i have no exciting advice to offer, just:

i agree with everything here except with the influx of twt users, the not caring about streaming/voting will (and SHOULD) change. it's weird to call yourself a supporter of a group and proudly express that you don't care about things that are important to their achievements. if you don't know why these things are important, your new twitter friends will be happy to explain it to you :)

i guarantee you are not going to change the minds of people who dont want to engage in streaming and voting. its weird to call yourself a supporter of a group and proudly belittle others who do not have the time or energy to devote to streaming and voting and who choose to support their faves in other ways that voters/streamers deem as not good enough

you're not going to find excessive posts dedicated to voting and streaming here, sorry

this whole mindset of fans needing to accomplish things to be valid is so toxic. how about we let people enjoy what they enjoy, idk just a thought

The fact of the matter is that kpop fans don't owe artists anything. Nothing.

The kpop industry is using them to make you feel like you do. The kpop industry wants you to believe - and wants it badly - that you, personally, not spending enough of your time and money on a 16 year old is the reason their dreams are crushed. They want you to be emotionally invested in these artists, their dreams, their desires, their wins, their fails. And they want you to feel a sense of duty to them, because ultimately the more you feel you have an obligation to a kpop star or group the harder you will work to make them successful (and the less hard the company has to work to do the same). Every ad you buy is an ad the company doesn't have to. Every time you blame the fanbase is a time the company gets off scot-free.

It's part of the parasocial nature of kpop. It's why you get fans who genuinely want the fanbase to apologize to the group when they don't win music shows or fan-voted awards. It's why you get fans literally emailing the company en masse over scheduling conflicts. It's why you get fans spending personal income on music video advertisements on youtube or in times square.

And it's not healthy. You are not responsible for a korean 14 year old girl who wants to be famous one day, regardless of how cute, talented, or charismatic she is. You are not responsible for a 17 year old korean boy who wants to be a songwriter and for god's sake you're not responsible for any 29 year old korean man.

But the belief that you are is why people stream and vote so hard and get so upset when it doesn't pan out. Why wasn't the group successful? Probably because their company didn't promote them well, didn't release music the gp wanted to hear, didn't have the funds to advertise more, or just wasn't a good fit with the industry. But according to twitter, it's you. And fans will go to any length to artificially inflate their groups so they look like they're gaining traction they aren't.

And you see this with groups like Loona. I love Loona. I want Loona to succeed more than almost any other group in the industry. But people are so desperate to inflate Loona's numbers artificially that Orbits get called out for botting and fake voting way more often than other fandoms. "Orbits are bad because they don't st-" if there were enough Orbits, enough of them would stream. If Loona was actually as popular as we all want it to be, that would reflect on the charts. Period.

And so some of us, while we like the artist's music, just don't want to buy into the whole weirdly parasocial implication that anyone other than the artist and the company is responsible for making the group successful, or that the group ought to somehow be beating Blackpink and BTS and Twice at music shows despite not even being 1/4th as popular. That's a normal way to look at music. In fact, the Kpop industry is probably one of the only industries in the world who considers "regularly keeping up with a group's releases, talking about them all the time, and going to shows if possible" to be "casual listening". And it would be fine if you guys would admit you vote and stream all the time out of an abundance of passion. Because you like it. Because you have nothing better to do, so why shouldn't you spend your time doing whatever you want? That's respectable. We all have niche hobbies. Make as many emails as you want. Use as many VPNs as you gotta to get to those Korean charts. It's idiosyncratic, but certainly within your rights.

But instead you mfs pretend it's a bare minimum requirement to even like the group at all, and it's fucking weird.

do you ever sabotage your own free time? like wtf is that about? i want to play this game or read or do something specific but instead i will just stare out the window or scroll mindlessly???

i’m tired of all the “pretty” people having the same bratz clone face i’m tired of the skinnies wearing clothes literally made for toddlers just because they can and making it trendy to be the size of a two year old i’m tired of cosmetic surgery being girlbossified and i’m really really tired of being a woman who just wants to EXIST while being told that i’m not doing it right and that changing everything about myself is supposed to be Empowering and True Feminism

the mood swings have been insane lately. one okay productive day costs me two weeks of grief and apathy and anger. hot girls get it 

My heart goes out to anyone with a uterus living in the USA right now. What a sad day when guns have more rights than you.

my new belief is that love should make you feel both held and free

love is both the seat belt and the car

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

okay so i just got my dream job??? a week after applying to it?? and now i’m thinking….maybe this is the good luck post

…..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment

likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post

i need all the help i can get for finals

Hey so

the last time I reblogged this post right before I got a great job, in a permanent work-from-home position, with benefits, retirement, and a salary literally 3x what I was making before, doing something I really like. 

So you know. 

This might be the real one, y’all.

what the hell? i could use some luck *hits reblog*

[ID: An image of Eleanor from The Good Place pointing backwards with a smile. The caption has been edited to read “This is the Good Luck Post.”]

REBLOG REBLOG REBLOG

Angst fics can help people come to terms with their own grief, begin healing, or give people that good cry that they need.

Smut fics can help people affirm and accept their sexuality. It can help them explore their sexuality in a safe way. They can also just be fun, and having fun is a drastically undervalued way to improve your mental health.

Dark fics can help people face their fears or process their trauma. It can make them feel safer and more secure. It can help them find their courage.

Fluff fics can give people rest and respite and comfort. It can give them hope that soft places exist and that maybe there is one out there for them. It can bring up their mood, which, if they have depression, can be a life saver.

And every fic people write makes someone feel less alone.

Point being, just because a particular thing doesn’t serve you, doesn’t mean it lacks value.

This is not to say that we have to consume all fic uncritically. Of course not. It is just to say that entire “genres” aren’t trash or lacking value just because they don’t serve you.

Chicago Tribune 4.01.21

Chicago police murdered a 13 year old Monday. His name was Adam Toledo.

The police and other white supremacists are using the argument that because he was with someone who was armed/that he was armed that he deserved to be chased and killed. No child should be hunted down and executed for being drawn into a gang.

If you want to know how to prevent this, you should’ve been paying attention to BLM the past year. Black and brown communities need adequate funding: schools, jobs, housing, healthcare. Police divest from Black and brown communities. Gang violence is not preventable through policing, but it is preventable through community investment ensuring economic security.

Defunding the police (as a means to abolish) and guaranteeing a decent standard of living to all people is the only way to end the violence our current system produces.

look the reality is that stan culture is unhealthy. period.

and i’m not talking about being a fan of someone and wanting to go see them on tour. im not talking about being happy when they drop something new or reach a cool milestone. im not talking about writing fanfiction and using them as a face character. im not talking about making edits/gifs of them, or anything like that. 

im talking about dedicating your life to this person. seeing them as some sort of deity who can do no wrong. monitoring their every move and always being ready with a comment/opinion/statement. feeling like you owe them something and that you alone are the key that will make or break their career. feeling like you need to defend them no matter what. attacking strangers just because they may not necessarily agree. creating drama day after day to the point where your online presence is just a steady stream of negativity with no end in sight. 

the internet has desensitized us to stan culture, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not wrong. it’s dangerous and gross and at this point, im afraid that most people are too far gone to recognise just how much of a horrible impact it’s made on our lives.

idk call me radical or crazy or whatever but people shouldn’t need a reason to care about human lives 

all these posts like “if you listen to kpop / if you like anime / if you watch cdramas you should care about what’s happening right now” are SO tone deaf and weird. people, especially elders, are being attacked and murdered because of their race. that is why you should care. because human lives are being taken and it is wrong. an entire continent and its people should not be reduced to the commodities and entertainment they give to you for you to care about our lives. you should care about us because we’re human beings 

ON TOP OF THAT that rhetoric is turning everyone’s attention to only east asians. yes, east asians are facing increased hatecrimes and racism. but so are south asians. so are north asians. so are west asians. so are pacific islanders. it’s so weird to focus your “activism” on the one group that you deem entertaining or whatever 

go here to donate to atlanta’s chapter of asian americans advancing justice / here’s a twitter thread of donation links

hey! your faves are asian, too:

on racism, anti-asian sentiment, and breaking the silence

eight people were murdered in georgia a few days ago. it was tuesday, march 16th, 2021. six of the victims were asian women, and all of them died at the hands of one angry white man. 

and, already, people are trying to dismiss it as yet another misogynistic attack on women. already, people are trying to skirt around the bigger issue here, which is that this was 100%, without a doubt, racism. 

[i mean, come on. he didn’t go to a regular old strip club. he didn’t go to any other establishments that aren’t primarily asian. the very first spa the shooter attacked was called young’s asian spa. you can’t get much more direct than that.]

so, let’s talk about racism—and specifically, anti-asian racism in the united states, since that is what’s relevant here. let’s talk about how the first comments that i saw on twitter as these georgia murders were breaking, were jokes about how the victims didn’t get a “happy ending”. horrible, horrible comments about sex workers, and asian sex workers in particular.

let’s talk about the chinese exclusion act of 1882, which was the first instance of a law that restricted immigration into the united states. let’s talk about how chinese immigrants and even their american-born children couldn’t become citizens until 1943. let’s talk about the japanese internment camps of wwii, which uprooted the lives of tens upon thousands of japanese-americans in the united states. let’s talk about the page act of 1875, which effectively barred chinese women from entering the united states even before the chinese exclusion act that followed seven years later.

and if that’s not enough, let’s talk about more recent examples of racism and discrimination and microagressions. let’s talk about the 1970s myth that the msg in chinese food is bad for you, despite the fda now recognizing it as safe to consume. let’s talk about yellowface in hollywood, which happened as recently as 2017 with ghost in the shell and scarlett johansson. let’s talk about the innumerable stereotypical asian characters we see in movies and tv shows—from the incredibly offensive caricatures (looking at you, breakfast at tiffany’s) to the comic relief asian computer nerd sidekick or the quirky manic pixie dream girl. 

let’s talk about cultural appropriation. about the fetishization of asian women, and “yellow fever”. about how asian men are degraded as effeminate. about how korean and japanese culture are so commonly fetishized to the point that we have names for those who are guilty of the act. 

let’s talk about how this kind of racism runs rampant still, especially in the anime and kpop communities. the number of posts i’ve seen on my dash about these murders? painfully, heartbreakingly few.

and that? that fucking hurts. that hurts, when 95% of the blogs i follow are kpop blogs. that hurts, when my entire dashboard on sunday was filled with the racism and xenophobia of the “scammys” and how bts were snubbed. that hurts, when everyone was up in arms about that german radio host who made racist remarks about bts. that hurts, because we’re all on here, day after day, to celebrate the music and the accomplishments of seven korean men. seven asian men. but now that attacks on aapis have gone up 150% in the last year alone? now that asians are dying?

radio. fucking. silence.

and yeah. maybe it’s easier to rally behind the existing rhetoric. maybe it’s easier to pile on to the continuing conversation about the institutionalized racism and politicization of the grammys. maybe all of those things are easier than taking a good hard look at your own internalized discrimination, and how you yourself are complicit in anti-asian racism.

and look, this isn’t meant to be a targeted call out post. i don’t have anyone specific in mind as i’m writing this. this is simply meant to be a reminder, to check your own words and actions and to be aware of how they may affect others. to be aware of the struggles of your aapi friends and neighbors, and how they’ve been suffering in silence for so, so long.

so now, here we are. eight people are dead and that’s apparently what it takes to force this nation into a long overdue conversation about anti-asian racism and sentiment. it took the lives of soon c. park, hyun jung grant, suncha kim, yong a. yu, delaina ashley yaun, paul andre michels, xiaojie tan, and daoyou fen. and while they may be gone, we are still here. 

and we can not and will not be your silent, model minority anymore. 

hello! just a lil smth, please don’t scroll!

tw // anti-asian violence

there’s been a fuck ton of aapi hate since the beginning of the pandemic and especially lately, with the georgia shootings today, and even the grammys last sunday

all this said i just wanted to share a few resources (none mine!):

- anti-asian violence resources (this resource is also linked in my pinned, it contains information, petitions, places to donate and a lot more)

- stop asian hate (contains petitions, places to donate, ways to spread the word and more)

- sites to donate to and share (if you have a twitter please consider retweeting)

- a cumulative twitter thread with a little bit of everything and more than i explained

+ stop asian hate gofundme

+ asian american resource center (an atlanta based foundation focused on housing and civil classes)

—

if you have any resources you wanna share reply and/or reblog and i’ll add it, and with that please share this with the same tags <3 sending love to my fellow aapi, please stay safe all of you and don’t be fucking racist :]

An anime manga theme park aimed at getting white weeaboos to come spend money in Japan that displaces and desecrates indigenous Ainu territory...

Y’all blog about Japanese people and culture all day please boost this.