neo velvet

mamamoo really came and went cause i aint seen nobody talk about them

everything about these girls is just so endearing i'm kind of obsessed they just seem so honest, grounded and normal

toxicity levels: chernobyl i think the drama, competitiveness and internal feuds just add flavor to the group tho. i like that they dont try to sell you any of that "kumbaya we are a family 2gether 4ever" type shit that other groups do. nct is just a never-ending collective of guys forced to work and live with each other, almost coming apart at the seams by their barely contained irritation. it's wonderful! they truly are kpop's answer to akb48 in that sense

wow sungchan got amazing proportions..... photographer is wrong asf for putting him next to the midgets

apparently they've been getting a lot of love from cnetz too!! i'm so happy for them easily the most promising rookie group i've seen in a GOOD while now, they're like a breath of fresh air

it's a given that blackpink wouldn't win anything with the attendance rule, but to blatantly lie about something like this...... that's just humiliating for both the awards and for izone

taeyong + xiaojun ate the other girls UPPPP

center haknyeon that's right that's right also can't stop looking at juyeon's itty bitty waist

the fact that they can easily hold their own in any given category from vocals to dance to stage presence to visuals.... it's like they were debuted with the sole purpose of humiliating big3 girl groups

shuhua cause i LOVE the way she talks. most foreign kpop idols tend to quietly stutter their way through a sentence, but shuhua will just shamelessly shout what's on her mind in broken korean and it's the most refreshing thing ever! she knows she's nowhere near fluent (or even conversational) but she never lets that deter her from making herself heard. that's a really brave and commendable trait. the only other idol i know with this attitude is lucas from nct, who she actually reminds me of quite a bit. she's just so honest, funny, cute and likeable. i can't imagine anyone not loving her.

the boyz remaking this classic

yeah ok that makes sense and would be pretty on brand for kevin for the record i never claimed chanhee was a trans girl or anything of the sort (i never made any conclusive statements about his gender at all). there are more than just two genders. not being a man doesn't necessarily make you a woman. you could very well be anything in between or neither. but yes, it is a really sad and uncomfortable thought, especially in an industry that relies so heavily on gendered marketing. their group name is literally the boyz for gods sake! it would probably be awful to be a part of that if you weren't actually a boy. it's not something i like to think about, but it probably does happen to some idols. maybe not chanhee specifically, but i have no doubts that there are trans idols who don't have the option of transitioning. he's mentioned it several times actually. this is the first instance that i found: the clothes and overall look was definitely part of it, but he's said many times his mother wanted a daughter instead of the son she got, so she just raised him in that image until puberty. idk if she went as far as to introduce him as his daughter to other people, but it was definitely a part of his formative years.

yeah i get that. i remember being really horrified at how ifans projected trans identities onto jo kwon for simply being unapologetically gender-nonconforming, even going so far as to harass anyone who referred to him with male pronouns, when he himself had never said anything along those lines. some deobis also took this vlive instance and ran with it, claiming "chanhee uses he/she pronouns interchangeably!!" which is just stupid, especially since korean doesn't even use gendered pronouns like that (therefore i also highly doubt kevin does this in private since chanhee knows little to no english). that said, i don't think it's inherently regressive to wonder about this, especially in regard to people like chanhee who WAS socialized as a girl for a good part of his childhood, and now as an adult seems a bit alienated from the idea of manhood, with people around him referring to him in feminine ways. that's very different from seeing a feminine man and just deciding he's not a man (i.e. i remember carats used to do this back in the day when jeonghan had long hair, even despite jeonghan being pretty traditionally masculine) another idol i've wondered about this before is tao, who's actually expressed feelings of not being entirely comfortable with being a man, and that he'd rather have been born a woman. of course this could also be a consequence of him being gay in a conservative society, and that life would've simply been easier if he was a woman. i remember having these thoughts myself when i was younger, including gender dysphoria, but they mostly stemmed from internalized homophobia.

do you guys think gender-related speculation is overstepping some boundaries? i ask mostly because of chanhee from the boyz. he's very flamboyant and feminine in a way that seemingly extends beyond the physical. kevin slipped up in a vlive and called chanhee "her" some time ago. he immediately corrected himself but the initial question came out so naturally, like he was just going on autopilot. some people have pointed out this may also be learned behaviour, since chanhee's mom really wanted a daughter, she essentially raised him like a girl for a good portion of his life. there's predebut pics/videos of him in skirts and the like. in general i think this is a much trickier conversation than sexuality, for two major reasons attraction is much easier to gauge than internal identity related stuff ideas around gender are so wildly different from culture to culture, that as a non-korean person there's probably so much contextual information that gets lost in translation.

an openly gay idol debuting won't make any waves unless they're from a major company. we've already seen this cycle repeat itself with holland, and i doubt his situation would be desirable in a commercial group setting, since none of the "intl hype" surrounding him has translated into fame or fortune. i think the only thing that would cause real change would be if a seasoned veteran idol, who's already completed his military service, were to come out on his own accord. lets say a shinee member for example were to come out: they've already cemented their place in the industry and have nothing left to prove. the general public also admires and respects them. even if they get blacklisted by broadcasting stations, they could still earn money elsewhere.

chanhee wanted for arson

it's actually impressive how discreet kyungsoo manages to be in an industry which hardly allows privacy. he could be straight, gay, bi or ace and none of those options would surprise me in the slightest. jacob doesn't ping on my radar at all. i used to think him and kevin had something going on, but it's becoming increasingly obvious to me that it's just company mandated fanservice that they both play into for the meme. and outside of his interactions with kevin, i've never seen anything sus from him. sunwoo is DEFINITELY sus though! i was debating putting him as bi but decided against it last minute. he's always been one of the more vocal lgbt allies of the group, and some of the support seems a little too personal to be just that. juyeon is a ???? to me cause i haven't seen him show attraction to anyone, nor has he expressed any desire for future relationships/family. he could just be keeping his cards close to his chest similarly to kyungsoo, but if i had to make a wild guess based on what i've seen from him, i'd actually say he's ace? which yes, is a bit ironic given his position as the main thirst trap of the group but that's the vibe i get

my thoughts on different groups cause why not exo bts the boyz nct seventeen

exactly! no matter how much smart phones evolve, they will never be able to accurately depict how someone looks irl, simply because of their size. therefore i would say selfies/phone recordings are just as deceiving as edited fantakens or highly filtered mvs. both distort reality, only difference is that phones do so unintentionally.

i was just reading back thru this thread and thought of something very relevant that i've never seen anyone bring up here: cameras distort reality! sometimes when idols looks a little uncanny it's not even necessarily the editing, it could literally just be the camera lens. this is especially important to consider when talking about jaw shaves, rhinoplasty and facial contouring, because different cameras can really warp your facial proportions to quite extremes. when you look at old selfies of idols, they're probably taken with an extremely short lens, which will automatically make their noses wider/bigger and their faces longer. it goes without saying that they're gonna look different on a 200mm professional film camera, even without the added factors of age, puberty, weight loss and styling. just some food for thought

dumdurudum still undefeated

no fucking way this is renjun... nose, eyes and jawline are all completely different, my first guess would've been luhan

this + i think a lot of english speaking fans feel some weird personal connection to idols from western countries so they always play that up to the nth degree even if these idols only lived there a few years like jennie or jaehyun. it's like a way of projecting onto them. it's no coincidence that western fans find jisoo boring and uninteresting. if some of these people knew jennie is also a korean girl born and raised in korea who just so happened to spend a few years abroad, they'd probably find her less interesting too.

definitely this one