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EndlessDreamer

@endlessdreamcollector-blog / endlessdreamcollector-blog.tumblr.com

BTS is my life. Infinite is my homebase.
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KPOP CONFESSION #10: S(uperficial)OUTH KOREA

So I’ve mentioned before about South Korea’s superficialness (if that’s even a word) but I’ve never went into detail about it even though it’s the answer to close to everything related to why Koreans act and/or think a certain way. Ideal type, ideal weight, image, and even plastic surgery. Since this blog is mostly about kpop, it’s best to keep this confession on topic.

Now the essential question is this: How does the superficial aspect of their culture affect idol life/the entertainment industry?

1.) Plastic Surgery

Everyone already knows about South Korea and their fetish for plastic surgery. One of South Korea’s priorities is looking good, considering 1/5 of the population has had it(probably more if they could afford it). They even have to send a photo of themselves when they send in resumes for either schools or jobs. You can probably have a great resume but if you’re face isn’t that great, that could affect your chances of getting the job.

Of course as idols, they have to look good since people look up to them, usually for their physical aspects. I honestly do believe 95% of idols looked great without plastic surgery but since they have to fit into the beauty standards that Korea has, they feel pressured to get what considers them beautiful. They usually get the double eyelid surgery, nose job, forehead implants(yes, they’re real), and a jaw shave. Sometimes, they probably don’t even want it but some companies refuse to let some trainees debut if they believe they need it but won’t get it.

2.) Training/Trainees

There’s many ways to become a trainee. Being street-casted(usually a representative from a company comes up to you and tries to persuade you to audition for the company), actually just go and audition, or win singing, modeling or dancing contests and get signed as a trainee. During trainee life, you train to become the “perfect” idol. Usually, trainees tend to specialize on one thing, which is probably why there are positions such as main vocal, lead dancer, etc. That’s probably why there’s usually only groups that debut more than solo artists. All of the members come together to form one big “perfect” idol group since none of the individuals are “perfect” themselves. “Yea, he’s a great dancer, but his vocals aren’t that great.” And the “perfect” idols among groups tend to get solo debuts while still promoting with their group (ex. Hyorin of SISTAR, Amber of f(x), and CL of 2NE1).

3.) Artificial Grouping

According to Google, the definition of artificial is “made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural" with synonyms such as "insincere, forced”, and my favorite one,“put-on”. Because that’s exactly what they’re there for– to put on a show so their company makes money. They even change lineups or disband the group(sometimes even before debut) if the company feels as if they won’t bring enough profit or as much as it would if something were to change. There’s a obvious reason why so many idols are friends with each other. They’ve either went to school together or trained at the same company for some time before going to another for some reason. Some were even supposed to debut in some groups but either dropped out or were kicked out. For example, most of BESTie’s members were supposed to be in EXID. Sounds crazy right? But no, they were dropped right before debut but luckily they came together with Dahye (who was a former SM trainee) and formed BESTie, my favorite rookie group. That’s why a lot of idols have “a former insert company name here trainee” on their profiles.Companies form groups based on what can bring in the most income based off their singing, dancing, rapping, variety skills, or good looks. Which brings us to our next topic:

4.) Positions in groups

Main/Lead Vocalist, Main/Lead Dancer, Main/Lead Rapper, Visual, Face. In western pop and music, we don’t have these positions. If we do, they’re really subtle and not official. I think all groups regardless of it being from Korea or England has a face of the group. While they have Yoona from SNSD or Suzy from miss A, us westerners have Justin Timberlake, who was the face of NSYNC or Beyoncé, who was the face of Destiny’s Child. And now these recent bands like Fifth Harmony whose face is Camilla and One Direction whose face is Harry Styles. Everyone knows it’s a smart idea to put the most popular and/or prettiest member in the middle and give them the spotlight. But these positions in groups make them look even more business-like. “You sing and stuff, he’ll dance, and I’ll make cute winky faces at the camera so the fangirls die. Teamwork on three.”

As an American, I was a little confused by the positions at first. I didn’t understand why they needed them since they were a music group. All I really cared about at first was the voices and quality of the songs, not how good-looking they were. I had many questions. “Since everyone danced, did there really need to be a main/lead dancer? And if you’re not that great at singing and is just pretty, why don’t you just go be a model? I can’t hear you be pretty on an album.” But the deeper I got into kpop, the more I saw how necessary it was. A kpop group only needs four to five members:

  • Someone with a powerful voice (ex. Hyorin of SISTAR, Uji of BESTie, Taeyeon of SNSD, Chen of EXO)
  • Another who also has a nice, strong voice who could compliment the other’s voice(Soyu of SISTAR, Onew of SHINee, Yenny of Wonder Girls)
  • Someone who dances really good to make performances more entertaining(Hyoyeon of SNSD, Kai of EXO, Min of miss A, and Victoria of f(x))
  • An above-average looking person to make the group look more visually appealing(Yoona of SNSD, Dara of 2NE1, Minho of SHINee, and Hyejeong of AOA)
  • And if your group has a more “hip” feel, a rapper as well(Amber of f(x), G-Dragon of BIGBANG, CL of 2NE1, and Yubin of Wonder Girls).

So on average, a kpop group only really needs about five members. Although, other members can contribute by doing other things like acting, variety shows, and modeling.

5.) Emphasis on certain parts of their music career

Everyone knows kpop is inspired by the western pop but mostly, the American entertainment industry. They take the important parts and form it to their standards. And I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with these parts: Debut, Title Track, Comeback, and Concepts.

  • DEBUT- This is the moment. The big break. The time they get to shine. A lot of companies go through a lot of work to build hype for their new solo artist/group. EXO is probably the best example for this. The amount of teasers they had were ridiculous and Kai were in most of them, giving him the nickname Teaser King. Although a lot of debuts are well thought out and cool(Ladies’ Code’s “Bad Girl”), some are rushed(Red Velvet with “Happiness” to cover up Kris’ lawsuit). And a lot of newer groups look up to their sunbaes and their debut is inspired by it. A big example this year is GFRIEND’s “Glass Bead”. A lot of people argued and said it was too much like SNSD’s “Into the New World” from the song, to the dancing, and too the concept(but it didn’t actually sound like it though).
  • TITLE TRACK- Let’s be honest: the only people who care about the other songs on the albums are actual fans of the group and not general fans of kpop. There’s proof in the fact that groups only perform their title track(s) and that ONE other really good song on the album(ex. “Gimme” by GOT7, “Exodus” by EXO, and “Adrenaline” by SNSD-TTS). Other than that, they usually just do covers of American songs. Because no one really pays that much attention to the albums, companies tend to only focus on making the two types of songs I’ve mentioned before and making the rest of the album okay.
  • COMEBACK- You know that moment where your favorite artist releases an album or single, promotes it, then drops off the face of the earth for 8 months, then comes back out of no where with a new album? Well, in kpop, we have a word for it–COMEBACK. It’s hyped up just as much, if not more than the debut. Especially if the group is more popular.

And with each new comeback, there’s a new:

  • CONCEPT- The image the solo artist or group is trying to portray. Some might think innocent or sexy or manly and yes, even though those are technically concepts, some concepts are usually just concept based. In the previous gif, girl group AOA portrays a female sports team. This is a concept. SNSD has done a school girl concept for their debut(as did so many other girl groups), a cheerleader concept for “Oh!”, a navy concept for “Genie”, and a bad girl concept for “Run Devil Run”. Concepts change every time to make the artists look fresh and new so the fans won’t get bored and usually to target another, or more audiences. Girls’ Day went from a cute-based concept group to one of the sexiest girl groups known today starting with “Expectation” in 2013. Yet, there’s still girl groups that have a cute concept and are still popular, like APINK. Some concepts stand out so much, they get recognized for it. Prime example: 2NE1’s “I Am the Best”. They have an edgier concept and look than most girl groups so they were bound to get attention for it.

6.) Music Shows

Ever heard of Music Bank? Show Champion? How about Mnet Countdown? Those silly shows they have every week where they put groups and solo artists against each other? Yea, I hate them. Not because of the artists, but because of those stupid trophies they give to the winner of each week. Superficial Level=Broke my scale. They’re honestly cheap imitation of American award shows. The worst part is no matter how great your group’s comeback was, the most popular groups are going to win anyway. I mean, look at SNSD. I don’t want to offend any SONEs out there but “Party” was HORRIBLE. Yet, it won 7 trophies.

If music shows were based off how talented, genuine, and great a comeback was, I think the trophies would be made out of gold or something, not plastic. Although I’m not a big fan of the award ceremonies, I am impressed when some groups or artists win awards because 1) they’re up against bigger idol groups and 2)there are hundreds of artists in the Korean entertainment industry so to win is a somewhat a big deal. Also like American award shows, these music shows tend to have celebrity MCs and tend to change them every now and then when they get bored of ‘em.

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a very important 7 second video of rap monster saying ‘I will fuck you up’ 

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cowjimin

What time is it? Time for another comeback giveaway! (:

I would like to thank all of my followers for staying with me and BTS for this long. ♡

Items:

  • BTS  HYYH PT3 NIGHT VER. & DAY VER. (Both albums will be unsealed and without a PC, but will come with the poster)

Rules:

  • There will only be one winner.
  • This giveaway is for my followers so you must be following me to win. (:
  • Optional - Follow me on IG. (I will forever love you)
  • Open internationally.
  • Reblogs + Likes count. (Reblog as much as you want)
  • Must me 18+ or have parents permission.
  • NO GIVEAWAY BLOGS.
  • The winner will be chosen using Random.ORG.
  • DO NOT DELETE ANY OF THIS TEXT.
  • This giveaway will end June 11th at 12PM CST
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iwillbeapolyglot-blog

May Masterpost Challenge! 10/20 Masterposts

May Masterpost Challenge by @educatier, the goal is to make 20 Masterposts in May!

How to: Revise for Exams

I know this is a little late for a lot of people’s exams, but I hope it helps those of you who have exams in the next few weeks!

Organising Revision:

  • Make a list of everything you covered this year. Split it up into topics and subtopics. 
  • Identify the topics with information that is needed in order to understand other topics, and mark them so you know. 
  • Identify the topics you struggle with the most, and the topics you struggle with the least. Mark them so you can tell quickly.
  • Make a study schedule. Try to leave enough time so that you don’t need to rush, but if you’re really short of time, focus on covering as much content as possible. Make sure to cover all topics necessary for understanding other topics, if you can, and then focus on the smaller topics so that you’re more familiar with more content.

What to revise:

  • If you’re studying for an exam like English, History or Modern Studies (essay subjects), and you already know several quotes or examples, focus on practicing questions. You can know everything about the topic but lose marks because you’re answering the question incorrectly, or you aren’t familiar with how questions are phrased so you don’t understand what the marker is looking for. However, if you don’t know enough quotes and examples, divide your time between memorising quotes and examples and practicing questions. You can use practice questions to test how much you actually remember. 
  • If you’re studying for Music theory, focus on memorisation and listening to examples. If your exam is 2 weeks+ away, practice listening to audio clips and picking concepts out. If your exam is next week, just memorise. Memorise the concepts and what time period and type of music they’re used in. If you suck at picking out concepts from a piece of music, focus on identifying what kind of music it is, and memorise the concepts that are used in each kind of music. (This saved my grade in Higher Music, trust me.)
  • If you’re studying for a Science exam, spend a lot of time practicing questions. Like, a lot. If you can’t answer questions even though you know the content, practice until you can answer them. If you can’t answer questions and don’t understand why the answer is what it is, spend more time on revising content.

When you have more than a month:

  • Study a little most days. Make a plan to revise everything in the course and estimate how long each topic will take to revise.
  • Set aside time each week to go back over everything you’ve revised that week.
  • Set aside time at the end of the month/each month to go back over everything you’ve revised so far.

When you have 2 weeks or less:

  • Revise every day, for a fair length of time. 2ish weeks isn’t very long to cover everything in the course, but it’s fairly doable. 
  • Schedule time to review daily and weekly - about half an hour daily should suffice, and a few hours each week to go back over everything you covered that week.

When you have a day left:

  • Accept now that you are not going to cover everything, but you can still improve your grade.
  • Get up early, study as much as possible, but please don’t pull an all-nighter.
  • Review after each break, to make sure you still remember everything. If you don’t remember something after the break, you won’t remember it during the exam - try looking at it from a different angle, or memorising it a different way. 
  • If you’re studying for a science exam and you don’t know the formulas by heart, memorise them now. 
  • Make summary sheets/flashcards. Don’t just rewrite out your notes as it’s too time consuming - instead, try to condense the information as much as possible.
  • If you can’t answer questions, instead of practicing, try to figure out a “formula” of sorts for answering different kinds of question, and memorise it.
  • Otherwise, focus on covering as much content as possible. If you don’t have time to go in-depth, just focus on touching on as many topics as possible.

I hope this helps! If you have any other tips let me know. :)

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studyforthata

classical music for studying

Hello! This is my first masterpost and I thought to make it about classical music since I do have a bit of knowledge in that area. The music and playlists I chose here are chosen along my personal preferences — they may not work for you! Please let me know if any of the links don’t work etc. etc. Hope you like it!  

[[[ Also, please do not consider classical music as only useful for studying; you might not like it which is fine, but it’s an autonome genre of music. It is made for listening and enjoying just like pop or death metal. It holds emotion just like other genres of music. ]]]

playlists 

  • Period Study: Volume 1 by ankwa: a great playlist of medieval, mostly vocal music, but it’s in latin i think so unless you speak it it shouldn’t be distracting! 
  • Period Study: Volume 2 by ankwa: pretty much all instrumental music from the Renaissance period. upbeat and fun to listen to, very motivational. 
  • Period Study: Volume 3 by ankwa: baroque music from the same collection, again pretty much all instrumental. this one i like less because it makes me jam too much, but maybe you’ll like it. 
  • late morning studying by Montague-Fuzzlepeck: a bit more vocals but very relaxing overall. it’s not just classical though and contains some classical crossover etc. 
  • Keep It Classycal by Audiophile: exclusively classical music; contains some popular pieces like Bach’s Cello Suite no. 1 Prelude and Pachelbel’s Canon in D.
  • The Best of Bach: as the title of the video says. for some of the pieces, the audio level varies a lot so make sure to not put your volume too high! 
  • Chopin Complete Nocturnes:  again, it’s exactly what the title says. i like full videos for these things because there are no ads before every single piece! 

pieces

Some of these are longer, some shorter; maybe you could listen to them to see if you like them and make a playlist out of your favourites! They are all links from YouTube as that is usually what I use to listen to music. 

As I said, let me know if any links don’t work and I hope this will be useful to you and your studies! I’m also always open to requests/suggestions :] 

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