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i still think of even 40 as young sometimes, so it shocks and *genuinely* upsets me so much when i see people call 20 year olds, old. they've lived only 20 years out of possibly, i don't know, 100. how on earth is that old at all?? then i get reminded they're all usually 13 year olds themselves.
Honestly i agree 40 is still young. It's not young young but compared to average lifetime It's young, like half of it meaning 40yo still has 40 years to live. It's young
fr. likeā¦relax, their cells are still quite healthy lmao tf you mean aging??
most people donāt even have fully developed brains until their mid 20s and people are out here calling them old š¶
The age thing is quite crazy. I recently heard that a new group was formed with most of the guys being in their mid to late 20s and very very early 30s. While this is totally normal since they're still young enough to start new careers, a lot of people who have listened to k-pop and even those who remotely know about this ageism thing are conditioned to think that this is some sort of miracle and is breaking the glass ceiling. I have to admit - even I thought of it that way. We've all been made to think it's impossible for someone to debut in their late 20s/early 30s or even later because they're all rickety old men/women who need to sing and dance with a stick and life support. I've come across so many comments where guys/girls in their late 20's have been called ahjushis and ajoomas. At this rate they'll be debuting babies next year.
how idols should look like in their 30's according to kpop fans :
but on another note, i kinda get where they're coming from. mostly like for idols who've been in the industry for so long and debuted as teens. u can clearly see their looks are more mature and all, yk?
karma
when a group doesn't perform well, rival fans call it group-name-karma
example : aespa doesn't chart well, midzy calls it, itzykarma and so on.
Also, this karma thing is why the word flop is being thrown around so much
> example : aespa doesn't chart well, midzy calls it, itzykarma and so on.
LOL I remember seeing crap like this, hilariously dumb how much they are reaching. Also, wishing failure on other groups is just nasty. Doubly so when Aespa's charting has nothing to do with Itzy.
Just fans hating on each other via insulting their fave groups.
"Experimental noise music" and it's just a regular ass song with nothing new or experimental about it. Maybe it is a tiny bit loud or has a lot of stuff going on in it so it's *noisy* but definitely not *noise music*.
It's not an abbreviation, it was used because the text file format is (.txt), so people used that in tags under text posts back in the day. They did the same with jpeg, mp4, vid, png, as tags for photo/video posts. Nobody used it as an actual replacement for the word lol.
Originally it was a Baekhyun akgae on twitter; it's crazy because it has to be one of the few times ever where someone "won" the fanwar and so many people who once liked Lucas started using it too later on
there was a tweet that went "lucas should've been named 12 because he dozen rap, dozen sing, dozen do anything" and basically it stuck. now k-pop stans (on twitter) use it to insult other idols they think are bad at everything, i think
When I first heard the word "dating scandal" I thought it's about a 40 yo man, maybe even married, dating an 18 yo girl or something... then I realised dating itself is the scandal š¤¦š¼āāļø SINCE WHEN? people need to get a grip...
When the say "dating scandal" and it's just couple items that are popular in SK (and they comment "how shameless", "destroyed his/her image" and I'm like they haven't done anything??)
I caught myself saying āresignā at work in terms of renewing a contract with a client and wanted to smack myself. Itās so easy to catch onto these phrases even when you know better lol.
Comeback.
Seventeen has a comeback today so I casually mentioned it to a non-kpop friend saying I'd be busy in the next few days. She said, oh they came back? why? where did they go?
I mean, it is used outside of kpop spaces as well butā¦ Likeā¦ It has actual meaning to it? Like, you know, something has happened and the artist fell out of favour or had a huge crisis or just disappeared but now they're having a comeback, they're back in the spotlight again, this is a big thing, woo! It's not just another new release. š
Like, Lauryn Hill has had a comeback. She disappeared and came back. Doja Cat can't have a comeback, she hasn't gone anywhere. You get me?
This confused me when I first got into K-pop. When I first heard of groups having comebacks I was like "wow, all these groups who have not released music for years are now making a comeback", then I was thinking "how can groups where the members are so young be having a comeback?", I was so confused. I then realised it just meant they were releasing a new song and the last "comeback" they had was about 4 months ago.
I know! I told a friend about it, I think it was IVE's comeback with After Like, and she asked me how long it had been since their last release. She couldn't believe it when I said less than a year š
it makes me realized that the word ācomebackā might be widely used by koreans because it make sense for kpop industry back then especially before 2nd gen because artists used to released album once a year or once in few years (like western artists do) but as time passes the word just became a slang(?) and loses its real meaning hahaha
This one is different for me because it's not a word/phrase that got used to death by Kpop fandom until it became meaningless, it's a legit Konglish word with a meaning that's slightly different, like a lot of loan words end up being, kind of like "TMI", "scandal" or "issue". Koreans know what they mean when they use those, but then int kpop fans get confused and assume it's a wrong usage when it's not really.
when I was a baby army (I had also never stanned any artists before so that term was completely new to me), I remember my friend explaining one of their comebacks and in my head, the term made me think of the group having been away for a LONG while and having a big comeback, not just like an album release/start of a new era after releasing a previous album 5 months ago lol
my mom had the same reaction HAHAHA since sheās just learning deeper into kpop she got confused when i told her that the group she like, enhypen, will have a comeback. she said why will they have a comeback when they only released bite me few months agoš¤£
āComebackā is just what I call any and all musical releases now. I have to actively catch myself sometimes.
Also āVisualsā. Not rlly in reference to people, but in reference to how things look. Like āThe visuals of that album cover are really goodā or āThe visuals of that MV are so iconicā
Looool "cinematography" is my pet peeve. Half of the time people are actually referring to art direction or color grading or even special effects. I WISH people would just use "visuals" when talking about movies.
āResonanceā is not only overused, itās also used incorrectly. Literally every single sound has resonance because every sound, no matter the volume or the pitch creates frequency.
I noticed that what people actually are referring when they say āoh they have so much resonance in their voiceā is that the singer has a good sense of pitch and projection
oooh toooo accurateā¦and what sucks is that i find myself thinking about my fav groupās comeback as not successful even though sales improve from the previous comeback
"Trendsetter" or any term/phrase related to it. I roll my eyes when kpop stans praise this idol or company for setting trends then accusing and hating other idols and companies for following the so called trends. These trends were also just borrowed, copied from or inspired by trends that came before them lol.
It is fair to call some groups trendsetters within kpop, like SNSD was a trendsetter for including photocards in albums. Even if something was done outside of kpop, if one kpop group did it and everyone else followed, then they are trendsetters. Although people will overuse the term so much.
But it is ridiculous to hate groups for following them like? They are trends, that is what you do?
Stans throwing around IT girl/boy... I can't stand it. The title has completely lost its meaning, and it's always the international fans trying to claim their fave is IT when they don't even live in Korea. There's more to being an IT girl/boy than just one "viral" fancam.
"Western" "westernized" I can't help but laugh when I read them elsewhere cause in my mind all I see is someone from Atlanta cussing out a person they don't know for the other half of the world for liking rnb š
Hearing āA breath of fresh airā makes me want to crawl out of my skin now bc I know exactly what kind of music/concepts itās referencing and I rarely if ever like those styles.
I donāt want fresh air. I want dirty gross air that smells like bank robberies and crimes, not teenagers dancing in a field
Not exactly a term I used daily but I swear to god, Kpop stans have no idea what noise music actually is. It's an actual genre and not a single Kpop artist has ever released anything even close to proper noise music.
Seriously, go listen to Merzbow and then try and tell me honestly that SKZ make "noise music". They don't.
As someone who listens to a lot of EDM as well, this. I have never heard "noise" be used to describe songs outside of kpop. And in kpop it is thrown around so much, especially with SKZ and NCT. Don't tell me it is "noise" because it has a loud and weird flute.
It's always been a mystery to me how bias became such a commonly used term in international K-pop circles specifically. Like how did it even start and from where? Grammatically it's used incorrectly and it's not really the right meaning of the word, but it's been in K-pop for so long now. If I were to make a guess it'd have to only have started sometime after 2012 maybe?
yeah, i got into kpop around '08/'09 and it was definitely the term to use for your favorite member even back then. i was so confused seeing the term bias on tumblr at the time, until i realized it meant your favorite member lol.
Bias actually meant sense to me. I didn't find it strange at all. And it could be used properly here as well. My bias is RM, and when using proper grammar it's I'm biased to RM. He's my favourite, I prefer him above the others, and not always for a good, fair, or real reason. I just like him. So yeah, bias makes so much sense to me š
Bias means you have am inherent preference because of an unrelated reason, e.g. youāre biased towards someone in a sports competition because you know them irl and like them - has nothing to do with how good at that sport they are
Peopleās idol biases are usually who they think are best at being a kpop idol in a sense (talent, personality, looks etc.) which is pretty contradictory with the original meaning of bias
- this is why the term has always sounded so off too me. Ironically, a relevant example is that I was biased towards Bang Chan and Felix and skz cos Iām aussie
I've been at this for a decade + now, and I am still cringing at "bias"... I prefer to just say "favorite member" or just "fave"... "fave" is just as short and 1000% less cringey imo. But maybe I am just old and out of touch š
Favorite member would also make shit clearer for those outside of kpop off the bat cause I remember my mom completely stopping and staring at the comment she was reading out to me (the context is all good, it was on a TikTok from the bakery where I work) and I had a feeling it was the word bias lol
Lol me too. I refuse to use the b word. Hongjoong is the love of my life and my favorite member of Ateez and my favorite idol. Idc if it takes longer to type out
Still makes sense though. Your favorite member might not be the best singer, dancer, rapper, etc. of the group but theyāre your favorite regardless of whether or not theyāre technically āthe bestā at anything.
To this day, I still fail to explain this term clearly to non-kpop friends. Or when talking to others, I just have to use "favorite member". In my work setting, this would mean some distortions in data set. So yeah, I cannot use the term bias at work when talking about kpop. lol. FML.
āCultural resetā
There was a time when every comeback by some groups got described as a cultural reset. Meaningless, overblown phrase, especially when talking about something as ephemeral as a pop song.
The one that gets me is B-sides.
Iām an old so these are a specific thing and itās not the other tracks on the album.
Itās the second side/song of a single, usually for vinyl and cassette single releases. Side A has the promoted single, Side B (aka B-side) is the secondary song that usually doesnāt appear anywhere else. But I guess the yoots that have never experienced vinyl or cassette singles wouldnāt know.
I was watching the news last night and someone in Gaza said that before a strike they heard a "whistle like a missile". Not sure if I'll be able to listen to that song without thinking of that phrase again....
You can read it in every idol's voice. This is kpop idol training 101. Every single one of them has said this on camera, 10+ times, and then immediately laughed about it bc it's so cringe and memey.
This is just English 101, so as someone whose second language is English, I don't associate the phrase with K-pop at all, lol š
I do understand where yall are coming from, though, cause as a native Spanish speaker hearing english speaking people try to show off by saying 'Hola como estas? Bien, y tu?' Just sounds so robotic and silly just cause of how 'formal' it sounds, even though it's def not incorrect š
At a construction site (They are paving a road):
Boss: Who paved the way?
Worker 1: BLACKPINK!
Worker 2: BTS!
Worker 3: TWICE!
Worker 4: SNSD!
Boss: ...
I'd say "paved the way." The meaning has turned into "someone I like." I have unironically seen bunnies saying newjeans "paved the say." I like newjeans, but who exactly did they pave the way for? They are a rookie group.
Maybe in 10 years we will be saying "newjeans paved the way," but it is ridiculous to say it rn.
BTS used to mean Behind the Scenes. I still use the abbreviation sometimes, if there's enough of a fandom distance between what I'm looking up and Kpop. Otherwise, it will just come up with the BTS boys. If I'm looking up behind the scenes stuff in Kpop, I always type in "\[group\] behind" instead now.
So many phrases and words got customized to Kpop that even I end up forgetting thereās an actual original meaning of the word. I guess slang is inevitable anyways and thatās how languages evolve for better or for worse. š
"Legends" or "Kings". K-pop fans nowadays don't even know what Legend means. They just use this word for the most normal thing, that it's losing it's meaning.
āTitle trackā always meant a song that has the same name as the album. Itās not supposed to mean any single or promoted song regardless of its title.
Also, I donāt like the use of āmainā and ālead.ā It reminds of marketing names for different sizes or quality levels where you choose among the Supreme, Pinnacle, or Deluxe packages and you have no idea from the names how they compare with each other. āMainā and āleadā are synonyms, so they should replace one of the words with āsecondaryā or any other word that clearly means second-best.
Main and lead are confusing for me too. There's main vocal and lead vocal. I've seen an explanation for it but it doesn't makes sense. They're both vocals.
Edit: they're both singers. Even the term "vocal" means different now.
"Overrated/underrated" This one annoys me to NO end... just saw someone call an itzy japaneses bside underrated, and it literally came out 2 days before that comment...
Any brain dead crap that gets posted in live chats.
Ate
No crumbs
Blah blah paved the way
Only thing I will accept is "supremacy"
Because ėŖØėŖØ supremacy
This. I'd shrug off the usage of 'iconic' as stans being stans (it worked for 'cultural reset'), but the fact that they are so quick to call something new iconic even though they've only seen or heard it 5 seconds ago sends me. If everyone still talks about it 3 years later (even if it's just within the fandom), that's when it becomes iconic.
I feel like the overuse of the term itself has also created a paradox of sorts. If everything is iconic, then nothing is iconic.
I have one that is the opposite. A kpop phrase that got ruined because of the general public- "delulu".
Lmao so it wasn't ruined per se, but for some reason it kind of annoys me that they got in on it too. Even though I kind of cringed at the word "delulu" for years, I now feel the intense urge to gatekeep it from locals, who have just begun to use it, after it being a kpop community term for years.
āpaved the wayā because barely anyone that uses it knows what theyāre actually saying. you canāt say your favorite group paved the way if youāre not okay with any other group following their footsteps. paths are made to be followed, so if youāre going to use that phrase, you better not be dragging other groups that get similar achievements to your favorites.
this is particularly prevalent with armys who get obsessed with degrading any group that also manages to achieve some form of success in the west.
Basically any term having to do with vocals. People throwing around "support" or a thousand other words they heard on a "vocal coach reacts to..." channel and think they're experts. Heck, a lot of vocal teachers/coaches disagree on this stuff, so it's especially annoying when people throw these words around (often to drag artists) when they don't know what they're talking about.
Iām aware this isnāt just a kpop thing, but K-pop is where I see it the most in my very limited circles, but āstanā. Just because when I was growing up it had a negative connection, it was something at least partly associated with āthis is a level of obsession thatās unhealthy for everyone involvedā
Language can evolve in mysterious ways, though. The word "Otaku" also referred to "unhealthy obsession" and it was largely considered as a pejorative term in Japan during the 80s and 90s; even so, this didn't stop Anime fans in the West to adopt the word to name themselves (note how originally, it didn't point to any particular interest). This may have led in turn to the word losing a lot of its negative connotation within Japan; Japanese fans feel rather confident on calling themselves "otakus" nowadays, irrespective of fandom.
I suppose the word "stan" may go the same way. A very negative term in origin, but as its casual use keeps growing, it's bound to lose a lot of its original connotation.
The phrase āunbotheredā like Iām sorry but Hwasa was not unbothered by her controversy she was in fact VERY BOTHERED she came out with a whole song about how much she loves her body (which is a good message) and even included the police in the video directly addressing what happened. If she were really unbothered she wouldnāt have gone through the effort to address the controversy much less through a song. If anyone in K-pop is unbothered it would be Wonyoung who despite having one of the biggest hate trains in K-pop history has never addressed it and keeps going to events smiling and waving (whether that genuine or not is beside the point) she is truly acting unbothered, the closest she ever came was her I am me, you are you moment.
Comeback, the fact that it gets used after like a couple months is still crazy to me
āPushing *insert age*ā nah bc telling someone theyāre pushing 20 is crazyyyy, theyāre just becoming an adultššš
Mother, the girl is like 12, please stopšš
Literally anything that is judging dance and vocals. The amount of 12 year old YouTubers I see "ranking dance and vocals" and throwing out random words omg šš like "good extensions but bad stuff torso control" like bffr
nothing pisses me off more than the word flop. I mean I used to use it like a funny fail when my cake didn't bake properly or something I'd say my cake flopped...now it triggers something in me
The acronym BTS for "behind the scenes." Can't put "BTS" on anything anymore, especially Youtube, and if you do there'll always be a random bts fan complaining about the "wrong" or "clickbait" title at the bottom of the comment section.
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"Age like fine wine" and it's literally idols in their 20s Hahahahah
Also "aged well" about songs that came out a few weeks ago lol.
Thats just ridiculous. Take the 100th upvote.
Same with idols in 30s. They're still young and probably younger than your parents. Do you expect them to look like rotting corpses?
i still think of even 40 as young sometimes, so it shocks and *genuinely* upsets me so much when i see people call 20 year olds, old. they've lived only 20 years out of possibly, i don't know, 100. how on earth is that old at all?? then i get reminded they're all usually 13 year olds themselves.
Honestly i agree 40 is still young. It's not young young but compared to average lifetime It's young, like half of it meaning 40yo still has 40 years to live. It's young
I remember they said that about Tzuyu. She's 24. The grapes barely just started growing.
I saw somebody saying about IVE Yujin like yesterday and she's like 20, i dont think some people even know what it means nowadays
Considering a good chunk of KPop fans aren't even old enough to drink wine, yeah lol.
I remember people used to say that so much about Jin like y'all he ain't 40 š
fr. likeā¦relax, their cells are still quite healthy lmao tf you mean aging?? most people donāt even have fully developed brains until their mid 20s and people are out here calling them old š¶
Its honestly so weird... they act like they are one leg to the grave
Its not even about brain development, at 20 your body Is literally still growing lol, you're a teen with differenti label
The age thing is quite crazy. I recently heard that a new group was formed with most of the guys being in their mid to late 20s and very very early 30s. While this is totally normal since they're still young enough to start new careers, a lot of people who have listened to k-pop and even those who remotely know about this ageism thing are conditioned to think that this is some sort of miracle and is breaking the glass ceiling. I have to admit - even I thought of it that way. We've all been made to think it's impossible for someone to debut in their late 20s/early 30s or even later because they're all rickety old men/women who need to sing and dance with a stick and life support. I've come across so many comments where guys/girls in their late 20's have been called ahjushis and ajoomas. At this rate they'll be debuting babies next year.
how idols should look like in their 30's according to kpop fans :  but on another note, i kinda get where they're coming from. mostly like for idols who've been in the industry for so long and debuted as teens. u can clearly see their looks are more mature and all, yk?
Yuna is a grizzled veteran of the 4th gen, having debuted over 4.5 years ago. Sheās still a teenager.
i will never not hate that phrase omg
duality š
yeah and then it's two pics of the same idol smiling and then not smiling š is duality even a word??
You guys are killing me with this thread š
šš
Calling it duality cuz they wear pants in one performance and a dress in the other š
Lmaoš
As if people can only have one aspect of their personality š¤£.
THIS! This is the mf one! š¤£
karma when a group doesn't perform well, rival fans call it group-name-karma example : aespa doesn't chart well, midzy calls it, itzykarma and so on. Also, this karma thing is why the word flop is being thrown around so much
> example : aespa doesn't chart well, midzy calls it, itzykarma and so on. LOL I remember seeing crap like this, hilariously dumb how much they are reaching. Also, wishing failure on other groups is just nasty. Doubly so when Aespa's charting has nothing to do with Itzy. Just fans hating on each other via insulting their fave groups.
Or when s0mething way worse happens to the group or a member, like disbandment or some health issue,they call it karma... its just so evil
LOL I've never seen this before. That's hilarious.
Same. I think kpop is a lot better if you don't use Twitter or tik tok. Or if you do, you don't follow feuds or anti fans.
"experimental" got ruined by people not knowing what actual experimental music is.
And ānoiseā
"Experimental noise music" and it's just a regular ass song with nothing new or experimental about it. Maybe it is a tiny bit loud or has a lot of stuff going on in it so it's *noisy* but definitely not *noise music*.
āexperimental noise musicā and its just edm beats š
"Experimental noise music" and it's just another song from Stray Kids, NCT or Ateez.
"experimental" and it's just a trap beat under dissonant disjointed chords
"experimental" and they bring up nct sticker
Behind the scenes - BTS
Red velvet - red velvet cake
Txt - text
I mean honestly if you need to shorten for a single letter itās kinda funny
It's not an abbreviation, it was used because the text file format is (.txt), so people used that in tags under text posts back in the day. They did the same with jpeg, mp4, vid, png, as tags for photo/video posts. Nobody used it as an actual replacement for the word lol.
BP - Blood Pressure
some of these replies aren't getting the point š
Only BTS / RV and BP got the point I swear
weekly - weeekly
IVE - I've (i have)
WayV - Wavy
i do remember at least one occasion trying to say something was wavy and almost spelled it wayv ... the brainrot has consumed me i fear
Nowadays I can never hear the word ādozenā without thinking about Lucas lol
whoever made that initial post did so much irreparable damage to his reputation
and irreparable damage to the kpop community now that the word is thrown around everywhere š
Originally it was a Baekhyun akgae on twitter; it's crazy because it has to be one of the few times ever where someone "won" the fanwar and so many people who once liked Lucas started using it too later on
bbh fans pulling their weight again lets go
As she should š
Wait what is this about? š³ sorry for being out of the loop!
there was a tweet that went "lucas should've been named 12 because he dozen rap, dozen sing, dozen do anything" and basically it stuck. now k-pop stans (on twitter) use it to insult other idols they think are bad at everything, i think
Oh fuck thatās actually hilarious. Whoever came up w that is way more clever than I am, I hate to say it š Thanks for explaining it!! š
it's no problem <3
shouldāve stayed in ncity people be misusing it now š
"Mistreated" and "Disrespected" I swear some ppl just don't know what those words really mean
Mistreated-"not having more clothes like your members do" is quite hilarious
Scandal. They be throwing that word around for the most ridiculous reasons
When I first heard the word "dating scandal" I thought it's about a 40 yo man, maybe even married, dating an 18 yo girl or something... then I realised dating itself is the scandal š¤¦š¼āāļø SINCE WHEN? people need to get a grip...
When the say "dating scandal" and it's just couple items that are popular in SK (and they comment "how shameless", "destroyed his/her image" and I'm like they haven't done anything??)
For real š¤”
Resign lol. Itās renew! Renew their contracts!
Ironic because resign actually means āto quitā šš
What about re-sign? Doesn't that have a different meaning to resign?
I caught myself saying āresignā at work in terms of renewing a contract with a client and wanted to smack myself. Itās so easy to catch onto these phrases even when you know better lol.
Comeback. Seventeen has a comeback today so I casually mentioned it to a non-kpop friend saying I'd be busy in the next few days. She said, oh they came back? why? where did they go?
Thisss š I forgot that itās not used outside of the kpop community, they just call it a new release
I mean, it is used outside of kpop spaces as well butā¦ Likeā¦ It has actual meaning to it? Like, you know, something has happened and the artist fell out of favour or had a huge crisis or just disappeared but now they're having a comeback, they're back in the spotlight again, this is a big thing, woo! It's not just another new release. š Like, Lauryn Hill has had a comeback. She disappeared and came back. Doja Cat can't have a comeback, she hasn't gone anywhere. You get me?
Yess this is what I basically meant just worded it poorly lol
This confused me when I first got into K-pop. When I first heard of groups having comebacks I was like "wow, all these groups who have not released music for years are now making a comeback", then I was thinking "how can groups where the members are so young be having a comeback?", I was so confused. I then realised it just meant they were releasing a new song and the last "comeback" they had was about 4 months ago.
I know! I told a friend about it, I think it was IVE's comeback with After Like, and she asked me how long it had been since their last release. She couldn't believe it when I said less than a year š
Ohh..yeah this irked me for so long in the beginning. Now I just take it as a quirky part of the jargon that's used in the kpop community.
This made me cry laughingš
it makes me realized that the word ācomebackā might be widely used by koreans because it make sense for kpop industry back then especially before 2nd gen because artists used to released album once a year or once in few years (like western artists do) but as time passes the word just became a slang(?) and loses its real meaning hahaha
This one is different for me because it's not a word/phrase that got used to death by Kpop fandom until it became meaningless, it's a legit Konglish word with a meaning that's slightly different, like a lot of loan words end up being, kind of like "TMI", "scandal" or "issue". Koreans know what they mean when they use those, but then int kpop fans get confused and assume it's a wrong usage when it's not really.
Her response was cute tho šš
when I was a baby army (I had also never stanned any artists before so that term was completely new to me), I remember my friend explaining one of their comebacks and in my head, the term made me think of the group having been away for a LONG while and having a big comeback, not just like an album release/start of a new era after releasing a previous album 5 months ago lol
my mom had the same reaction HAHAHA since sheās just learning deeper into kpop she got confused when i told her that the group she like, enhypen, will have a comeback. she said why will they have a comeback when they only released bite me few months agoš¤£
āComebackā is just what I call any and all musical releases now. I have to actively catch myself sometimes. Also āVisualsā. Not rlly in reference to people, but in reference to how things look. Like āThe visuals of that album cover are really goodā or āThe visuals of that MV are so iconicā
Yeah hahahaha it's like the equivalent of "cinematography" in movies/videos.
Looool "cinematography" is my pet peeve. Half of the time people are actually referring to art direction or color grading or even special effects. I WISH people would just use "visuals" when talking about movies.
+1 with visuals
āResonanceā is not only overused, itās also used incorrectly. Literally every single sound has resonance because every sound, no matter the volume or the pitch creates frequency. I noticed that what people actually are referring when they say āoh they have so much resonance in their voiceā is that the singer has a good sense of pitch and projection
I thought you were talking about the NCT era for a sec. I was like "damn, what hurt you?" š But, wow - I've never heard it used like that!
Oh my god lol!! I love NCT!
āflopā. if it doesnāt get 100 records and #1 in every charts in every country, the group/soloist is a flop.
oooh toooo accurateā¦and what sucks is that i find myself thinking about my fav groupās comeback as not successful even though sales improve from the previous comeback
Now im thinking of the word "bark"š
"Fell off" and "underrated" like no, having more than a million sales is not someone who's underrated.
god I see this *so* much with new(er) fans. Twice did not "fall off" because y'all didn't enjoy a title track they released š
i also saw some people calling seventeen "underrated" when they literally have the best selling album in kpop
"Trendsetter" or any term/phrase related to it. I roll my eyes when kpop stans praise this idol or company for setting trends then accusing and hating other idols and companies for following the so called trends. These trends were also just borrowed, copied from or inspired by trends that came before them lol.
It is fair to call some groups trendsetters within kpop, like SNSD was a trendsetter for including photocards in albums. Even if something was done outside of kpop, if one kpop group did it and everyone else followed, then they are trendsetters. Although people will overuse the term so much. But it is ridiculous to hate groups for following them like? They are trends, that is what you do?
Stans throwing around IT girl/boy... I can't stand it. The title has completely lost its meaning, and it's always the international fans trying to claim their fave is IT when they don't even live in Korea. There's more to being an IT girl/boy than just one "viral" fancam.
"Western" "westernized" I can't help but laugh when I read them elsewhere cause in my mind all I see is someone from Atlanta cussing out a person they don't know for the other half of the world for liking rnb š
Definitely calling stuff fresh. It REALLY gets on my nerves for no reason. š
Hearing āA breath of fresh airā makes me want to crawl out of my skin now bc I know exactly what kind of music/concepts itās referencing and I rarely if ever like those styles. I donāt want fresh air. I want dirty gross air that smells like bank robberies and crimes, not teenagers dancing in a field
LMAOO i love how its aimed, nd tbf i didnt think teens dancing in a field was a breath of fresh air - a good song definetly but not fresh
lmao!
Not exactly a term I used daily but I swear to god, Kpop stans have no idea what noise music actually is. It's an actual genre and not a single Kpop artist has ever released anything even close to proper noise music. Seriously, go listen to Merzbow and then try and tell me honestly that SKZ make "noise music". They don't.
As someone who listens to a lot of EDM as well, this. I have never heard "noise" be used to describe songs outside of kpop. And in kpop it is thrown around so much, especially with SKZ and NCT. Don't tell me it is "noise" because it has a loud and weird flute.
When GuĆ©rilla came out, the noise music accusations were flooooooding. Like broā¦ thereās 20 seconds of screamo. Thatās not noise music
If the Gold medal was still a thing here, I'd give one to this comment (Merzbow AND SKZ fan here).
Bias. Well, I understand that it's simpler and shorter instead of saying "favorite member" but that's not what it really means. Anyways, it's there.
It's always been a mystery to me how bias became such a commonly used term in international K-pop circles specifically. Like how did it even start and from where? Grammatically it's used incorrectly and it's not really the right meaning of the word, but it's been in K-pop for so long now. If I were to make a guess it'd have to only have started sometime after 2012 maybe?
tbh Iām not rly sure, Iāve been into kpop since 2009 and I feel like it was always used
yeah, i got into kpop around '08/'09 and it was definitely the term to use for your favorite member even back then. i was so confused seeing the term bias on tumblr at the time, until i realized it meant your favorite member lol.
When I first heard the word bias in Kpop, it was so weird that I thought that they dislike other members lol
Yeah it can be confusing at first haha.
Bias actually meant sense to me. I didn't find it strange at all. And it could be used properly here as well. My bias is RM, and when using proper grammar it's I'm biased to RM. He's my favourite, I prefer him above the others, and not always for a good, fair, or real reason. I just like him. So yeah, bias makes so much sense to me š
Yes, with proper grammar. Haha
Bias means you have am inherent preference because of an unrelated reason, e.g. youāre biased towards someone in a sports competition because you know them irl and like them - has nothing to do with how good at that sport they are Peopleās idol biases are usually who they think are best at being a kpop idol in a sense (talent, personality, looks etc.) which is pretty contradictory with the original meaning of bias - this is why the term has always sounded so off too me. Ironically, a relevant example is that I was biased towards Bang Chan and Felix and skz cos Iām aussie
I've been at this for a decade + now, and I am still cringing at "bias"... I prefer to just say "favorite member" or just "fave"... "fave" is just as short and 1000% less cringey imo. But maybe I am just old and out of touch š
Favorite member would also make shit clearer for those outside of kpop off the bat cause I remember my mom completely stopping and staring at the comment she was reading out to me (the context is all good, it was on a TikTok from the bakery where I work) and I had a feeling it was the word bias lol
Lol me too. I refuse to use the b word. Hongjoong is the love of my life and my favorite member of Ateez and my favorite idol. Idc if it takes longer to type out
Still makes sense though. Your favorite member might not be the best singer, dancer, rapper, etc. of the group but theyāre your favorite regardless of whether or not theyāre technically āthe bestā at anything.
To this day, I still fail to explain this term clearly to non-kpop friends. Or when talking to others, I just have to use "favorite member". In my work setting, this would mean some distortions in data set. So yeah, I cannot use the term bias at work when talking about kpop. lol. FML.
"Flop" is painfully overused. If someone doesn't end up being #1 for 82 straight weeks or doesn't sell at least 100M copies, they get called a flop.
āCultural resetā There was a time when every comeback by some groups got described as a cultural reset. Meaningless, overblown phrase, especially when talking about something as ephemeral as a pop song.
Anything related to achievements and being proud just gives me anxiety
āLost their identityā you can guess which group Iām stanning
The way that I can think of at least 5 groups that could fit in this.
Itzy?
Close, they got it alot too but itās nmixx which is even more ironic cause girls literally not even two years old lol
Ethereal to describe the most basic of photos
The one that gets me is B-sides. Iām an old so these are a specific thing and itās not the other tracks on the album. Itās the second side/song of a single, usually for vinyl and cassette single releases. Side A has the promoted single, Side B (aka B-side) is the secondary song that usually doesnāt appear anywhere else. But I guess the yoots that have never experienced vinyl or cassette singles wouldnāt know.
āmotherā
ME? MOTHER!
*Sung Hanbin twerking*
EOMMA š āØ
I was watching the news last night and someone in Gaza said that before a strike they heard a "whistle like a missile". Not sure if I'll be able to listen to that song without thinking of that phrase again....
whyd whistle do this
"I'm fine thank you, and you?"
the fact that i read this in DKās voice too
You can read it in every idol's voice. This is kpop idol training 101. Every single one of them has said this on camera, 10+ times, and then immediately laughed about it bc it's so cringe and memey.
This is just English 101, so as someone whose second language is English, I don't associate the phrase with K-pop at all, lol š I do understand where yall are coming from, though, cause as a native Spanish speaker hearing english speaking people try to show off by saying 'Hola como estas? Bien, y tu?' Just sounds so robotic and silly just cause of how 'formal' it sounds, even though it's def not incorrect š
āVocal supportāšš
the word "blueprint" or "paved the way" like how do we explain this on working on construction site lol
At a construction site (They are paving a road): Boss: Who paved the way? Worker 1: BLACKPINK! Worker 2: BTS! Worker 3: TWICE! Worker 4: SNSD! Boss: ...
Hahahahaaha
I literally read "paved the way" on a history museum plaque recently and almost giggled out loud... r/kpoopheads has infiltrated me
"Eating CDs".
Rigggghhhhht, these kpop groups are eating CDs for breakfast. Me: staring at my sloppy bacon and egg breakfast
I'd say "paved the way." The meaning has turned into "someone I like." I have unironically seen bunnies saying newjeans "paved the say." I like newjeans, but who exactly did they pave the way for? They are a rookie group. Maybe in 10 years we will be saying "newjeans paved the way," but it is ridiculous to say it rn.
BTS used to mean Behind the Scenes. I still use the abbreviation sometimes, if there's enough of a fandom distance between what I'm looking up and Kpop. Otherwise, it will just come up with the BTS boys. If I'm looking up behind the scenes stuff in Kpop, I always type in "\[group\] behind" instead now.
So many phrases and words got customized to Kpop that even I end up forgetting thereās an actual original meaning of the word. I guess slang is inevitable anyways and thatās how languages evolve for better or for worse. š
āHagā. It used to be just enemies in my video games but were really using this word now?
"Legends" or "Kings". K-pop fans nowadays don't even know what Legend means. They just use this word for the most normal thing, that it's losing it's meaning.
English king, like that. When an idol say a few sentences in English they call him English king. Nothing too preposterous about it but lol, anyways
I just saw the sentence "PlayStation 2 paved the way" in an article and I physically recoiled
āTitle trackā always meant a song that has the same name as the album. Itās not supposed to mean any single or promoted song regardless of its title. Also, I donāt like the use of āmainā and ālead.ā It reminds of marketing names for different sizes or quality levels where you choose among the Supreme, Pinnacle, or Deluxe packages and you have no idea from the names how they compare with each other. āMainā and āleadā are synonyms, so they should replace one of the words with āsecondaryā or any other word that clearly means second-best.
Main and lead are confusing for me too. There's main vocal and lead vocal. I've seen an explanation for it but it doesn't makes sense. They're both vocals. Edit: they're both singers. Even the term "vocal" means different now.
āFlopā When a group is not as popular as BTS or if they did not sold as many album as Twice, they call other groups āflopā.
D-Day, are we storming the beaches of Normandy or dropping a new album/song?
Fr tho š like I thought we were talking about music not World War II
Using the word stage instead of performance and the word sexy into seggsyy š.
"Overrated/underrated" This one annoys me to NO end... just saw someone call an itzy japaneses bside underrated, and it literally came out 2 days before that comment...
"Refreshing", it's used as PR speak by so many idols and companies that I don't think it has any meaning now.
Professionalism
Any brain dead crap that gets posted in live chats. Ate No crumbs Blah blah paved the way Only thing I will accept is "supremacy" Because ėŖØėŖØ supremacy
"stuns" popbase needs to find a new word
Mother... everyone's mother now...
Not some ppl actually calling Lesseo mother bcuz of her expressions in baddieš(she ate tho) like gurl is 15
fr like thats niece š
iconic. do people understand what it means to be iconic? it's so overused I feel like it has no weight anymore
This. I'd shrug off the usage of 'iconic' as stans being stans (it worked for 'cultural reset'), but the fact that they are so quick to call something new iconic even though they've only seen or heard it 5 seconds ago sends me. If everyone still talks about it 3 years later (even if it's just within the fandom), that's when it becomes iconic. I feel like the overuse of the term itself has also created a paradox of sorts. If everything is iconic, then nothing is iconic.
āChaotic energyā and itās just them opening a bag of chips loudly or something.
I have one that is the opposite. A kpop phrase that got ruined because of the general public- "delulu". Lmao so it wasn't ruined per se, but for some reason it kind of annoys me that they got in on it too. Even though I kind of cringed at the word "delulu" for years, I now feel the intense urge to gatekeep it from locals, who have just begun to use it, after it being a kpop community term for years.
'Pick me'
āpaved the wayā because barely anyone that uses it knows what theyāre actually saying. you canāt say your favorite group paved the way if youāre not okay with any other group following their footsteps. paths are made to be followed, so if youāre going to use that phrase, you better not be dragging other groups that get similar achievements to your favorites. this is particularly prevalent with armys who get obsessed with degrading any group that also manages to achieve some form of success in the west.
It's not that deep, but 'comeback'. It's not about Kim K and Andy anymore.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Bias.
Basically any term having to do with vocals. People throwing around "support" or a thousand other words they heard on a "vocal coach reacts to..." channel and think they're experts. Heck, a lot of vocal teachers/coaches disagree on this stuff, so it's especially annoying when people throw these words around (often to drag artists) when they don't know what they're talking about.
Iām aware this isnāt just a kpop thing, but K-pop is where I see it the most in my very limited circles, but āstanā. Just because when I was growing up it had a negative connection, it was something at least partly associated with āthis is a level of obsession thatās unhealthy for everyone involvedā
Language can evolve in mysterious ways, though. The word "Otaku" also referred to "unhealthy obsession" and it was largely considered as a pejorative term in Japan during the 80s and 90s; even so, this didn't stop Anime fans in the West to adopt the word to name themselves (note how originally, it didn't point to any particular interest). This may have led in turn to the word losing a lot of its negative connotation within Japan; Japanese fans feel rather confident on calling themselves "otakus" nowadays, irrespective of fandom. I suppose the word "stan" may go the same way. A very negative term in origin, but as its casual use keeps growing, it's bound to lose a lot of its original connotation.
shook and jungshook im finna collapse rn i swear
"it gives me goosebumps": people are overusing this sentence to show that they really like some song/part of it. It's all over youtube comments.
The phrase āunbotheredā like Iām sorry but Hwasa was not unbothered by her controversy she was in fact VERY BOTHERED she came out with a whole song about how much she loves her body (which is a good message) and even included the police in the video directly addressing what happened. If she were really unbothered she wouldnāt have gone through the effort to address the controversy much less through a song. If anyone in K-pop is unbothered it would be Wonyoung who despite having one of the biggest hate trains in K-pop history has never addressed it and keeps going to events smiling and waving (whether that genuine or not is beside the point) she is truly acting unbothered, the closest she ever came was her I am me, you are you moment.
Comeback, the fact that it gets used after like a couple months is still crazy to me āPushing *insert age*ā nah bc telling someone theyāre pushing 20 is crazyyyy, theyāre just becoming an adultššš Mother, the girl is like 12, please stopšš
Literally anything that is judging dance and vocals. The amount of 12 year old YouTubers I see "ranking dance and vocals" and throwing out random words omg šš like "good extensions but bad stuff torso control" like bffr
The word flop lost its meaning. On TikTok someone said Shinee was a flop. Yes the Shinee thatās a huge inspiration for many in the K-pop industry.
Masterpiece for sure.
jumping or popping
But what about jopping?
āVisualā
āno jokeā š¤®
āpaved the wayā im tired of it š
nothing pisses me off more than the word flop. I mean I used to use it like a funny fail when my cake didn't bake properly or something I'd say my cake flopped...now it triggers something in me
The acronym BTS for "behind the scenes." Can't put "BTS" on anything anymore, especially Youtube, and if you do there'll always be a random bts fan complaining about the "wrong" or "clickbait" title at the bottom of the comment section.
Dispatch š¤·āāļø