Posts

Showing posts with the label BIGBANG

The First K-pop Song That Made Me Cry

Image
  The Song That Surprised Me I was sitting at my computer one afternoon in the early spring of 2021, listening to BTS while scrolling through lyric translations on Doolset’s blog. Outside, the world was still quiet — not quite in lockdown anymore, but not back to normal either. My job had been shut down for months due to COVID-19, and even though I knew I’d be returning soon, I wasn’t looking forward to it. The burnout had settled deep. Then the song changed. “00:00 (Zero O’Clock)” started playing. I was half-reading, half-listening — not expecting anything more than the usual comfort their music gave me. But as I read through the lyrics, something cracked open. I burst into tears. It was the first time a BTS song made me cry — and the first time I realized how much their music had become a source of emotional comfort. It wasn’t even a dramatic moment. Just this soft, quiet unraveling. A line about waiting for the clock to reset, about the promise that tomorrow might feel dif...

“Too Old” for Fandom? What I’ve Learned Being a Fan in My 40s

Image
  “Too Old” for Fandom? What I’ve Learned Being a Fan in My 40s Rediscovering joy, identity, and a life-long love of fan culture I was six years old when I fell for Davy Jones on reruns of The Monkees . He was funny and kind of goofy, and I remember thinking, Yes. That one. From there, it never really stopped. Take That in the early ’90s meant recording music videos off MTV onto worn-out VHS tapes. Buying Smash Hits and Bravo magazines from international newsstands. Hunting down merch in the one store in Copenhagen that actually sold it. Then came Backstreet Boys and *Nsync. Buffy. Geocities websites and fanfic. Lord of the Rings. Pirates of the Caribbean. Supernatural. The MCU. Fandom wasn't a phase—it was the thread that wove through all of it. Through all of me. For a while, I thought I’d outgrown the boybands. I spent 15 years listening mostly to rap, hip hop, and rock. Fandom still hummed in the background, but it wasn’t front and center anymore. Then the world shut do...