Da da da da da da doo~
Oh, hey! I wonder what that is!
NO DON'T GO IN THERE! (AHH!)
Uh, why not?
You know when characters get bit by zombies but the effects don't set in right away?
What's going to happen to me?
Oh, dear.
Sit down.
This'll take a while.
On May 21, 2018, I uploaded the video "It's Okay To Like Things"
about my developed interest in a certain boy band.
One of my conclusions was:
"Maybe I won't care a year from now, but I embrace my present enthusiasm."
Turns out I forgot that "embracing my present enthusiasm"
shouldn't include abandoning all critical thought, morals, and sense of self.
My memory's not great, but I'll pick up from where I left off.
After the BBMAs, I felt like a changed person.
Like something in my brain was different.
That's how surreal it was to see them on TV.
I decided I was proud to be an A.R.M.Y and let the term define me.
By the time school started, I had a jacket with their logo on it and invested a lot of time into them every day.
My mom and I watched more of their TV appearances together.
It was nice to be open about what I loved, and to enjoy that thing with others.
They were so unproblematic and entertaining,
I started feeling convinced they were perfect people who would never disappoint me.
Every now and then, there'd be a slip up of some kind.
It seemed to happen more and more frequently.
There'd be a questionable collaboration or something and I'd choose to ignore it.
I was happy.
I wasn't going to let callout culture ruin my happiness!
So I drowned everything out with their music.
But that started to fail, too.
"Idol" felt...
off.
I was actually disappointed in the lack of lyrical content,
especially in the chorus,
but that was the point!
It was /supposed/ to seem manufactured and fake
to ironically meet antis' expectations, right?
The weird thing is how I enjoyed them for what I called
"good quality generic romantic pop music"
—even if I couldn't relate to the lyrics, I like the aesthetic, anyway—
and when they changed that,
it didn't feel natural.
Their albums are called /Love Yourself/,
and have a perceived narrative,
but they never actually sang about self-love until the final installment.
They're praised for having a message of self-love—
with lyrics from "Idol", "Answer: Love Myself",
and other recent songs as evidence—
but they never really wrote about that for most of their career.
In fact,
they rarely spoke about it unless it came up in interviews.
I decided that even if this message was manufactured for them by their company,
however recently,
it was still a good message, and they represented it,
so I was okay with it.
But I couldn't relate to the extent that A.R.M.Ys
thanked them for teaching them how to love themselves.
I was slowly becoming insecure about them,
and felt guilty about it.
So what if Yasushi Akimoto wrote misogynstic lyrics?
The song was cancelled!
So what if Nicki Minaj defended her brother for his crimes against children?
They probably didn't know!
So what if they did a photo shoot at a-
OK, I definitely couldn't "so what" that one.
I considered it a strike in a series of likely
far more than three and decided to move on.
They're humans! They make mistakes!
I could never demonize them.
I thought acknowledging these problematic things
without attributing them to the members
was critical thinking.
It wasn't.
And I didn't see that until it was too late.
Around mid-October, I found Stray Kids.
My first impression was that they were objectively better,
but my gut reaction to that was,
"No, don't say that! You're loyal to that group!"
I felt bad for sneaking a stream and "forgave" myself
by listening to /Love Yourself: Answer/ every day.
I realized I'd constructed a weird power dynamic
between myself and my interest,
so I started mentally backing away slowly
before anything worse happened.
Maybe I could become a casual fan of only their music,
far enough to be unaffected by their actions.
But /Mono/ pulled me back in because it spoke to
themes I didn't know I wanted to hear.
Then JK pulled me further with GCF.
I never admitted it,
but I always viewed both of us as
soft strong heroes with a camera.
I don't think I'd ever related to a celebrity more,
and I didn't want to leave him.
Then it happened.
I don't remember the exact day,
but one of the members was called out
for wearing a controversial shirt.
Heh, oh, was it too accepting?
[gasp]
That's so /bad/!
Thus began frantically grasping at straws
to save my peace of mind.
Everyone was as frantic as I was,
nothing was certain,
nothing helped,
and everything hurt my brain.
I was reaching a breaking point and I was scared.
I tried to ignore it.
As big as this was,
I tried to ignore it.
The next day, when I came home from school,
my mom was like,
"Did you hear one of your Korean boys
got in trouble for wearing the wrong shirt?"
Heh, yep!
And I don't want to talk about it right now. Bye!
My heart dropped.
Disappointing /me/ is one thing,
but disappointing my /mother/ is a death sentence.
I didn't know what to feel or think.
That was the problem.
I desperately wanted someone to tell me.
My issue is that with a lot of discourse,
to avoid conflict,
I side with the most liberal, popular opinion
because I want to have the "right" one.
I'm reluctant to form opinions for myself,
so I wasn't at all prepared for this.
I decided to cancel the group until they apologized,
but desperately hoped that they would.
Eventually, BigHit released a statement that set me on the verge of a mental breakdown.
They thoroughly explained and apologized for
everything the group had been called out for lately,
reassured everyone of their values, and promised to do better in the future.
It calmed me in the moment,
but afterward it was like my heart was getting torn in two.
If it was exactly what I wanted to hear,
then why did it feel like I was tricking myself into believing it?
For what felt like the next hour, I-
[GASP]
started trying to think for myself!
I'm not being dramatic. It was genuinely painful.
But they apologized!
But it wasn't /from/ them!
But if they're bad then we're bad!
It's okay to be wrong! It's okay to be wrong!
Form your own opinion! It's okay to be wrong!
Why can't I form my own opinion?!
But if we acknowledge /this/,
we have to acknowledge everything else they've never properly addressed!
You mean everything /we've/ never properly addressed?!
AAAAHHHH!!!!!
I'm not going to lie.
It was mostly yelling.
My mom checked on me multiple times.
It's nothing. I'm just working through some stuff.
I'll tell you later.
For better or worse, something inside me was breaking.
Eventually, I gave my mom my phone
to read the whole statement for herself
while I went off to do something else.
When I came back,
she gave her honest, objective opinion
that lifted a huge weight off my shoulders
and opened my eyes.
"They're adults."
And I was like, you know what?
Yeah! They /are/ adults.
They /are/ adults!
They /ARE/-!
So they collaborated with problematic people.
That doesn't reflect on /them/!
That's like saying, "I voted for them, but I don't support them."
Yes, you do!
No. They're not me. I'm not them. They don't reflect on me.
Yes, they do!
Voting /is/ supporting them!
You literally support them for who they are and what they represent.
You clearly have no conflict with their beliefs.
That's what voting /is/.
It's okay because it was in the past.
Like, /years/ ago in the past.
You mean when they were /also/ adults who should've known better?
When others hid or cancelled it or released a blanket statement so they'd never have to apologize directly?
Ignorance is one thing.
Repeated ignorance and learning nothing is another.
When you mess up,
you have to acknowledge it, apologize, learn, and do better.
That's how you show growth.
When celebrities mess up,
it's different than if a friend or family member did.
With someone close,
you can sit them down and say,
"Here's what you did wrong and why it hurt me or others and how you should be better,"
and they'll listen to you because they care about you,
and you'll give them a chance because you care about them.
With celebrities, when they mess up, they're on their own.
They have to recognize it for themselves,
which might be hard to come by.
They're not obligated to personally confront it.
If it doesn't hurt their entire audience, why bring it up?
So, it's difficult to see change in them
because no matter how much they claim to love their fans,
they won't listen to absolutely everyone.
They /know/ what they're wearing,
they /know/ what they're doing,
and they /know/ who they're working with.
Either that, or they're incredibly ignorant,
which is just as inexcusable.
I couldn't continue to support or listen to them in good conscience.
Which brings us to November 16th,
when, for the first time in a while,
I was honest with myself
and spilled out how I genuinely felt,
while starting to figure out how I got to that point.
As you can tell,
I had a lot of bad feelings in me.
I was angry, hurt, and resentful.
It felt like I was betrayed by people who were supposed to be my friends.
They were just a group I allowed myself to enjoy,
so why did it hurt so much?
Why did it feel like I was coping with trauma,
not getting over an interest?
Ignoring this—as I do best—
I resolved not to give up on people,
and threw myself into Stray Kids at full force!
Woah, woah, woah.
You're telling me that after seven months of this,
you learned absolutely nothing,
and decided to try /again/?!
Yep!
Even more so, actually!
We'll get there. Don't worry.
As the smoke cleared in my brain,
I developed more and more opinions and realizations
about what I'd experienced the past seven months
and what I was experiencing at the time,
and put it into words as best I could.
However,
it's...
mostly...
just ranting...
and ranting...
and ranting.
And I don't have the energy to talk about all of this.
Anyway, as you can tell,
I was spitting a lot of negative energy into this rant for a few days.
Then I read a thread about emotional dependency
by Twitter user @BTS_ARMY_INT,
and it cleared up a lot for me because it was exactly how I felt.
I cannot blame people for not taking responsibility for their actions
without acknowledging my own flawed approach to them.
Part of the thread says, quote:
They went on to quote an article called
/Is It Love, or Are You Seeking Validation?: When You Don't Know Your Own Worth/
by Savannah Grey of Esteemology.com.
When people ask, "How is he real?" about boys,
sometimes it's like, he's not! He's an anime boy! Easy!
But sometimes they're like, "How is he real?" and it's a real person,
so I'm like, makeup! Contacts! Hair dye! Stylists! Editing! Training!
But more people get stuck on the fact that they are real people.
When you see someone practically perfect in every way
—/Mary Poppins/ reference—
it proves how imperfect you are,
validates how you feel about yourself,
and makes it difficult to value yourself any higher.
But people cling to these perfect images anyway.
Side note:
Stray Kids are great!
I love them so much as of this moment!
I might not care about them tomorrow. Nothing's guaranteed.
But I appreciate how they're self-produced,
self-assembled,
self-written,
and put so much into everything they make.
They're kind and educated and their personalities shine through their talents.
It feels very authentic.
[rattling]
AHEM.
You know what's /not/ as authentic?
Alright.
For some reason, my SD card is not working, but I'm not gonna let that stop me
because I need to get these words out!
It's December 31st!
I don't care! [clap]
Anyway-HEH!
You know what's not as authentic?
All of your Instagram posts are perfect.
Of course not everyone's going to believe that #stay #are #beautiful when you look like /that/, dude.
These boys have natural beauty marks and baby fat and flaws that make them human,
and they still tend to remove them.
All I ever care about is what they have to say.
It's always nice to hear from them.
It's also how I felt with Bangtan.
Admittedly, their photography was often more candid.
For me, my emotional dependency
stemmed from social issues.
It was difficult for me to make and keep friends
for most of my life,
and when I found someone who'd spend time with me,
I was especially clingy to them.
They felt like friends I could cling to without bothering anyone.
They were "there for me" every day.
I projected how much they cared for me so much
that my jacket felt like a hug when I first attained it.
"We don't deserve them! They're precious angels!"
"Oh my gosh, I love them-they-they love us so much, we don't deserve them! Blah, blah, blah!"
"We don't deserve them!"
I read that so many times, I started to believe it.
For some reason, people think that others genuinely caring about them
and giving them the best of themselves
is undeserved.
I was raised with the belief that
Jesus died for the sins of all humankind.
If I deserved that,
no human's love is unwarranted,
especially from a distance.
I try to remind myself of that every day.
In a way, I did use them to validate negative beliefs about myself—
No one else was there for me,
I could only attempt to be as good a dancer as them
or be as beautiful on the inside,
they were all I had.
I repaid them for their unconditional love with loyalty.
I listened to them and only them.
I could hardly make it through other artists' songs
because all I could think was, "I miss my friends."
Weirdly enough,
even though I thought of them as friends,
I never called them by their real names
because I wasn't on a first name basis with them.
I was self-aware to an extent and told myself,
"Wow! When we eventually have to leave them,
it's going to hurt really bad!"
I knew it wasn't permanent,
but I figured I had at least a year.
I was wrong, and it /did/ hurt a lot, but I survived.
Ironically, they prepared me to leave them
by reminding me to love myself.
Loving myself doesn't require anyone else's permission.
Including theirs!
But it was mostly out of spite.
I didn't want to interact with A.R.M.Y so I could keep my "friends" to myself,
but I wound up performing some of their choreography at my school.
The first time, it was for myself,
because I wanted to be a hero,
and "Anpanman" spoke to that exact desire.
The second time, it was because I felt pressured to.
The third time, it was because I craved attention from the audience.
This was the start of desperately using my interests
to get validation from /anyone/.
I'd practice for a solid month just for a few seconds of applause from strangers.
I'd have to go bigger or be more impressive each time.
Even now, I've been practicing the same difficult dance
every day I can for a solid two months,
and, in the process,
have broken several pairs of shoes,
pushed myself to the point I could hardly breathe just to try again,
practiced after having been sick for weeks,
resulting in being sore everywhere the next day,
and probably hurt myself in more ways than I realize.
It'd somehow gotten worse when I got into Stray Kids
because I started using them as a coping mechanism to get over BTS,
and I thrived off any interaction from other STAYs on Twitter.
My brain mistook interaction for friendship,
and I felt less lonely by isolating myself as much as possible.
My timeline was flooded with them because I followed over a hundred people,
and when it was hard to see anything else,
I realized I was starting to let being a STAY define me
like I had started to let being an A.R.M.Y define me.
It was too much.
They were a backup plan to a backup plan,
and I started getting worried that I'd need
a backup plan to a backup plan to them
and so on and so forth and what have you.
But they were frustratingly good
and raised my standards so much
that was impossible.
So I got scared I was entirely dependent on them.
I didn't want to get hurt again,
but I couldn't stop.
Then I had a breakthrough a few days ago on my Tumblr.
I realized that if I wasn't careful,
that's exactly what was going to happen with Stray Kids.
They're going to disappoint me one day.
They're humans, and although they seem cool
—which they are, and I love them—
that's just a fact.
So I started to distance myself from them.
I have a tendency to invest all or nothing,
but I'm changing that.
I unfollowed maybe a hundred people
and kept the twenty or so mutuals I had made
so it feels like I really have friends.
I watch their videos when I feel like it,
not out of obligation to catch up.
I make a point to look for other music and artists
and enjoy them guilt-free.
I changed my hero training music
back to the /My Hero Academia/ soundtrack,
and listen to their discography while doing something productive.
I do sort of think of them as friends,
and use stage names,
but I don't feel super close to them or assume I know anything.
I don't care if I get a physical album or meet them one day.
It doesn't fill me up when they say they love STAY
because I don't full align myself with that concept.
The name implies a promise I'm not obligated to make.
I use "appreciate" more than "love."
I'm being honest with myself and looking at them critically.
It's great that they're educated on racial slurs,
but they need to stop using AAVE in their English raps
and stop altering their appearances so much on Instagram
and get enough sleep
and /I Am YOU/ wasn't as strong as their other albums!
I don't put them on a pedestal.
They're in my life, and I'm thankful for them,
but I won't let strangers change my sense of self
so drastically ever again.
You are talented and beautiful in your own right.
You have so much more potential and blessings ahead of you than you could ever imagine.
You're capable of creating your own future and loving yourself and being your own person.
You're capable of having an identity outside of your interests.
In reality, they never did anything to hurt me.
I only approached them in such a way
that allowed me to get hurt.
And now I'm accepting that I can't trust human people
to never disappoint me,
or rely on them for love, validation, and happiness.
I can only trust God.
My identity is in Christ,
not in people I was fine before and after knowing.
Love and validation should come from myself.
I can and will use music
as inspiration and motivation
without feeling chained to it or its artists.
I can and will support people
without obsessing over or prioritizing them in my life.
I can and will create things from my own brain
and values that I have conviction in.
As long as I can keep that in mind,
I can get stronger on my own.
And if my identity and self-esteem
don't depend on mortal beings of this world,
I'll be unstoppable in 2019 and beyond.
AND BEYOND!
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