The rant will be directed at K-Pop fans. First of all, let me tell you, I'm not an anti of K-Pop, so please don't misunderstand.

2010 was not a very good year for K-Pop in my opinion. There were way too many groups debuting (about 30, i believe). To top it all, most of the groups aren't very talented. Sure, they can sing slightly better than an average person, and can hop around weakly on the stage and breathe loudly into the microphone and lipsync. What else can they do?

Well, I'm not saying that ALL the new groups that debuted are bad. Some are really talented, but some should not be on stage yet. I'm not saying that the not so good groups are hopeless, but they should maybe spend another couple of years training before entering the world of showbiz and fame. Just because K-Pop is entering it's peak of fame does not mean that people who can't really sing or dance yet can go on the stage. Being a K-Pop idol is not just about having the face, height and figure. You need to be able to SING (and dance, if you're a dancer as well). You're called a SINGER, NOT a model. So please act like a singer. I understand that you're an idol, but as an idol who cannot excel at something he/she is supposed to, then you're not worth idolising much over.

I understand that singing while dancing is no easy feat and I am incapable of doing any thing similar to it. However, even if you are remarkably good for the average person, being a singer has a certain standard. Even if you may be better than most non-singers, you have to remember that to stand out, you need to surpass others. And by 'others', I mean other SINGERS, who most likely can sing and dance just as well as you or even better. If you can sing really well, but cannot dance, why not try less dancing and more singing? If you're a better dancer, more dancing, less vocally challenging songs? That way, you can really showcase your talent better. If you are not as good as the average singer, why not spend a little more time training? Build up on talent and impress the world with your vocal and dance abilities, rather than relying on a pretty face and a young age to cover up your rather unpolished singing and dancing skills.

I'd rather watch an older group with talent rather than younger groups who are unable to sing as well. Unfortunately, many entertainment companies fail to grasp this. They wish to debut their groups earlier so as to maximise income, while taking advantage of the Hallyu. However, the Hallyu started because there were talented (though not as young e.g. TVXQ, BoA etc.) singers who could pull off lives amazingly. That was when K-Pop artists had a standard to reach before debuting. But in the future, should someone mention the Hallyu and only young 12-year-olds who rely entirely on the background track and do lots of butt shaking and leg twitching and aegyo come to mind, who would be interested (aside from the strange minority of people who enjoy watching such artists)? However, if people think of the talented singers who could pull off lives with difficult dances and sing powerfully without much aid of the background track, wouldn't that be more appealing?

Other qualities that I look out for in a singer is attitude and respect. You have to put your all into singing and dancing. You have chosen this career path, so put some effort into it. I have watched two duet of two artists (J-Pop) where both sing one song from each other's albums. One of them put her whole effort into singing both her song and her partner's. However, her partner merely sang her song while looking bored, and barely put in effort into her partner's song, where she had forgotten to sing a few lines and sang some wrongly too. She even needed some prompting from her partner before knowing when her lines began. The former smiled and made eye contact with the audience while 'feeling' the song while the latter merely stood, hunched and constantly looking in random directions in a daze. Do you understand the message I am trying to portray? While this not only shows her bad attitude towards singing another artist's song, this also shows her lack of respect for her partner who put in her utmost effort even in her song.

Another problem that I find with singers is the undying support from their fans. Remember my example above? (Refer if you've forgotten, little goldfish XD). The singer who did not put in effort had a LOT more fans than the singer who did. Most of the comments I saw in the video was how awesome that singer (who didn't put in effort) sounded. Barely anyone mentioned how the other singer had sounded LOADS better and had a better performance. I would like the fans to PLEASE take a tiny step back from your obsessions and judge the singers based on ability, attitude and respect (especially if competing or dueting with someone else that you do not currently idolise). If you want to, you CAN look into age and face, but that should come secondary. In fact, not just the fans, dear antis, please take a tiny step back from your hating and judge them fair and square. And DO NOT, especially, say you hate anything just because:
1) you don't like the genre ("Ugh, R&B? I hate that genre. All the songs in that genre suck! I bet this sucks too.")
2) you don't like the language
3) you don't like the person/person's race ("I hate K-Pop because it's ASIAN music.")
4) that person is popular so you want to be the minority who doesn't like them (this is just silly, now)
5) he/she did something that might be insulting to your object of obsession or you although it has a high chance of being a misunderstanding or a joke or just a really insignificant thing ("OMG once this guy said something to MY _____ during a game show" or "OMG I HATE BOA BECAUSE SHE DID A WAVE WITH MINHO." <--real example from my friend.)
Please stop judging based on first glance. Listen to it, then judge it.

Fans that are too overprotective will only give a bad image of the idol and the people in his/her fanclub. An real life example from a friend was when someone insulted U-Kiss, saying that they were ugly, old and did not have talent. She instantly flared up and wanted to send death threats to the anti (something like "You better pray I don't see you in real life or I'll kill you and rip you into pieces. How dare you say that about U-Kiss!"). First of all, my friend had made Kiss Mes look really bad. It only takes one black sheep, and soon, people will be thinking that U-Kiss fans are violent and easily provoked. This not only ruins the reputation of U-Kiss members, it also causes the antis more excitement as they try to provoke the Kiss Mes into more violent threats. In the end, the anti gets their thrill and the Kiss Me probably got a warning for threatening. The best thing to do in this case is to ignore the person. If you're trying to excite people, and no one bothers about you, YOU'RE the one getting embarrassed. Just pretend the anti is talking to him/herself.

Of course, nobody is perfect. I, myself, was introduced to K-Pop through SHINee's "Ring Ding Dong". At first, I was taken aback by the weirdness of the song (Sorry Shawols, please don't murder me in my sleep) and the terrible English (I'm a grammar Nazi XD). At that moment, I was honestly ready to instantly blacklist SHINee and K-Pop and hate it for the rest of my life (Once again, don't kill me Shawols >__< ). However, a patient Shawol friend introduced me to their song JoJo instead. I enjoyed that song immensely and finally decided to give Ring Ding Dong another chance. Thankfully, my brain has a strange function of filtering, so it had auto-filtered out the weirdness for me. I then realised the catchiness of the song and the difficult dance on top of their powerful voices. My (really crafty) Shawol friend then, seeing how I liked JoJo better, introduced SHINee to me through their R&B and Ballads and also taking advantage of my weakness for babies and introduced Hello Baby to me. In some ways, Yoogeun was how I finally accepted K-Pop into my life(?) and now I keep drawing SHINee chibis. So people who like my K-Pop chibis, do thank my (evil and sly Ravenclaw) Shawol friend. (I bet you she'd do a peace sign or smile like an idiot when reading this).

Please understand that I have NOTHING against K-Pop.  I have NOTHING against rookie groups either, I just feel that it would be better if idols concentrated more on talent rather than on appearance or age. In fact, every rookie group member is (obviously) way better than I am or will ever be. However, they have to understand the competition and that just because you're younger/more attractive, does not mean you are superior. If you are a singer, your career is singing, that means your life depends on your vocals. Sure, appearance and age ARE important for an idol, but it would be better if you could spend a little more time working on the more important aspects.


PS: Advanced apologies to K-Pop fans who might feel insulted. I did not wish for the rant to come out so critical sounding. I do hope that I can soften up the tension here but I'm not too good with words. Please note that I do not harbor any ill intentions or feelings towards K-Pop or any idols.