In recent months, there has been an avalanche of cancel culture, social media outrage against Korean variety stars including three chefs from Culinary Wars and many YouTubers. It has gotten so bad that newspapers are asking the question “why?”

Choi Hang-sub, a sociology professor at Kookmin University, said, "As economic polarization deepens, more people feel marginalized from the mainstream. In the digital world, exposing every flaw of someone's past provides a sense of power and purpose. This pleasure has reached a pathological level, where individuals derive satisfaction from the downfall of others."

Lee Seung-ki, a lawyer at Lee & Law Partners, also expressed deep concern. "Whether we should tolerate people demanding apologies and then ostracizing others if they're not satisfied with the apology is now up to civil society. If it's truly a serious wrongdoing, then it might be justified. However, in the case of Kwaktube, it's not that kind of situation, yet people are making excessive demands," he said. YouTuber Kwak Joon-bin, also known as Kwaktube, had 2 million subscribers, faced significant backlash after he, a self-identified victim of school bullying, defended Lee Na-eun, a former member of the girl group April who herself was accused of bullying another member. This sparked a massive loss of his subscribers, even after he removed the video and issued two apologies.

"Despite issuing two apologies, the relentless attacks aimed at completely ruining an individual are chilling. It seems we've entered an era where people no longer fear destroying others' lives. Our society has become increasingly unforgiving, where even a single mistake can lead to ruin. Perhaps the rise of cyberbullies is largely due to this social atmosphere," Lee said.

Lesson not being learned: the breakdown of civil communication leads to the breakdown of civilization.

Go London, I will Go London - it almost feels like I am only going there to use that famous cat sound.

But, soo... the real reason is to meet people I know through a a Tim Burton Fan site no longer functioning, The Tim Burton Collective. Fun times in the beginning of internet, my firstest infatuation. I have not met them for like 16 years though I met a few in Helsinki in 2022 at a film festival

Library:
someone wanted Deka Melon
a patron wanted Eliise to stop sending emails, because she doesnt know that person, it turned out to be the mobile service provider
someone left a tattoo needle in our toilet which brought a lot of questions...
awkward day when both my former classmate who had blocked me, and a coworkers´twice-ex husband ( came to the library... and both borrowed weepy, tearjerking romantic movies while we were accordingly managing the music & film dep.

NOTES FROM 9TAILEDVIXEN'S 1ST WEEK OF NOVEMBER 2024:

1. U.S. Elections Disaster

In fact, to call it a disaster is an understatement.

I remember the last time the Orange Hitler was in power - there was a massive spike in violence against women worldwide.

And anti-violence against women activists and women's human rights defenders were working flat-out to try to stem the tide and help victims.

Now we have to do it all again for 4 years - more women's and girls' lives blighted or lost, an exponential increase in the workloads of activists, advocates and women's organisations etc.

I am still in the middle of recovering from burnout and mark my words, more of my sister activists and advocates will be suffering from burnout by the time the Marmalade Mussolini's second Reign of Terror is done.

2. This Week in Korean Women's News

Trump re-election sparks interest in South Korea’s '4B' movement among American women

The election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president has triggered a surge of social media posts and internet search interest in South Korea’s fringe feminist "4B" movement, which calls on women to refrain from dating, having sex with men, having kids and marrying men.

The 4B trend, which began in South Korea 2018 in the wake of the #MeToo movement, has become a way for some women to protest misogyny, gender discrimination and violence against women, according to Meera Choi, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of sociology at Yale University who studies heterosexual refusal among South Korean women.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/4b-movement-south-korea-inspires-american-women-trump-reelection-rcna179143

2. Why is North Korea's women's football team so good?

North Korea's women have won another U-20 World Cup. It's their third to date, meaning they join Germany and the United States as the only three-time champions of the tournament. In 2024, North Korea's women have also won the U17 and U19 Asian championships, and in October, their U17 team won their third World Cup.

What is it that makes a state that, according to the United Nations, "does not have any parallel in the contemporary world" so good at youth football?

https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-north-koreas-womens-football-team-so-good/a-70313505

What does the leader and maknae do in kpop groups? Aside from the (often) being the oldest and (literal) youngest. Why do people make such a big thing about those distinctions?

I remember seeing something months ago about when members of some group (I don't remember the group but I *think* it was EXO) had like 3 members leaving or suing the company or something and it was said the leader of the group was upset that it happened without being discussed with him. Why would it need to be discussed with him? What could he do if the company slights group members?

Recently I've been looking at Seventeen stuff, and from I understand, they don't *seem* to have a rigid hierarchy. Maybe it's in part to most of the members being the same ages but they also have a bunch of leaders. They have an official leader and then there is the leader of the subunits. Then there is the "leader"/class president of the variety show. I also think it might be due to changing times.

In the things I've seen of BTS, their leader seemed to take the lead in speaking during interviews especially english speaking interviews. With Seventeen, even though there are fluent english speakers and they do translate on occassion, most of the members speak for themselves or even attempt to communicate first.

Happy Friday, Beanies! It was a freaking cold tiring week, so less tracks this time – or, at least, brand new ones. I'll compensate you with additional links and lots of pretty. Next week likely gonna be the same, so bear with me for a while, pls)))

We start from LYN's big appearance at Weibo TV & Internet Video Summit 2024, where he successfully got “Eye-catching Actor of the Year” award - not that flashy, but compared to previous years Promising/Rookie ones that's an upgrade for sure (he's not just showing a potential anymore – he's delivering!). To quote an official introduction, he's “a creator who cannot be bound by a single definition” - don't you love how it sounds?))) And he chose to sing “Hardworking people” again, to my utter delight – I bet composer Li cried some more lol^^ We've seen this turtleneck and coat before, likely on separate occasions, but whatever, they match well. The point was certainly accessories – expensive af neck chains aside, his giant hairclip, aaa! It's been a while, but he loves them and rocks every single one. TV channel that broadcasted the event was nice enough to compile his main performance+acceptance cut+official fancam in one video, bless! Idk why they bother to focus on other attendees mid-song tho – the damn thing lasted over 7 (!) hours, so ofc they had nothing to give other than glassy-eyes “pls let me go home” deadpanness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_tJ9jX9-rc

MELODY JOURNEY also got “Creative Program of the Year” (yay!), but that seems to be it for all his many nominations. NYZ – the most popular drama character of Q4 of 2023, mind you! - was so robbed, and I'm genuinely surprised none of his OSTs got a spotlight, not even “Old friend” that managed to squeeze into semi-finals via online voting (I thought it'd be “Lifetimes”, honestly, but this was a pleasant shock for a change). That's some gauntlet in the face to our OST King, he'd better make them pay in double for it next year!

Small throwback to previous entries - official link for “Mutual longing”+”To be continued” performance instead of blocked fan upload:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN0_p0h0_UQ

And Spotify ones for MELODY JOURNEY finale!
“Hardworking people”:
https://open.spotify.com/track/00p0LmSnDtz7d4CAgT7LN7?si=2348141cce114751

“Everytime I”:
https://open.spotify.com/track/0Zu41NcgYnSuK72HBbGIy0?si=68ab0a6eec2342a9

Sadly, that's not enough of music to fill this week, esp after overpacked last one, so more covers! Like this one for “Faith/Believe” - did he just randomly added a cliché kdrama line - “I love you, don't leave!” in Korean - into it? What a polyglot, covering all important lingvo bases, I see))) Yo, boy, if you wanna learn the 3 magic words in even more languages, I can help with that...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3QzqDaah5M

I don't remember the person's name but this week I saw a post about a former idol (her group got disbanded) who is in a drama that's based on a webtoon and has an interactive concept. I think the source material is a harem situation (but I'm not sure) and there were folks criticizing the actress for taking the role. One of the comments said something like "idols are held to a certain standard and if they're allowed to do what they want like international fans want, these are the types of projects they choose". One of my first thoughts was "but she's not even an idol anymore, she's an actress so why is she being judged before the result is even shown?"

Shortly before or after the above topic, I had seen that some country (I don't remember which but it was an Asian country) had some department saying that the song APT by Rosé (I think that's her name) is about western temptation and influence.

Both projects where the brainchild of Asian people and yet western influence is "blamed" for them being made or is a cause for judgement.

The drama news reminded me of how people were critical of Love & Leashes casting because it featured idols/former idols turned actors in such "racy" content.

Not in my best mood today ... And I think it's because I reacted annoyed to an update yesterday. Someone in my larger family has a bloated ego, and I never react to that, but he posted an AI-written piece yesterday, and I asked him why. He had let AI write a "review" of something he himself had written, and the AI review was very positive. But you know, it's just a machine, so I wondered why he used it. As is its nature, it had generated extremely clichéd language and then even combined it with bad translations into Danish.
He got very offended by my comment. And I really should have just stayed out of it, but now I am having a stupid beef. He even said that "people like [me]" commented based on prejudice, and I couldn't know how the thing he had written was since I hadn't read it. But I hadn't said anything about what he had written himself at all - only about the AI thing. Really!
But I feel so stupid for getting mixed into that at all. Probably I was in a belligerent mood because of my daughter having to write an essay about AI, and her sharing her annoyance with me.
[sigh].

Goes without saying it's been a very tough week in America. I don't have enough perspective yet to reflect on what just happened and what it means for the future of representative government. But I do have a lot of American history under my belt and I don't like the direction this is going. We are looking at a populist revolution, and possibly a bottoming out of the America economy which could severely impact those who are at least advantage.

So, what to do, what to do. Take a breather. Get your mind engaged, learn something new every day, and demonstrate for your descendants that no matter what, the sun is going to come up tomorrow.