Odds & Ends: Pop culture freeze
by javabeans
javabeans: Well, I must have had a boring week since I keep thinking of things to say for this Odds & Ends post and rejecting them because they’re incredibly boring. You didn’t come here to hear me ramble about my grocery shopping trips or laundry episodes.
girlfriday: Only if you turned all your socks pink. I know I’ve lived on my own (as in, away from parents, in semi-adulthood) for a long time now, but I still can’t seem to stop hating basic errands like laundry and grocery shopping.
javabeans: Especially with recapping-heavy schedules, when you get into a groove (or more likely, are coming up on your deadline) and just can’t spare the trip away from your desk. Which probably explains all the ramyun dinners at 11 pm.
girlfriday: It’s a glamorous life we lead, folks.
javabeans: It used to be that watching people eat in dramas made me crave ramyun all the time, and it was my favorite junk food guilty pleasure. You know it’s bad when you watch dramas with characters eating instant ramyun now and your reaction is actually “Ugh, that stuff again. I just want real food. [cries into noodles]” On a related note, Chun Song-yi’s upside-down leg shake? Kinda works actually.
girlfriday: Don’t tell me that! It’s basically like a green light to eat ramyun at three in the morning.
javabeans: But 3 am to you is like 9 pm to normal people. This is what happens when you’re halfway across the world from your subject material and you live your life on Seoul time. THE RECAPS WAIT FOR NO ONE.
girlfriday: Wait, shouldn’t that be the other way around? Clearly we have some issues prioritizing things.
javabeans: Isn’t this like trying on too-small clothing and automatically assuming this means your body is too big, rather than the clothes are too small? We’ve become dysfunctional slaves to our recaps. The things we do for you.
girlfriday: Though it probably needs to be said that we were dysfunctional long before that.
javabeans: Maybe the truth is more that we found the one job that worked with our dysfunctions. Or maybe enhanced our dysfunctions is what I mean. Like, for instance, being so mired in Korean pop culture news that you lose all touch of the pop culture around you. It’s bad when you hear about major Hollywood news from the Korean media, like Philip Seymour Hoffman dying or ScarJo being pregnant.
girlfriday: This is totally how I get all my news now. It’s ass-backwards.
javabeans: I may have had to ask somebody what this “Frozen” was that everyone kept talking about. That person may have looked at me like I was a crazy person. Them: “You know, that animated movie?” Me: *blank face* Them: “That Disney sensation?” Me: *blank face* Them: “It’s incredibly huge right now and has been for months?” Me: “Has it? Then why don’t I know what it is?”
girlfriday: Sadly this is not a foreign concept to me.
javabeans: Hey, I knew it by its KOREAN title! It’s Winter Kingdom! I’ve seen it in all the Korean headlines! I just… maybe didn’t realize it was a really big Hollywood production until the Oscars rolled around. I must have heard that damn song on the radio a zillion times before I realized what it was actually from.
girlfriday: It’s a little bit like we went on a Hollywood-news detox, even though it was unintentional.
javabeans: But we could rattle off the Top 10 Korean Box Office Hits and cite their relative ticket sales off the top of our heads.
girlfriday: Or the last five hairstyles that Jang Geun-seok went through? I guess it’s just the nature of being laser-focused on one industry.
javabeans: My forest is a tree, basically.
girlfriday: God, have we become those adults who see the entire world through their jobs?
javabeans: Until you give me a cubicle-mate who looks like Lee Min-ho, I’m gonna say no. I can’t actually tell if that would be a good or a bad thing.
girlfriday: I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.
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Tags: conversation post, Odds and Ends
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51 Abbie
March 23, 2014 at 8:15 AM
I've never really kept abreast with pop culture the way most people do. Like, I didn't know who Bieber was until kids at my school started singing "Baby, Baby, Baby, ooh!" Then I found out. But I did know about Scarlet Johansson being pregnant, and Philip Seymour Hoffman dying, and about Frozen. I love Disney films, but I haven't seen Frozen yet, sadly. As much as I love Kpop, I don't follow the pop culture that much. Sometimes, I watch Entertainment Weekly on KBS's Youtube channel, but not regularly and not often enough to know anything relevant. I stick to Dramabeans for all my Kpop news. So, thanks ladies, for all your hard work!
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52 azkiya
March 23, 2014 at 9:05 AM
JB&GF goodluck! (On working per Seoul time, for running errand w' ur grocery shopping trips, and with the beanies pressure [ahem! if any,] on reading exciting recap for their fave shows/drama,lol.
It's good that I haven't found exciting detective kdrama, so that's how I
balance my life aside from kdrama xD
'I'm a big fans of some japanese detective drama (Conan, abe hiroshi drama, and else)..
Really love Sherlock (BBC production), and other than detective drama I still watch Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey, and yes I've watched Frozen (with my 5yo niece), read that scarjo is pregnant..but had my life a bit difficult since some friends couldn't forgive me that I chose to evolve my mon-thurs nights w' ji jin hee' s 'affair', and kim so hyun's fear of leaving this planet, rather than watching Scandal and Revenge..
No worries JB GF, you ladies have us the beanies in this forest :)))
Thx for all your hard works, ladies!
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53 anubic
March 23, 2014 at 3:26 PM
so i fell into kpop and kdramas around 2009, and found myself falling out in the past couple years. but this stuff takes over your life, and we're EVERYWHERE (literally this morning i found out my friend at work is a closet kpop fan, and then we started arguing about YG vs SM). the thing is, it's literally been a few years since i stopped being so completely in love with absolutely everything, and it's really confusing and disorienting? i don't watch many western tv shows, so it's like, wait.... what do i care about now. what do i watch on youtube. which websites do i visit.
i seem to be beginning to care about bollywood again, so there's that, and every year there's one indian tv serial which keeps me occupied for a while (wonder if i could poke out a closet rang rasiya fan?). and then, i read stuff occasionally, but the k-ent blitz shot my attention span to pieces, when it comes to reading. it's like... WHERE ARE THE FACES.
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54 flusteredlink
March 23, 2014 at 5:09 PM
Wait a minute, who is ScarJo? XD
I fell in K pop culture black hole from 2005, the X-Man era, long before that I was so into T Pop culture. I never really know what's playing on my local tv, what drama, what's the hit song, whose the it actor, actresses, singers, bands.. heck even if I sit beside them I won't even know if they're a celebrity or not. But I haven't been totally ignorant with Pop culture until this past 3 years, now it's getting worse, I don't even know whose ScarJo is without googling her. When people around me talking about some hit pop songs I would be like "huh?" and they would be like "get out!", when a friend's been singing John Legend's All of Me for the past few weeks and I just really paid attention to it when I heard the song playing in I Need Romance 3? How bad does it make me?
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55 Yuvee
March 23, 2014 at 7:36 PM
Lol, glad to know I'm not the only one!
I know almost none of the local celebrities and have never seen any of the local ads, but I can name most of the celebrities on Korean ads.
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56 newgirl
March 23, 2014 at 8:55 PM
Wait! Which one of you is Miss Korea?
Just last night I dealt with my insomnia by watching every YouTube video of Rain I could find, and then B2ST, and EXO. A year ago it would have been...some American? I've forgotten.
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57 Min
March 23, 2014 at 10:40 PM
LOL well guys I have to admit that I'm not so centered around K-pop/K-drama info. I do keep up pretty well with everything mostly because my family is a bunch of cinephiles and so they'll inform me about everything and anything to do with the movie industry, my bff is the world's most passionate liberal so I'll get all the news about politics through her, and I'm pretty quick to google about stuff... I usually spend an hour reading the LA Times or the NY Times depending on which subscription is the first one to appear on my email incoming mail bin in the morning. my friends use me as their med school bubble breaker... sometimes though even I'll fall behind in news during exam times especially >_<
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58 KDR
March 24, 2014 at 12:06 AM
YES! I'm not the only one who is completely secluded from Hollywood and the world outside of Korea!! *does traditional korean dance*
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59 Kiara
March 24, 2014 at 9:55 AM
There is only one show I watch on American TV and that's Jimmy Fallon. I love to laugh and I just think he is so damn hilarious.
He had Joseph Gordon Levitt ( my biggest crush ever ) in his show and I have been watching ever since.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4ajQ-foj2Q
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Carinne
March 25, 2014 at 4:47 AM
I love Jimmy Fallon but I only watch his late night shows sporadically.
Thanks for the laughs. The band's reactions were priceless in the background there.
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Kiara
March 25, 2014 at 9:33 AM
My favorite is this one with Paul Rudd. ..Caaapture ...lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LvMeYEwWGQ
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60 Carinne
March 25, 2014 at 4:29 AM
What!?! You get to listen to the Frozen soundtrack on the radio? I didn't know it was ever played on the radio. LOL!
I have chuckles when the Return of Superman program uses the tracks. I can't get enough of Sarang. I stopped watching Dad, Where Are We Going a long time ago. Whose with me?
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61 eggy
March 27, 2014 at 10:00 AM
Aw. I recommend you guys to try and squeeze an American drama into your tight schedule -- Breaking Bad. Because it's friggin' amazeballs and everything about it makes me question if there is anything better in the world.
I used to be like everyone here-- I knew nothing about American pop culture and was completely immersed in Korean news, media, and the like. I branched out and grew a little less close-minded. I really do highly recommend checking out American dramas like Breaking Bad and House of Cards. I personally find them to be leagues ahead of Korean dramas (yes, I said it).
Of course, I do still enjoy sitting down with a cute Korean drama ;)
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