K-pop: willful ignorance required.

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(written December 13, 2023)

I have a new K-pop favorite.  They are the 7-member group called TAN.  They pronounce it T-A-N.  I love their song “Heartbeat.”  Here is a recent photo of this band.

I do not know their names, ages, nicknames, or who their leader is.  I do not know their Myers-Briggs personality types or zodiac signs.  I do not know when they debuted or made any comebacks.  I do not know who the maknae is.  I do not know what their official fan base is called or what the official fan chants are.  And for the first time since I fell down this K-pop rabbit hole, I have zero interest in finding out.  Trust me, it’s because I love this band.  It’s for the best.

I will not watch any interviews with them.  I will not watch them play with puppies for Buzzfeed or play Post it or Ghost It for Seventeen Magazine.  I will not read the fan comments below each video where some dedicated, devoted worshipper, God bless her passionate little heart,  has posted time stamps from the video with the name of each member so we can learn who’s who. 

I do not care if the fans hate the group’s record label.  I do not want to know how these guys work out, if they skip leg day, what their skincare routine is, if they like spicy food, or any opinion they have on any topic ever.

I will make it my 2024 New Year’s Resolution – nay, my mission in life – to not ever learn a single thing about this band.

And they should take that as a compliment.  I want it stated for the record that I am doing this so I can continue to enjoy their songs.  I ignore because I love.

It’s just too much.  There is too much information out there about all these groups.  When I was growing up, the internet hadn’t been invented yet. To this day, I can’t get my head around that.  I actually grew up before people had cell phones, cable TV, internet, and social media.  Streaming channels did not exist.  Personal computers and VCRs didn’t come along until I was in high school.  Now, as an adult, there are days when I actually wonder why I didn’t just die. 

Sorry.  I got off track there. 

But seriously, how did I live?  I had a driver’s license for almost a decade before I had a cell phone with GPS.  I was constantly getting lost.  I would write down directions on paper before I went anywhere and squint at them while I was driving.  I literally should be dead right now.  My corpse should be at the bottom of a ravine somewhere, with the directions to Myrtle Beach scribbled on a piece of paper pinned underneath me and the rusting shell of my car wedged among some boulders in the creek 50 more feet down.  I should have been featured on that missing persons show on the Investigation Discovery Channel the day it premiered.

OK.  I’m OK.  Really, I’m OK.  What the hell was I talking about?

Right.  These guys.

When I was growing up, there was no internet yet.  Which means that when I found artists I really liked by seeing them on The Donny and Marie Show, or Solid Gold, or when they were a special musical guest on Happy Days or The Love Boat, the only way I could learn about them was to go to the newsstand at the grocery store and pick up magazines with names like Tiger Beat or BOP or SuperTeen and read things like how I could win a date with one of them.  These were actual printed articles about how one of these artists, like Leif Garrett, Rick Springfield, or Shaun Cassidy, could wind up going on a date with little ten year-old me from Waynesboro, Virginia.  These magazines were not helpful is what I’m saying.

Except for the posters.  All the magazines had posters that I would tape to my wall.  I did read the articles, but the “fun facts” about the artists were dubious, even to an innocent teenybopper like me.  I would read sentences written by actual adults that said Andy Gibb was lonely sometimes, but he was looking for a girl just like me.  In reality, Andy Gibb was married to his high school sweetheart back in Australia.  Those magazines LIED to me.

Things are very different today.  I felt myself spiral when Jungkook from BTS did a Weverse Live from his apartment and gave us a detailed rundown of all his dog Bam’s health problems.  The teen magazines of my youth wouldn’t even tell me that Andy Gibb was married, and forty years later, I’m watching Bam the Doberman poop in the middle of Jungkook’s luxury condo in the middle of Seoul.  I’m too embarrassed to be on camera for Zoom meetings at work unless I’ve vaccumed that day.

Just from bored web browsing during my lunch hours at work, I know that Monsta X was formed on a reality survival show, which seems like a bizarre way to put a band together.  Was this the same kind of survival reality show we have in the States?  Actual wilderness survival shows?  How do the judges determine the winners?  If seven of you don’t get eaten by wolves, you get to be in a K-pop group? 

I also know that Junho from 2pm holds the record for breaking the biggest number of chopsticks with his butt.  

I want to pour bleach on my brain to erase the YouTube video proving this. 

Some of the random tidbits I know just frustrate me.  The name of the fan group for The Boyz is just The B (which has a rather negative meaning in English), but one of the names they considered was The Fanz.  How perfect would that have been?  I could have been a part of The Fanz, but instead I get called The B.  I still love The Boyz, but now I want to punch them in the face. 

My brain is now full of information I have no business knowing, like the blood types of the group Seventeen.  I mean, I don’t have them memorized, but I know that if I’m ever in a serious car accident, and the paramedics are insane people who believe I can only receive a blood donation from a K-pop idol, they can Google which band member’s blood type is compatible with mine while I bleed out on the highway. 

Enough.  At some point, I have to say enough. 

In fact, I see this as an interesting challenge.  A K-pop social experiment.  Objectively, I know it’s possible to enjoy a band’s music and videos without knowing a single thing about them.  But with the barrage of information on the internet, which is the very tool I need to even hear their music and see their videos in the first place, is it even possible to avoid learning anything about them?  Is it possible to be willfully 100% ignorant about a band I love?  I mean, I did not plan on knowing that a human being could break chopsticks with his ass, but here we are. 

So, TAN, you are my experiment. 

Thank you for your great song, “Heartbeat.”  Thank you for any other songs I find by you that I also love.  I will put them on my playlist and powerwalk happily around the neighborhood to them.  I will dance to them while cleaning my apartment.  I will sing along while running errands.  You are talented and fun.

Now go away.  And if you see any of The Boyz on your way out, please tell them The B wants to see them in her office.    

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