#yaejin

bad love era is just about to begin and it is truly the era where we see key showing the most of himself he ever has before in his work. a big part of what makes following shinee's career so much fun is that they are always trying new sounds and concepts and building on what they have done before, pushing boundaries but maintaining a strong sense of identity that is as deliberately crafted as it is the truth. kibum especially has always been very intentional in playing it as safe as possible while showing the public One New Thing every time he's active in the public eye. this ranges from aspects of his music taste to his entertainer personality on variety television to his famously androgynous/genderless fashion sense. he really is the master of intimacy without access – he has always been exactly who he is and fought to never compromise but he also strategically chooses when and how he wants to show himself with a professional ease. key's prerelease single "hate that" ft. taeyeon is a perfect example of how he builds on his previous work and bridging it with his new concept.

key has never released a song like "hate that" before, it's a midtempo american-style pop song about the bitter conflicted feelings after a break up. while he has had plenty of emotional lyrics before, this is the first time we're getting actual angst and bitterness and a kind of tortured pettiness that he expresses very well.

it feels somewhat like a continuation of don’t call me, shinee's first fuck you break up song. and aesthetically, dcm had hints some sort of mass disaster and post-apocalyptic future that mirrors hate that's spaceship and abandoned island concept. it's basically dcm kibum standing in the middle of the ocean & him saying don’t call me (미쳤어 넌!) & dropping the phone in the water but in hate that, he’s like “wow… no one’s calling me… : (“

from refutation of a toxic sort of love to mourning what could’ve been & his actions that led up to it… hate that ft. taeyeon feels like both of them commiserating about their different responses to a similar situation.

both key and taeyeon are talking about a break up where the other person moved on but they haven't, and key admits to this emphasizes angst and longing with lyrics like "you're still smiling as pretty as you used to" while taeyeon's voice, demeanor, and lyrics are colder and more bitter, like "even the breakup was perfect, you were being you til the end".

also taeyeon’s red dress & the red lighting in the mv—another connection to dcm? or it could symbolize her putting on a bold show but really is just pretending she's okay and becoming cold to avoid thinking about her ex. this contrasts w kibum who wears beige and white which could symbolize humanness & honesty. plus his full outfit has so much more detail than i first thought when i looked up close— it looks quite like an astronaut outfit up close complete with those big boots. visually he doesn't quite belong on earth but he doesn't belong in that spaceship either, he isn't protected for the atmospheric pressure of space. he activates an escape pod but falls into water, he's doomed and unable to be rescued.

Also, while kibum looks despondent & somewhat resigned, taeyeon looks regal in all of her shots, looking statuesque. when they’re in the same frame, she is always shown towering over him. At the end, she’s the one who walks away while he sits in the café, staring at the tv, which shows the news that she’s been rescued.also note that they pointedly never look directly at each other. love that we get an example of straight baiting… kibum pointedly saying, “taeyeon & i aren’t a romantic thing” in hate that, just in case there were heterosexuals watching… we love to see it…

taeyeon’s the one who has the strength & autonomy to walk away from the heartbreak & events of the mv… & also the news saying she’s been rescued but by whom?? aliens???

anyway, hate that is a fantastic prerelease single - it's a fresh sophisticated take on a recently archetypal genre of american pop music that's clever and cohesive in lyrics, visuals, and sound. it's a perfect more chill segue into a fantastic album and a concept that's from another galaxy. onto the space camp!!!

Yaejin Moodboard With Fluffy Stuff, Masks And Flowers

anon requested: is it ok if I request a yaejin (yae miko x yunjin) mood board with pink flowers, masks, pom poms, fluffy stuff please?

the translation is very good but it skips over the word 빚어낸 which literally made me double take and pause the song to look up. first it sounds a lot like 빛어낸 which means to shine on so i was like oh is it another shinee reference? and then it actually means

it's literally a graphic mental image of hands kneading dough or rice cake and rice cake is already innuendo. and it also implies intensity and focus and like squeezing the last drop out of something. i think if any korean ppl did a reaction to this song they would be like "oh wow 쌔다". but also it also continues his sex as creation motif (i'll make another post about impressionable)

the word they translated as "cry" here which is actually also a music pun because 울려 means both make someone cry and also when you play a string instrument or hit a gong and it resonates the sound 울려s.

"til i'm about to snap" is 끊어지다 which is specifically in reference to strings and ropes or cords so it also fits into the music as sex but specifically bdsm theme.

the part about the music score and voice slowly changing is more of a "we've gone far past the sheet music we're playing our own variation on the melody" sex as creation motif again with a sense of illicitness and taboo.

"the harmony that builds up" should have some sense of stacking or layering to it like the ever piling harmonies. like they're tying together into a rope or string. as always ropes and tangled strings are both pleasure and captivity but now it's also the carrier of the music.

the word they translate as "sadly" is 서글피 which is a word that specifically describes crying but he already equated crying with resonating/being played as an instrument so it's a double meaning now. and the verb it's attached to is "to paint over" but the painting imagery is still made sure to be an act of playing music.

#key meta#is a tag i might start???#with taemin its v about narratives so it's easy to analyze like a book#but key's metatextual self commentary stuff is so rooted in like industry#it's so smart in a business way and a social navigation way and an emotional way#where taemin is more cerebral philosophical narrative literary filmic and about art#whereas key is always about expressing himself more and better and more clearly within k entertainment#taemin exploring themes he relates to and finds interesting vs key expressing himself in a changing context as he ages#so key i'm more careful about talking about

when i write meta about kpop artists it's metatextual because they're always talking about their relationship to fame and the public media gaze, their art and their control over it, and the effects of those things on their self image. it's usually soloists that are able to have a full artistic vision and show a self-written storyline about themselves through their albums, music videos, photoshoots, and performances. gain, taemin, and sunmi have a lot to say. they all use archetypes and worldbuilding and repeated imagery and lyric motifs to talk about themselves through their art and it's really fun to analyze and see what kind of story they're telling.

key is a little bit different and i mostly just bask and yell and lose my mind over it with my friends instead of theorizing and conjecturing and analyzing. with taemin, sunmi, and gain they present characters and stories they invented and it's designed so that every interpretation is fairly true and every fan with a theory is building this imaginary world together and deepening the meaning of the art together. but with key, his work has always been skillfully tactfully and carefully expressing more and more of himself. his honest, true self with his interests and influences and the messages he wants to send to the people he cares about and who care about him.

taemin specifically is very clear that his art shows very little personal detail about himself and his character but is instead about the celebrity persona he's been grappling with since he was 13 and what aesthetics he's interested in talking about that with. he wants to design stories that people can play in and explore in and build with him so i can think however i like about his temptation/corruption of innocence motifs and his religious symbolism and philosophy/film/literary references and analyze what he has to say about gender and sexuality and the shame around it and it's all within what i'm supposed to be doing as a fan.

so my friend just sent me this tweet and i'm like why the FUCK is the melody of taemin's criminal the SAME as a verizon ringtone and then i'm like wait.... it's not a sample it's an interpellation of the ringtone... that word sounds a lot like interpellation

it's associated with althusser but it's commonly used in foucault's theory of the panopticon.

so taemin used the technique of interpolation twice in criminal, first with a ringtone and then with a retro pop classic called "can't get you out of my head".

which you know looks pretty familiar considering the photobook for ngda act 2. foucault says that the panopticon is society's shared prison cell in our heads that we can't get out of because it functions through interpolation, mutual policing and punishment among people trapped in the same prison.

the panopticon functions primarily through interpellation...... and taemin interpolated a cellphone ringtone from apple (which is def watching u) into his song about surveillance and perception..... taemin interpolated a deeply conceptually dense and artistic investigation of his authentic identity and self into the anathema of critical thinking and authenticity -- the entertainment industry... and then in idea he's in a prison visitation/confessional/phone booth, picks up the phone and answers. and then destroys the prison.

unenlightened east attitude is a hell of a word combo to open tumblr to when i'm p faded so i thought u were yelling at me at first i was like whoaaa there lol but nah ur completely right i feel the same literally all the time. i call it brain worms but the kind of stuff i read every day is literal colonial erasure it's rly fascinating that violence comes in such small pieces.

white people should just not speak it's no surprise but lol when i went abroad to korea i realized just how little i knew at all about the gay people there. i assumed they were there because i existed but before just like 5 years ago there was literally no easily accessible info about it on the internet in english. there were a few studies on jstor that didn't say much a few youtube interview clips. so it's so easy to just believe the dominant narrative (always the colonial one) esp when an entire hivemind of kpop stans r parroting it at you vehemently like ur bias' life depends on it. pinkwashing of their colonial tendencies and possessiveness over these korean artists and simple white saviorism makes them feel like rings true.

it wasn't until i was an adult in korea that had learned some korean and was seeking out queer things that i realized it's actually everywhere. there are gay people everywhere. i didn't know that was true when a mentor figure told that to me but now i know it is true. there are gay people everywhere, and in korea in the last few years it's very very visible to anyone who's looking. especially because the feminist movement has been so huge for the last 5ish years and women are en masse protesting the patriarchy by dressing the way they want to more and more and various subcultures are developing like music scenes and art scenes and online spaces. these movements have made it a lot easier for lgbt ppl to find each other and koreans r used to living with their parents until marriage and having their personal lives completely separate and outside of the home which is more conducive to gay stuff. the lgbt scene in south korea is a thriving several subcultures and has been growing in its current "post" Korean War form since the 60s and i literally saw more butch femme couples walking around hongdae at 3am than i have in LA total. tho tbf i haven't been to a lesbian bar/club in the US. it's literally so easy even in english to find gay events just on facebook i went to a halloween drag show at a small dive bar in hongdae it was a GREAT TIME. also 90% of korean tattoo artists are in or adjacent to the queer subculture it's just a thing cuz being gay and being a tattoo artist r both technically illegal but not enforced. there's a ton of lgbt youtubers now they have their own hashtags and are active in fandoms it's rly amazing to see. but i wouldn't have known if i didn't study korean and go looking for it.

the other thing is that fans with a western mindset can't fathom the idea of being happy and gay and professionally closeted. there are definitely idols who are living full happy dramatic fun gay love lives and are out to everyone but their parents maybe and their employers. fans but esp intl fans r STRANGERS who r not entitled to knowing about kpop idols' personal business so have they considered that just because someone didn't tell YOU they're gay doesn't mean they haven't told anybody. i call idols gay when i see that they are, as a korean lesbian who has been learning to recognize my people. racial capitalism comes with the need for u to detail every part of urself legibly and labeled in order to be seen as legitimate and existent so the south korean queer presence is illegible.