular and produce a lot of money. On the other hand, going with a 'sexy concept' is more of a guaranteed way to make at least some money. But the thing is, yes, sexy concepts guarantee groups with money, but cuter songs/concepts tend to leave a longer lasting imprint on kpop as a whole (ex: Gee) and continue to supply groups with large followings if they're done right. Haven't you ever noticed that some of the more viewed kpop videos are of aegyo concepts rather than sexy concepts? This is why songs like Apink's 'NoNoNo' and Crayon Pop's 'Bar Bar Bar' were such big hits, and why they continue to roll with the aegyo concepts.
Take Girl's Day for example. They started out with cute songs like 'Twinkle Twinkle', but after that didn't really guarantee them a large/steady fanbase, they decided to turn to a more sexy concept and this raised their popularity with songs like 'Expectation' and 'Something'. Another good example of this is SECRET, however they went in the opposite direction. While popular for their sexy concepts even since their debut, they had cute concepts thrown onto them and now their popularity seems to be declining (or maybe because of Zinger's- I mean Hana's- awful plastic surgery). No matter how much you may want to deny it, sex does, indeed, sell.
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| For those of you who are more into Kyungri... |
The last question comes from deoxix who asks:
I felt as if I couldn't have answered this myself, so I decided to recruit the help of some fangirls, and here were the results:
- The most chosen answer with 25 mentions was the fact that they can relate to their idols more easily. Because they are girls, they feel as if they can connect with the way they act, their personalities, and they can also be an inspiration to them. One person mentioned that they wanted an idol that they'd rather "emulate than fuck", which is why they stuck around female groups. Instead of constantly drooling over how hot their idols were, they simply wanted somebody to look up to and be a sort of role model, whether it be in the case of personality of physical fitness. It would be harder for a girl to relate to male idols, which is why they see female idols as good role models. A lot of people also mentioned how their hair, make-up, and fashion gave them inspiration and they wanted to wear the same clothes their idols wore/look like their idols. Girls also find it easier to relate to the lyrics of songs for girl groups, and one honorable mention was Brown Eyed Girls, who have a larger female than male fanbase. Because of this, many of their songs are targeted for more of a female audience/have lyrics that they can relate to. Other songs where the topic of lyrics can be mentioned are Girl's Day's 'Female President' and miss A's 'I Don't Need a Man', which were all about females being able to cope on their own, and thus, many girls could relate to the meaning of the songs or become inspired by them.
- The second most chosen reason with 22 mentions was because they have "catchier songs". They feel as if even though male groups release songs of 'better quality', the songs coming from female groups are more upbeat and cheerful. This links directly with the next most voted reason which was:
- Boy groups don't appeal to them/they're too boring with 14 mentions. A lot of females feel as if the songs coming from girl groups are "less suffocating", while male groups get tough, complex, powerful songs, and serious songs, girl groups tend to get more light-hearted, cheerful, or upbeat songs (as mentioned in reason #1). Other females stan girl groups more because they find guys' personalities to be dry or less interesting/less variety. While they feel as if girl groups have a wide variety of different personalities to choose from, they feel as if guy groups are more limiting since everyone pretty much acts the same or similar. On the other hand, some girls felt that it had nothing to do with personality but simply because of visuals. Some girls mentioned how they didn't like how they wear make-up and how they think their costumes are weird. Meanwhile, other girls weren't concerned about fashion but more about the way that many male idols look physically, comparing them to "corny prepubescent-looking dudes".
- And with 13 mentions, other girls had absolutely no idea as to why they did, and they simply stan them... because they stan them.
- The next with only 4 mentions is that female singers are better. Though not many people expanded on why they felt this way, one person said that they enjoy listening to female voices more, because they have a "nicer tone".
- And with the least votes, but still making it to the list because it's applicable to me and at least one other person, it's because they're lesbian. And to put it simply, girls are hot. Females are attractive, and even many straight girls feel the same way, though not nearly as many would openly admit it themselves in the fear of being accused of being a lesbian or something along the lines of that. This is also a main reason as to why guys are more interested in girl groups. "Eye-candy".
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| And for my beautiful glasses-fags, here's a little something for you |
And here's where you guys come in. I'd like to know:
- If you're a male, do you personally know of any guys who actually fangirl as hard as the typical 'sasaeng' fan, or are they all opposed to that?
- If you're a female and stan girl groups, why?
If you have a question that you'd like to be covered next Wednesday, be sure to write them in the comments section below and check this article for details. Talk to you again next week!