We all admit it: the past year has sucked. There were the wildfires in Australia, World War III speculations, COVID-19 spread quite literally like the plague, the United States’ stock market crashed, the Black Live Matter movement (which didn’t suck but the events leading up to it did), murder hornets, the explosion in Beirut, the West Coast of the U.S. set ablaze, the 2020 Presidential election chaos. It’s been a chaotic and stress-filled year, but that also means people have been finding ways to cope with the disaster spilling out around us. My mom and sister took up watching shows, a couple of my friends delved into video games and Dungeons and Dragons, others started working more, my former teachers took up house projects and renovations; everyone was trying something new.
So after getting the announcement from my high school on March 13th, I decided two weeks later after it closed down for good that I needed something new to distract myself from everything that was going on aside from schoolwork and chores. I’ve been music-savvy since I was born (because of this I’ve turned into a litzomaniac- basically someone who needs music to cope with silence because it’s maddening) so I naturally drifted over to YouTube to look into a new genre to branch out my punk rock and game OST library.
Back sometime in February, I had started listening to BlackPink, a popular K-Pop girl group, and I really liked them (still do; the new album is great). Even before that, the summer of 2019 I had played K/DA’s POP/STARS on Beat Saber and fell in love (after POP/STARS I looked up (G)I-DLE since two of their members had voiced two of the characters and started listening to their music as well). For those six months after that summer (and still to this day), my go-to hype song was a mash-up of POP/STARS and BTS’ MIC Drop (Steve Aoki Remix). But for those six months, I had never once considered listening to MIC Drop on its own.
So that day while I was doing school work, I looked up the song and watched the MV. Then I started watching more of their MVs and listening to their songs. I remember hearing about them way before this and thinking that they were just overhyped, but I wasn’t ready for Blood Sweat and Tears and that was my tipping point. After that, I never crawled back out of that hole (not that I really want to). I can name all the members, list the albums in order by release date, tell what song is playing based off the first few seconds. I started collecting all the albums around June and my wallet is crying. You could probably name literally anything and I’ll start laughing over something silly I’ve seen them do.
A few months later, I started branching off to other groups instead of just the four I primarily listened to: TXT, EVERGLOW, BLACKSWAN, a little bit of GOT7 and Exo, currently waiting for Enhypen to debut, K/DA had a comeback that I’m head over heels for. It’s starting to overpower the number of English songs I have on my phone. My mom and my sister groan anytime they get in my car because they know I play music when I drive and I really only listen to K-Pop now; my mom doesn’t mind too much- she taps along to it sometimes- and my sister is learning to tolerate it.
It’s been a nice distraction from everything that’s been happening this year. I’ve learned a lot about Korean culture, and because the lyrics are in a completely different language, I somehow got the motivation to start learning Korean on my own. I’m also a former non-competitive gymnast and watching all the dance practices and stage performances had me practicing dancing. It also gives me a lot to look forward to instead of dreading COVID cases spiking. There are award shows happening in the year that I’m excited for, comebacks in a few weeks that I’ve been highly anticipating, and live streams and reality show episodes every couple weeks to keep me entertained.
Because of all this, it’s made my year just a little brighter in the midst of quarantining and staying home.
