Homoerotic k-pop video

[fedssocr]

I've not heard of this boyband before called OnlyOneOf. Their new song and video is creating a little buzz. I don't know if this is just good "fan service" or something else. 

 

[PeterRS]

I find it fascinating how the K-Pop phenomenon has virtually taken over the world! It seems Asian pop has come almost full circle.

First it was J-Pop from Japan in the 1970s and 1980s. By the early 1980s it was Canto-Pop which was the rage around the region with singing actors like the late, great Leslie Cheung and the late Anita Mui who was Hong Kong's early incarnation of Lady Gaga. Sadly both died far too young. Leslie, openly gay and with a long time Chinese banker lover, committed suicde by jumping 25 floors from the rooftop bar of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. He had been suffered from clinical depression for some years. He was 47. Anita Mui was only 40 when she succumbed to cervical cancer.

Even as Canto-Pop was ruling the air waves, Mando-Pop from Taiwan was starting to compete. Many Hong Kong singers switched to Mandarin songs. When that began to fade by the mid 2000s, K-Pop was very much in the ascendency. Originally it was not always groups. One of the early superstars was a cute singer/actor named Rain. I remember he was featured in a TV commercial to promote South Korea. It was filmed in a very trendy way with lots of fireworks. The tag line at the end from Rain was "Korea, Sparling! Like me!

Soon it was the boy bands who flooded the market. That a band like BTS could become aa world supergroup is extraordinary. I can recall visiting Seoul in the 1980s and early 1990s. Armed with my Spartacus Guide (near useless) I eventually found a couple of gay bars and one sort-of sauna. Almost all Koreans i saw were dull and boringly predictable in terms of dress and outlook. Only in the Itaewon District would you occasionally see some hip young guys. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I would see - from afar - so many guys in the entire Korean entertainment industry who look so amazingly fabulous!

[PeterRS]

Sorry - the tag line for the Rain commercial should have read "Korea, Sparkling? Like me!"

[Lucky]

@fedssocr Thanks for sharing the video.

I was disappointed to see the makeup on these guys. The look all too feminine.

[fedssocr]

pretty much every guy in the Korean music industry wears makeup.

This group has been making the rounds of all the k-pop weekly TV shows. On the Mnet show they did the same choreography as in the video which surprised a lot of people. They were on KBS Music Bank today and changed the choreo slightly so the guy on his knees doesn't run his hand down the standing guy's crotch but puts it on his thigh instead. I'm guessing the network required that. SK society is still quite conservative.

[PeterRS]

10 hours ago, fedssocr said:

pretty much every guy in the Korean music industry wears makeup.

And most undergo some form of plastic surgery to give a band a uniform K Pop look, as with ASTRO's Cha Eunwoo.

Photo: Fantagio Entertainment

[LivingnLA]

That is one hot homoerotic video. I'm conflicted though because K-Pop has become globally huge by applying corporate factory farming to music. The "artists" are rigorously controlled and managed at all times. Sulli's suicide a couple years ago and Hara's a few months later started raising awareness of the abuse many K-Pop stars endure. Given how conservative SK culture tends to be, I wonder what the young men in this music video have gone through emotionally and mentally to manufacture these products.

[fedssocr]

yeah, I hear ya. I've been doing a little research since I am fascinated by their "concept". Apparently this group ranges in age from 21-30 - so they're a bit more mature than a lot of these groups. And they've been around for a couple of years. They've been positioned from the start as mysterious and artsy. And I've read that they have a lot of input into the choreo and music. I did read an article that has some quotes that they were surprised by the backlash and pearl clutching in reaction to the video and their TV appearances. I watched a behind the scenes of the video filming and it looks like it was miserably cold for most of it. Some of them seem to have been more into the whole thing than the others but I suppose that's to be expected. Given how many of these groups there are, they have to find some sort of hook to differentiate themselves. It's interesting that there is a cottage industry of "reaction videos" on YT where people film themselves reacting to music videos. There are a lot of reaction videos to this.

I agree that the whole k-pop machine is generally terrible, but I think that's been slowly changing after all of the high profile suicides. SK has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, fedssocr said:

I agree that the whole k-pop machine is generally terrible, but I think that's been slowly changing after all of the high profile suicides. SK has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

Although the K-pop music could be terrible to some ears, I doubt it has any significant contribution to the suicide rate.  

I put forward a couple of alternative causes of that:

 

I also find the make up is badly overdone in some of the videos.   I certainly don't mind a well groomed look, but when we're looking at a pasty white layer of make up rather than a face, that is going too far for my taste.

 

 

 

[Guest]

My idea of a homoerotic pop video would be to take those Korean lads, wash off the make up, put them in some tiny white speedos and make a version of the Manian "Ravers in the UK Video" with male car wash staff.

This would probably not be PC in 2021, which would only encourage me.   Creating a parody of a K-Pop band could be quite amusing.  

 

[fedssocr]

are you not familiar with k-pop?

[fedssocr]

here's a behind the scenes video. The English subtitles in CC work

 

[fedssocr]

album photoshoot