To preface: This is a positive post! I love kpop, and I have for a long time. I am talking about my experience from seeing it go from 0-100 in the West, and Iād love to know if anybody has had a similar experience. Hello! Iām an old kpop fan (1st/2nd/3rd gen) and Iāve been a fan since I was a kid in high school. When I was in high school, I was teased relentlessly for it. It was around 2010-2015, so before it was really well known in the UK. I had kpop pencil cases, bags and trinkets so people knew what it was through me. The other kids were absolutely befuddled by it. People would call it āgay-popā, say the guys all look like girls, and constantly question why I liked it. One girl even got scissors and cut up my revision card with SHINee on it right before my German speaking exam, just because she hated kpop that much (context: we needed to show images of things we loved). Others would deface my pencil cases by scribbling over the band memberās faces and write nasty things on them. And donāt get me started on the racist remarks, to which I would always defend and dispute. I once drew Taemin in art class as we needed to choose a celebrity we admire to draw, and I donāt even want to repeat some of the things the kids said about him. Since it was before and during Gangnam Style or anything that really brought kpop to the mainstream in the West, it was just such a foreign concept to them. The hatred just felt like such unwarranted overkill. It didnāt affect how much I liked it, I just put up with it because I love kpop and that was never going to change, and never has. Cut to today - kpop is absolutely everywhere. Please donāt get me wrong, I am absolutely elated that kpop has found success in the West. Itās all I ever wanted, because now I can enjoy it with people, and I have been! At work, with friends or out and about, Iām able to chat about kpop and meet awesome people who love the same stuff. Itās awesome. But thereās just this little feeling inside me like āGuys, I told you so! I told you it was good, and look at it now! You gave me such a hard time and I was right all alongā. Obviously, kids will be kids, but the hatred for kpop back then was incessant, and it wasnāt even a trend to be hated at that time, like Justin Bieber (which the boys all hated lmao). To be honest Iām really glad kids get to enjoy it nowadays without the same amount of teasing, since itās generally more accepted in the West now. Thatās not to say they donāt get teased, but man, I had to put up with so much back then. Iām not salty about anything, and itās nothing to do with kpop, moreso the growth in audience. Iām just trying process my conflicted feelings, considering Iāve seen it go from 0-100 in terms of love over the years, and I guess Iād feel comforted if somebody has been through similar. I still love kpop, and Iām always so excited to meet new kpop fans so we can enjoy it together. Especially with the new Kpop Demon Hunters film, Iām so happy to see it be a success. But I just want to know, has anybody else experienced anything similar? submitted by /u/lazkqnai [link] [comments]
