Honsh presents: Celebrate
and have a good time ššš¾š„š
I want to begin with a personal story.
Until the end of my sophomore year, I lived on campus as an unofficially openly queer personāsomeone who did not particularly hide his sexual orientation or identity. But when I entered my junior year, I became a little more withdrawn for various reasons. Many upperclassmen were returning to school after taking time off, and I no longer felt the need to explain myself to everyone. So, for a while, I decided to remain silent.
That resolution collapsed almost immediately when the semester began, thanks to two classmates, Hong Jeong-seok and Kim Su-hyeok, who loudly shouted, āHeās gay!ā To be honest, I did feel as though I had been outed. Still, they did not seem to mean any harm, so I decided to let it go.
In truth, I am not always particularly sensitive about things like this. People may call me homosexual, gay, homo, or any number of other names, but to me, that identity is about as significant as the color of the socks I happen to be wearing today. There are countless other versions of me. I am the youngest son in my family. I am a third-year student in the Department of Applied Music at Howon University. I am a second-year professional DJ, currently playing sets at three different clubs. I am also someone on the neurodiversity spectrum, someone who struggles with social skills, and someone who still has not managed to lose the weight he rapidly gained two years ago. All of these things make up who I am, but I do not believe that any single one of them should represent my entire life.
And yet, there are moments when it becomes a problem.
Ultimately, the problem lies in how other people perceive me. I am still young, and most people at my school are young as well. But I tend to notice subtle shifts in peopleās attitudes. I can often sense how those who only know one fragment of me have already decided to see me. Whenever that happens, I find myself thinking, with a kind of sadness: if I were notĀ that, could we have become better friends?
Recently, I saw a candidate for superintendent of education campaigning with a prominent slogan opposing queer education. It exhausted me. Do they really hate us that much? Would they only feel comfortable if I, or people like me, disappeared from their sight? That question stayed with me for a long time.
For that reason, the concept of āutopiaā has never felt to me like a purely beautiful ideal. Instead, it feels more like a rigid wall that each person builds inside their own mind. It is as though, from early childhood, people keep only the things they like and find pleasant, until they eventually construct a private kingdom of toys. Everything they want is allowed to remain. Everything they do not want is pushed away, relentlessly and completely. If that stubborn determination creates what we call a utopia, then where are the people who have been pushed outside of it supposed to go?
As I read Thomas MoreāsĀ Utopia, I found myself increasingly drawn to its underside. The more I read, the more frightening the idea began to seem. A society in which everyone is happy. A society in which everyone functions correctly. A society in which everyone moves according to the same order. At first glance, it sounds ideal. But behind those words, another question inevitably follows: what happens to the people who do not fit into that order? Where do we place those who fail to meet the standards demanded by that society?
Historically, the ambition to create an ideal community has often led to violence against those deemed āunfit.ā That is why I feel that every utopia contains the possibility of dystopia within it.
I wrote āCelebrateā because I wanted, somehow, to shake off this lingering sense of unease. I have always liked music that feels relentlessly loud, overwhelming, and almost unbearable, as though it is about to burst apart. I have often written songs like that myself. But this time, I wanted to do something slightly different. I wanted to express the contradictions and distortions within the idea of utopia in a concise but powerful way.
On the surface, the song sounds like a celebration. In reality, it commemorates someoneās execution.
That contradiction is what I wanted to contain within the title: āCelebrate.ā
Musically, the song follows the same tension. I usually love working at 174 BPM, but for this track, I chose 110 BPM, a tempo that feels strangely slow and ambiguous.
The chorus, in particular, shifts into a 12/8 rhythm. The idea originally came from the partner I am currently working with, but I think it ultimately aligned perfectly with the theme of the song. The 12/8 section does not feel like a stable order. Instead, it suddenly emerges in the middle of the track, creating a sense of estrangement. With the addition of a powerful 808 bass and rough-textured synth leads, the chorus becomes more than just a refrain. It becomes an outburst of suppressed anger.
The word āCelebrateā repeats like a chant of congratulations, but I wanted it to sound more like a scream directed at a world that erases people.
The question I kept returning to while writing the song was this:
In many ways, I am someone who falls short of various standards. There may be parts of society in which I fail to function properly. If so, am I someone who deserves to disappear from utopia? If I cannot successfully perform my role as one of the components that keeps the social system running, am I someone who should no longer exist? Would the ānormalā residents of utopia celebrate my disappearance? Would they hold a feast, applaud, and rejoice at my execution?
Unfortunately, my conclusion is closer to yes.
I may be a flaw in someone elseās utopia. Even within the utopia imagined by someone reading this essay, I may be no more than a mosquito. In the perfect world they dream of, people like me may not exist. Their peaceful morning may only begin once I have disappeared, just as the lyrics of āCelebrateā describe:
āAfter the bell rings, when someone disappears, the perfect morning begins.ā
The narrator of the song faces execution inside an absurd and unjust utopia. People celebrate the execution and say that the world has become whiter. But in the final chorus, the narrator breaks through their ācelebrationā and cries out:
āPlease, just hold me.ā
That is the most important part of the song to me.
The narrator pretends to accept the execution calmly until the very end. But in the final moment, the truth emerges: they still want to be accepted. Even by the world that is trying to erase them, they still want to be held.
Sometimes, while writing a song, I feel as though its protagonist begins to move on their own, without my permission. āCelebrateā was one of those songs. At first, I thought I was writing a critique of the contradictions within utopia. But as I continued, the song moved beyond social criticism and drew closer to my own unconscious mind. The thing I most wanted to pretend not to know was that the narrator of the song might resemble me quite closely.
In the end, āCelebrateā is a song that provokes the world trying to erase me, while also carrying a desperate desire not to be abandoned.
Within someone elseās ideal world, I may be a flaw. I may be someone who must disappear in order for their perfect morning to begin. But even so, I still want to ask:
Can a perfect world truly be completed only by erasing someone?
If paradise can only be maintained by removing someoneās tears, imperfections, differences, or very existence, can it really be called a utopia?
Perhaps, more than anything else, I wanted to ask the people who hate me to hold me.
