9TAILEDVIXEN'S MID-OCTOBER 2024 NOTES:

1. Bits and Bobs from 9TailedVixen's Week

(a) I had to teach an evening class in the middle of a sudden blackout - it was dark and hot and of course the national power company took their own sweet time to fix whatever it was that shorted out the entire neighbourhood. And of course the power only came back just as class was about to end.

The national power company has the monopoly on electricity supply and they do a piss-poor job whenever there's an emergency power outage (usually caused by inept government road repair crews or water supply company crews hitting something while digging about *sigh*).

Monopolies SUCK!

(b) I managed to do my first complete silks-supported backend (with my fingers reaching the floor!) at Aerial Yoga class! Woohoo!

(c) An amusing visual moment ensued when J-Hope from BTS was discharged from his military service and had a really amusing press conference during which his bandmate Jin was squatting next to him and holding up multiple mics for the media:

https://www.soompi.com/article/1695808wpp/watch-btss-j-hope-discharged-from-the-military-with-warm-welcome-from-jin

2. This Week in Korean Women's News:

(a) The Last of the Sea Women review – female Korean divers as picturesque eco-feminist tradition

Sue Kim’s film about South Korea’s underwater fishers has everything from nuclear pollution to sexism to cover, but sticks to bland reportage.

The documentary was co-produced by Malala Yousafzai.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/09/the-last-of-the-sea-women-review-documentary-sue-kim

(b) In landmark ruling, South Korea court recognises misogyny as motive for hate crime

An appellate court has ruled that the assault on a female convenience store clerk by a man in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, allegedly motivated by her short haircut, constituted a misogynistic hate crime. The landmark ruling is the first time a Korean court has explicitly recognized misogyny as a condemnable motive in a criminal case.

https://asianews.network/in-landmark-ruling-south-korea-court-recognises-misogyny-as-motive-for-hate-crime/

@db-staff Um... I think my comment that has news links for this week's major Korean women's news (including breaking news that a South Korean court ruled misogyny a crime for the first time ever!) is caught in the spam filter.

Help?

Modern storytelling should be thought provoking instead of being told in a plain vanilla formula way. One of the main problems today is that a drama story is telling you the answer instead of being intriguing enough for the viewer to find the answer on their own. When was the last time a show was more than just a story, but thought provoking?

This discussion was recently made during a Conan O’Brien podcast with Jon Stewart. They were talking that since their debuts in the 1990s, creativity and story telling has become more compressed as viewer attention spans got shorter. Stewart said the Vine app with its six seconds of “entertainment” was the start of the attention span gap that haunts today’s story telling. In order to keep attention of an audience, creatives are pandering to compression techniques. Dramas are like that because they start with murder, flashback, then cut to police arriving, flashback, etc. . . . because producers don’t trust long linear story telling scenes for current audiences. Flashbacks were once used to give background information of a character’s current decision making process. Now, it is used more as a diversion; a way to misdirect than add to the story; a filler technique to engage short attention spans of viewers with a change of scenery. Even in a mystery series, flashbacks were only used near the end to show the viewers how the clues sprinkled throughout the story line come together at the climax. Now, flashbacks appear to hide more information from the viewer. Too many flashbacks confuse viewers. It also hinders actors telling other characters what happened to them. Shorter scenes are a problem. Characters are actually communicating less with each other. How do we learn about others? Through thoughtful conversations.

For those who grew up with linear story telling (books, history, documentary), the scrambled way story bits are arranged “to create drama” and viewer retention seems like a lazy trick. Have noticed the rhythm and pace of shows are different? That the way the facts are presented is unclear? That scripts appear to wander off on tangents for no apparent reason?

I wanted to have a witty, attention grabbing opening but I'm just drawing a blank so let me just jump right into it.

I don't know if both cases involve gambling but both cases involve loan shark. This week it was revealed a comedian, who was a member on knowing bros, racked up debt due to online gambling. He borrowed money from a bunch of celebrity friends including his co host/co member Lee Soo Geun and BTS' Jimin. He also used Soo Geun's name to get other people to lend him money. After it was revealed, he's lost his job on knowing bros and some ambassadorship to his hometown.

Then at Lee Soo Geun's agency, a manager gave out a bunch of celebrities' contact numbers as collateral to a bunch of loan shark agencies. He also gave out the number of other aquantances, mangers, etc. This led to folks getting harassing calls from the loan sharks.

Personally, I can't really wrap my head around the giving out the people's numbers because how does that get the money back? Did the manager or the loan sharks assume the celebrities or the other people called were gonna pay off his debts? It would just make MORE people pissed off at the manager and they would tell him to pay off his freaking debts. Why involve them?
The manager has since been fired and we circle back to how is he gonna pay his debts now? I don't know if he was also involved in gambling but the whole thing reeks of some sort of addiction cause it makes no sense (at least to me).

I didn't know who Taemin was until last week and the first news story I see is about the manager possibly giving out his number to loan sharks.

I feel especially bad for Lee Soo Geun because this just hasn't been a good week for him. And he had his own career pitfall once due to gambling and he was lucky enough to be able to come back and now, just because he was trying to help out a friend or because his agency is weird, he's involved in these cases. (I say his agency is weird because weeks ago they were the victims of hacking)

Korean fandoms are crazy. Maybe it's Asian fandoms in general but seriously, the symbiotic relationships between fandoms and companies is just 🤯🫤😟🙄😬😮‍💨

RIIZE's Seunghan was dropped from his group (the company will say he chose this for himself) 2 or 3 days after it was announced he would return to it. This was only a day or 2 after one of the members commented on the return. I think he said something like even though it was unfortunate some fans were mad, watch them prove themselves as a 7 member group (I could definitely be wrong about the message. I just know it wasn't slamming Seunghan). Then there were the tweets and backlash demanding that guy be kicked from the group. After ALL that, the announcement that Seunghan was no longer a member was made while the group was on a plane so they arrived at an airport to that ridiculousness.

It's just so disrespectful and rude on so many levels and I just, as an outsider, don't understand this disconnect so called fans and agencies have when it comes to these celebrities. I saw that people justified sending the funeral wreaths but just thought the amount might've been too much. What?!?!

Seunghan didn't even do anything worthy of the level of backlash he received that led to his hiatus in the first place but he DEFINITELY didn't do anything worthy of the backlash this time. To have a bunch of funeral wreaths directed at him. To have the company give him hope and snatch it away. All cause he dated and smoked BEFORE he was a trainee or an idol (I don't know the timeline. I know he was underage cause apparently he's only 21 now).

And then to justify their feelings that he wasn't "worthy" of being in the group, someone posted a picture, that may or may not be him, going to a convenience store to buy alcohol and snacks with some other people. A GROWN, DRINKING AGE KOREAN is being criticized for buying drinking alcohol and snacks with friends on a day when the group he was apart of performed a fan concert WITHOUT him. What?!

And these "fans" think wholeheartedly they are right. And the company just cosigns this by caving to their antics.

A culture can change if people are willing to make it so. If the company hadn't turned their backs on Seunghan 10 months ago, none of this would've happened. The people who were gonna leave could've left and everyone could've found a way forward with those who stayed.

And the "fans" keep doing these humiliating and cruel acts in the name of protesting as if the celebrities aren't human being with thoughts and feelings. It is mind blowing how fans will get pissed and demand cancellation for a celebrity who is accused of bullying but have absolutely NO qualms about doing it themselves. And then they get rewarded for it. They still get the group they want, they get to cheer about how they won. It's all so gross.

I wonder how often idols have to dye their hair and how do they even choose. I wonder if dartboards are ever used.

The site Dramawiki has been inaccessible for me this past week. I wonder if anyone else has had the same problem?

Happy Friday, Beanies! Sorry, I'm late today - was busy with manly job of setting up a heater... While we're STILL waiting for crumbs like TSOPG release date, nominations are out for Weibo TV And Internet Video Summit 2024, and guess who is presented there in whopping 16 (!) positions across ALL categories possible? Right, our workaholic! Bear with me, it's gonna be long))) So, he's nominated for:
- “Drama Character”: Ning Yuanzhou, A JOURNEY TO LOVE
- “Drama And Variety Person”: A JOURNEY TO LOVE, HEROES (2024), JiangsuTV New Year's concert (the one where he made whole c-web ugly crying during NYE? makes sense), THE TRUTH S2, MELODY JOURNEY, OUR SONG S6.
- “Drama OST”: “If love remembers” WONDERLAND OF LOVE, “Don't ask about the future” WHITE CAT LEGEND, “Old friend” ETERNAL BROTHERHOOD, “Lifetimes” THE LEGEND OF SHEN LI, “Heroes” HEROES, “Heart's longing” FOLLOW YOUR HEART, “Author” INTERLACED SCENES, “Lonely boat” LONELY HERO'S JOURNEY.

I think awards itself will take place on November 2nd, so we can look forward to him packing some trophies and blessing our eyes and ears there.

OK, back to the standard music stuff. We also had another OST – and more are coming, since he basically admitted to sing for every big drama for the rest of the year lol. I don't think he'll be able to broke his last years record, but he's still doing his best to catch up. “Dare not meet spring” from KILL ME LOVE ME is not gonna in the list of my 2024 faves – it's nice and lyrics flow quite well from I've seen of this drama (it's like ML's romance theme song – or, rather, romance denial one lol), but music is... The whole OST is not my cup of tea – I keep wishing for it to go harder, hit deeper to match the intensity of plot, but only instrumental tracks seem to understand assignment. Pity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNENCF4STas

We also got live version of “Search for shore” (DARK NIGHT AND DAWN OST in case you already forgot) from recent livestream. He had the time of his life playing with filters (sorry if you get dizzy watching it!) and his new recording equipment overall - which played him back, refusing to stay in focus for long. Hope he'll be able to fix whatever the problem is I'm confident it's NOT the size of his eyes and if he utters such BS again imma spank him in a non-fun way, I swear! and stream again in LESS than 2 months this time – weather is getting colder, I need more serotonin on a daily basis... This song I do like a lot, esp how it goes all low while staying mellow and sentimental at the same time – it never fails to amaze me how he can achieve great emotional intensity even without straining his voice much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34QAJlBAw0A