No more Queen Elizabeth II. Goodbye to this famous queen, Beanies. :(

For all Korean Beanies, this weekend will be Chuseok holiday.

Who are the people featured in the pictures on this site? I'm talking about the banner up at the top that changes sometimes and the five people looking serious in the yellow bar down at the bottom. I'm assuming they are from dramas that I am just not familiar with, but I've always wondered who they are and why they were selected. Can any more experienced Beanies help me out with this?

I am watching two web dramas at the moment Mimicus and Let me off the Earth which are raising some serious issues and the young actors are doing a great job. I have watched a number of idol focused dramas and reality tv recently: In the Soop: Friendcation, Shooting stars, One fine week, The big hit, and Miracle (2022) all showing elements of the unsavoury side of the industry.

I like that we get to see actors and idols developing on their acting journey and wish them well in such a competitive industry. I hope that they will be seen as people first and given more support re their finances, mental health and social life so we see less incidents of out of control behaviour indicating that they are not coping with the pressure or lack of normality to keep them grounded. I also hope there will be serious consequences for those in positions of power who exploit them.

I don’t watch any other form of fiction and continue to be a fan of K dramaland but I am increasingly becoming mindful of the realities of life behind the scenes in the entertainment industry worldwide. I, like many in the community, will be reducing my screen time due to changing priorities when I return to studies so will be far more selective about the content.

I hope that everyone is energised as we transition in changes such as new academic years, and new seasons weather wise. Now we are in the season of coughs and colds and the last name and shame round of the pandemic before it just becomes another part of flu season I wish you all good health.

Have a great weekend all and happy viewing😊.

In 2021, Rozy, a woman in a YouTube commercial for an insurance company shows off her attractive appearance and dancing skills. This ad exceeded 10 million views in under a month. 

She has more than 125,000 followers on IG. She is a model, actor, singer. Yet the public initially failed to notice something important -- she is a "virtual human." People expressed surprise after their discovery, with messages like "I wanted to search for who the model was and couldn't believe she was a virtual human" and "It's surprising how realistic she is given that she is a graphic."

Another Virtual influencer Han YuA made her debut as a K-pop idol on in 2022. Han's creators Smilegate and Giantstep said her single titled "I Like That" and its music video were very well received and charted globally. 
 
Smilegate said that Han's voice is an amalgamation of data that has been combined through artificial intelligence to make one voice. 

Other virtual humans are home shopping hosts, brand ambassadors and advertising models. Han is represented by the entertainment agency YG KPlus a subsidiary entertainment agency YG Entertainment. 

It is not new to create a mascot and license it to the world (i.e. Hello Kitty). Now, creators can make humans to license for any type of situation.

Agencies have servitude contracts with trainees and idols that charge back all costs to the artist. During initial 7 year contracts, most trainees make no money and leave seriously in debt. It is extremely rare to have success like BTS or Blackpink and make a lot of money immediately after debut.

But now entertainment companies can develop or represent virtual talent without the problems of reputation, image or scandals and paying money to human beings. Computing is becoming powerful enough to render human quality figures in real life situations.

Actors and singers should be anxious. Endorsement money and brand reputation is where their real high income comes from. The younger generation is much more accepting of virtual humans from their game playing as to push more AI humans into the market.

So the next time you hear a catchy kpop song, or attractive model on TV ad and wonder "who is that person?" it may not be a person at all.

For the past two weeks, I've been trying to catch up with all the dramas I missed when I was on vacation. That means 8 episodes of Adamas, 4-5 episodes of Alchemy of Souls, starting and completing a cdrama in between(LBFD), starting another one(Galaxy one), keeping up with the currently airing dramas (Today's Webtoon, Good Job), reading a novel, starting two new kdramas (Little Women, Law Cafe) and deliberating which old-ish kdrama I should start next.
Now, will I retain all of that? HA.

I totally missed Hello Dramabeans. I saw that the last personality who took part was Lee Chae-young from 2020. If Hello Dramabeans will return ASAP, I wanna see Dramabeans to talk with my fave veteran actor Park Seung-geun (Memorials, Forest of Secrets) as well as some more famous Korean actresses (i.e. Park Eun-bin, Han So-hee), some more famous Korean actors (i.e. Song Kang, Lee Do-hyun, Wie Ha-joon, Gong Yoo) and even up-and-coming Korean stars.

1. For homework I have to watch dramas.
You all jealous now, I know. 🤣

2. The heat is making people go psycho. I'm scared of taking the bus these days. I miss the rain.

Have a good day/night beanies! I hope you get to rest this weekend and watch lots of dramas. 😉

Got my updated anti-omicrap booster this morning. So far I have not died, mutated into something with glowing eyes, or suffered any of the other dire fates that some have predicted.

FWIW, Von's Pharmacy is smarted than some other places in that they use narrower stickers so your covid vaccination card won't fill up so fast as you accumulate more more entries every year.

And there was no line :)

Open thread number 777.

My first one was 647 open threads ago.

It feels an eon ago... but at the same time, like yesterday.

Narco Saints first episode 👍