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For me on a personal level, K-Pop has been and still is a safe haven for me. I've made plenty of friends, found a community that I can relate to, and found out more about myself by being invovled with K-Pop.
Dancing
Dancing
Watching the performances that each group puts on, the dedication that they each have in order to put on the best they can for their fans- it's very inspiring. Watching them when I'm in my dumps gives me motivation to continue and see my task to the end. When I'm overwhelmed and need a break, I put everything that I'm doing off to the side, turn on a song and start dancing. It's a great stress-reliever, and it keeps me distracted and active. The YouTube video above is the dance practice for one of the first songs I learned.
Guitar
Guitar
There are a lot of songs- both ballads and K-Pop songs- that sound amazing acoustically. There are times where groups perform and there's an idol playing the guitar accompanment to the song that they are about to sing. Watching them made me want to play the guitar, so I decided to learn and pick it up as a hobby. The YouTube video below is a short cover that I was learning for the song called "Pillows" by eaJ and Keshi.
Language
Language
Over the years of watching the idols communicate with their fans, I grew interested in the language. There are a lot of times where they do interviews and it is mostly in Korean and there aren't any english subtitle. So I took it upon myself to learn Korean. Below is a picture of the Korean alphabet.
Culture
Culture
I was mainly drawn to the culture because of the music and the food that the origin country had. However, the longer I spent watching the idols, the dramas, and eating the food- the more I was drawn to the country as a whole. I grew more interested in the history of the country, as well as what is making it so popular as the years go by. Above is a dish that I like to eat a lot- it's called "bibim naengmyeon".
The song "Blue and Grey" by BTS is a song that I like to listen to after a long day.
The song "Dear Sputnik" by Tomorrow X Together is great song that I listen to with my friends when I drive.
The Music
The Music
The songwriting process, the composing process, and the arrangment process seems so different that the ones that Pop artists in America usually have. In my opinion, lyrics in K-Pop songs are a lot deeper than mainstream Pop songs. I can relate so much more to the lyrics that are in a different language than the lyrics in the language that I speak. The soft ballads for a hard day, the hype songs for the gym, the motivational songs for the long day.
The Community
The Community
The K-Pop community gets a lot of bad rep, but that's really only the minority of fans. I've met so many people, and made a handful of friends that I wouldn't trade the world for. We all have our own differences in which group we like, what song we like, our ages, but K-Pop brought us all together. We bond over K-Pop and it is able to be a conversation starter that can lead into more topics.
As a whole, K-Pop is my safe place, somewhere I run away to when everything around me seems like it's in shambles. Just like the brigata, I have people in this community- people who understand what I am going through and support me through it all. We are each others support system, we entertain each other, and we are there for each other. The brigata members left Florence together to create a new world that they can escape to and live in for a while; I leave this world with my own brigata members to create a safe place for ourselves to have and recuperate from what the world has thrown at all of us.
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