AsToldByShan

Welcome Back to the Blog! And Happy Friday, hope your week has been treating you well! Life as a black kpop stan unfortunately has been absolute hell this week. And I’m here to talk about it all!!

Let’s get into it…

Since 2020 I’ve been fully into the whole kpop scene. Buying albums, staying up late to catch live streams, buying tickets to online concerts, traveling to go to concerts etc. I’ve fully enjoyed my time in this space, made friends , found great music and idols that I adore .

The last year in kpop has been wild to say the least. So much had happened last year that I thought , maybe just maybe , this year would be better and less drama. But boy was I wrong!

This week ALONE, we’ve had a Yg employee quit and leak several videos of BlackPink rose, Jennie and Lisa pre-debut singing songs that contain the N-word. It is now Friday and none of them or yg have released a statement.

Then we had new popular girl group Kiss Of Life throw a “hiphop” themed birthday party for their member Julie. But all we saw was them in old school hiphop clothes, acting and throwing around harmful black and Hispanic stereotypes. It was 100% a mockery and picking fun at the community and culture they steal from.

Then we woke up today to new group Young posse rapping and censoring the word ni*** but with zigga instead. Now their entire group aesthetic is a joke to me and I hadn’t even realized it was serious and real until today. and I don’t know why their agency thought this was a good idea !

They even have a song called “Santa claus is coming to the hood”. What HOOD is there in Seoul ?

This entire week has felt like a slap to the face honestly. I know as a black woman that the world sees us as something to profit off of but they don’t really like us. But I felt that with it being 2025 these new groups and even the older ones would know better and have some common sense.

It would be wrong for Miley Cyrus to go to Korea and because she’s trying to break into their market , change her whole entire aesthetic to seem more “Korean”. Hell they even dragged Ariana grande and said she was Asian fishing, and dragged Nicki Minaj for Chun Li and wear traditional Asian hair pieces . So why is one wrong but the other isn’t?

It’s so hard existing in these fandoms and nerd spaces already as black people. But the obvious racism is insane. It’s like they’re not even trying to hide it anymore.

These companies are showing us they don’t care about international fans, even though they make most of their money over here. And they don’t care about their black fans. Every-time we complain about something racist, they apologize and do it again in a different font . Showing us they will CONTINUE to steal and take from our culture no matter what. it’s what makes them the most money! And they’ve been doing it since the 90s!!!

We as black fans love and appreciate Korean culture, but if we do it too much we get called koreaboos. They steal our culture and give zero credit and get called iconic!

I knew kpop was toxic and had a lot of racist tendencies. But I thought if I just stayed unproblematic and enjoyed the music, I could vibe and block out everything else. But it’s now gotten to the point where that’s very hard to do. And with all that’s going on in our country right now, and the climate, it would be in bad taste if I continued to support kpop when they don’t even respect us or see us as humans!

They see us a characters they can profit off of and make “better” versions. When if we’re being honest, all I see is a lot of wanna be Ushers, Michael Jackson’s , and tinashes. Whenever a type of music is popular in the states, they bite off of it and try to make it their own. Nothing about kpop is original. It’s all recycled hip hop and R&B culture. With the Korean language thrown in there.

To me Txt and Seventeen are two of the groups that have tried to stayed in their lane. Great examples of doing a little bit of this and that, but true kpop to its core. With a little bit of western influences of course but a lot of Korean culture as well. I don’t feel like they’re cosplaying as black artists but being true themselves instead.

I’ve been a BlackPink fan since the beginning of my kpop journey and have stayed loyal, until now. The fact these videos have been out for several days now and NONE of the members have said anything is insane. Even crazier because all 3 of them are currently promoting their solo eras very heavily in the states. And they are also getting ready to tour the states in a few months! But nothing to soothe or make their black fans feel better and it’s giving the impression that they don’t care at all.

Of course these kpop groups will stay successful no matter what. Koreans and non black people will still support, hype , and love them no matter what. So the few black fans leaving won’t really make a difference, but it’s a start!

Kpop can’t continue this way, I need the black writes they collaborate with and the black choreographers to pull out and give them NOTHING.

Kpop will NOT survive if there’s no black culture to steal from. K-Rb and K-hiphop would collapse instantly. and honestly it needs to happen, sooner rather than later.

If y’all aren’t gonna respect us , then leave our culture alone! There’s ways to share music and culture without it being this way!

I may just have to walk away from kpop as whole , while still listening to the music of some of my favorites. But that stan life might just be coming to an end very soon. I’ve invested way too much time and money to a community that seems intent on belittling and not appreciating my people, and I’ve had ENOUGH.