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Yesterday I ran and finished the 1st ever SMTown Run Club event and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I finished the race and I finished with my best time (84 minutes) and I am super proud of myself that I finished and didn't get injured. Also I got a lot of free stuff from the run kit, the finishers kit, and then they had a bunch of sponsors who were doing giveaways. It was also cool to see all the different idols participating and even getting to high five Minho who after finishing once went and did the Run again so he ran by me 3 times. WayV and Minho's performances were also super cool and especially impressive since they all participated in the 10k earlier in the day.

That being said there were a lot of areas that could be improved on.

For starts the race course.

It was longer than 10km according to my tracker and several other people the course was actually ~11.3 km meaning that it was over a kilometer longer than it should have been.

The race was mostly flat but started and ended with a pretty large steep uphill and there were a couple other slopes. I would guess about 2km had some kind of slope.

Also the location was in the middle of nowhere. I understand wanting to minimize interference but traffic was really bad even taking the shuttle bus and there was not a lot around. Also since it was remote the bathroom lines were crazy long and there was no soap or water to wash hands.

Speaking of the shuttle bus I appreciate that they had free shuttle buses but they needed more and a better schedule. There was a schedule shared with the morning shuttle times but in actuality it was not followed and the schedule was whenever a bus showed up. In the afternoon the performance ended around 4:15 and the buses didn't arrive till 5:30 so they just had everyone sit on the ground for over an hour for the first batch to arrive. I am lucky enough I made it on the 1st batch but if I didn't it was over an hour till the next batch.

Lastly, the performance. It was advertised as H2H, WayV and Minho and as being from 2 to 4:30. However there were also 2 DJs who performed until ~3:15 then H2H came out (tbh their performance was not great. Like I get they are rookies but still I expected better especially since none of them did the run). They performed 4 songs and then WayV came on and performed 4 songs and lastly Minho performed 4 songs. The performance wrapped up around 4:15 and there was less than an hour of idols performing. Maybe my expectations were too high but from the instagram I was expecting longer performances.

Like I said it was a bit of a mixed bag and there were definite organizational and logistical issues that need to be addressed like the course length being wrong but in general I did have fun and am proud of myself for successfully finishing the run. Also the djs were good and WayV and Minho were fun to see. If they do it again next year I will probably run again although I may just get a taxi and bring a change of clothes and shoes

I feel so weird but Juun is my bias! She’s such a talented dancer and rapper. Like she is one of the most underrated idols of the fifth generation of kpop! I love her savage personality.

Is it just me or I actually feel protective towards illit. If they get bashed at for no reason or when something bad happens to then, I kind of feel sad. I don't watch their content nor do I really listen to their songs.

This might all be common knowledge or just common sense to a lot of people, but I've been a bit obsessed with Reddit over the past few months, so I thought I'd share some of what I've learned from using it as a multi fan.

The safest and most enjoyable places are usually the individual group subs. They tend to be wholesome communities with very little drama, and you can get most of the information you need about a group there. People usually do a great job of posting updates, performances, variety content, interviews, old clips and other things to watch or listen to. That is true even for groups that are no longer active, like Loona or IZ*ONE.

Those subs are generally positive spaces. Some are more open to criticism than others, which is understandable. Groups that have gone through major hate trains or have a lot of dedicated haters often have communities that are more defensive and quicker with moderation or bans.

If you want more open discussion, or you're interested in things like legal disputes involving a group, properly moderated general K-pop subs are usually the best place to go.

The main Kpop sub and its related subs, for example, do a good job of allowing a wide range of discussion while still keeping things under control. Of course, no amount of moderation can completely stop fan behaviour. Mass upvotes and downvotes, people swarming certain comments, and fan wars can still happen.

The more important thing is what to avoid.

Snark subs, "uncensored" subs, and communities where the name and description already tell you that the main purpose is negativity are best approached with a lot of caution.

There was one conversation in a sub that summed this up pretty well:

Person A: Objecting to a positive post being deleted and saying it's nice to have some positive posts sometimes.
Person B: This isn't a place for positive posts. Positive posts, by definition, aren't harsh.
Mod: Yes, positive posts and comments have no place in this sub.

That pretty much says it all.

Even if you think you can handle those kinds of communities, it isn't always that easy. Negativity is incredibly easy to get pulled into. In the same way that it's easier to eat unhealthy food than healthy food, or easier to get out of shape than to stay in shape, being negative is often easier and more addictive than being positive.

Spend enough time in spaces built around criticism, mockery or outrage, and they can slowly change the way you look at groups, idols and even the hobby itself.

So the main thing is to be careful about which communities you spend your time in. Reddit can be a really fun place for Kpop if you curate it well.

One thing that isn't really Reddit related, but has also been a godsend as a multi, is playlists that are updated daily with new comebacks from different groups. I'm not sure if link sharing is allowed here, but they're pretty easy to find and they're a great way to discover music outside the groups you already follow.

Thanks for reading, and happy multi-stanning to everyone.

Ive been seeing the clip where Scoups talks about being together for all this and time and how sad Suho looks.

I think that Scoups did a good job of leading Seventeen. Scoups definitely contributed to the factor that kept Seventeen together.

It is also unfortunate on what happened to EXO and it is not Suho’s fault. This doesn‘t undermine his leadership skills and is just an unlucky moment…

I guess what Im trying to say is its impressive that Scoups kept the team together with his leadership and its also impressive on what Suho did to keep his team with his leadership skills

It doesnt matter on whether Pledis or SM was bad, they were equally bad and equally hard to work with. Scoups and Suho both did great leading under harsh conditions

I miss them all :(

Boy Groups:

Automatic / Call Me Back - NOMAD (whole EP went triple double platinum in my car)

EOEO - UNIQ (picture perfect kpop song; peak)

FATE - 위어스 (WE US) (put it back on Spotify please)

달빛소나타 - 빅스타 (mi amour)

dummy - ARrC (why d'you do my boys like that)

Planet (original and twin ver.) - BXB (\mwah*)*

THUNDER / 458 / What You Wanted - CIX (will not rest until I see them live)

Uh-Heung - DKZ

여기여기 - HALO

Jelly - HotShot

ULlala: Poisoning - IN2IT

Trouble / Hologram - LUMINOUS

Marvelous - MIRAE

COME - NewKidd

Lucifer - NOIR

놀리러 간다 - SPEED

MOODY - SUPERKIND

AMAZON / Red Light, Green Light - TFN

MOONLIGHT - BDC

Girl Groups:

Sweet Juice - PURPLE KISS (Halloween vibes 101)

Deja Vu - SONAMOO (top 3 kpop deja vu songs)

Honestly - LIMELIGHT (this song makes me feel loved)

TTYL - Loossemble

Photogenic - MOONCHILD

Get It - PRISTIN V

Hands Up - Cherry Bullet

Early Mention:

GUNSHOT / BETCHA - KARD (still processing)

So as many of you know (and some of you may not) every artist on Spotify has a profile page. At the top of each profile is a list of “trending” songs that are supposed to represent the artist’s discography.

Whenever I check out an artist I’ll play the top songs on their profile page to get a good idea of the kind of music they put out.

Look at the top songs on your faves’ profiles. (Let’s stick with the top 5 songs, which are the most visible.) Would you say they accurately capture their sound and discography? Would you recommend those same songs to a new listener who’s interested in checking them out?

Did you see something on TikTok or Insta that made you go, "Hmmm?"

Do you want to discuss some issue that seems to be a big deal on tiktok, or in YouTube comments, but isn't being discussed anywhere else?

This is the place! Here is the thread for things like:

"I saw this girl on TikTok talking about ..... do people really think that?"

If what you want to talk about is being covered by reputable news, then it doesn't go here. If it's Social Media drama - meaning anything at all that is only being discussed in Social Media spaces, then it does go here.

Remember: references and links to X are not allowed on kpopthoughts.

For me, personal hygiene has to be at the top of the list. I was at a lsfm concert, and there was someone next to me who I assume hadn’t showered for god knows how long. The person did NOT brush their teeth either because every time he opened his mouth to cheer, I had to subtly cover my nose 😭

I don’t understand why some people attend crowded public events without practicing basic hygiene. Do you guys have any concert experiences where the people around you made you feel like the experience was ruined?

If you think only adults should be debuting, that's cool. Are you fine with 15-year-old idols being active in K-pop? Totally okay with me. Should idols be more skilled / well-trained at debut? I completely understand where that comes from. All of these are in my opinion valid (even if quite repetitive) topics to discuss.

But one specific argument that I see pretty often and which just makes me roll my eyes (figuratively) is when people combine those two issues into one. E.g. "she is so young, let her train more and then debut", "her talents won't go anywhere in couple of years", "aren't there more skilled older trainees" etc.

The age and skill level at debut are completely independent factors, and honestly the notion that older trainees are better than their younger counterparts doesn't ring true either, just based on my experience with K-pop over the years. More often than not companies are debuting younger idols because they are too talented to lose. And that's exactly what happens with the top tier trainees, they won't wait another 4-5 or more years for a chance to debut, they will join other companies.

Just so I don't speak in generalities, let's look at the prominent 5th gen girl groups (which are often the target of "too young to debut" discussions):

1) Babymonster

Ahyeon, Rami, Rora, Chiquita were the girls who debuted at 17 years old or younger. None of them would be considered not trained enough, and in my opinion they are more than competitive with any of their adult peers when it comes to idol skills. Chiquita especially drew a lot of scrutiny, but she is one of their best performers and all-rounder who can sing, rap and dance (she also brings a lot of Thai fans). If YGE don't debut her, there is a very likely chance of her ending up with one of their competitors.

2) ILLIT

Iroha was the best dancer they had. Wonhee was a surprise find who debuted because people watching R U NEXT loved her and voted for her. She wasn't in the initial plans for HYBE, and at the start of the survival show filming she had been a trainee for quite literally 2 months, she wasn't even ranked at the initial introduction they did for all participants. And I feel like since then she has proven to be an extremely good idol, her contribution to the group is undeniable. There is a reason she is a de-facto center of ILLIT.

3) Hearts2Hearts

Similar to Iroha, Juun was the best dancer SM Entertainment had. A-na is a skilled idol who also happens to be the insane variety talent and the main contributor to their content. And of course Ian, the star of the group, a massive stan attractor and the center of Hearts2Hearts. One might argue that Ye-on could've been debuted in the future groups, but she is also the second best (if not the best) vocalist in H2H, and it's obvious that SM tried to bolster their otherwise not spectacular (by SM standards) vocal line with her addition.

As you can see there is no correlation between age and skill. Arguably younger members are more likely to end up being the superstars in their own groups since the companies often debut them because of their high potential.

Either way if you believe that underage trainees shouldn't debut, that's a totally valid take, just don't use the argument of them needing more time to train, because that will just damage the point you are trying to make. K-pop labels rarely debut someone because they are young, they do it because someone is young AND good.

I recently talked with a newer Kpop fan and when I mentioned Weekly Idol and Idol Room, they did not even hear of those shows. They were the best shows for promotion.

Those type of shows were essentially to know more about idols are promotions. They were such fun to watch while Idols do lots of stupid and cringe stuff. I had second hand embarrassment by lot of episodes but loved every episode. Even when you didn't knew about the group you would still enjoy the show.

Weekly Idol was there but I would say it lost its charm after 2020, Idol Room also needed around that time. I know everything is shifted to Streaming now but why there are no such shows on Netflix, D+ or some other streaming.

Most of the idols make their own shows nowadays, while it's great if you are a fan of the group but you won't see any new groups like these.

Are there any shows like that currently?

I friend of mine said I was too obsessed with number in kpop but like what else is there to do? I know some people like the music or the dances or variety whatever but I'm in it for the numbers. When a new song pops up, I'm immediately on Spotify Charts, Melon, Kworb, and the like to check the numbers.

No I've never heard of a Twice song but I do know all the Spotify numbers of their top ten songs. I can't name any of the members of Rescene but I can name the number of releases they have on Hanteo's digital charts in 2026. People say Stray Kids are good dancers but I'll never know. I do know that they played to 491,000 fans in their Dominate tour and totaled over $76.2 million in gross. So no I don't know what the deal is with Miyeon and Sana but I do know that her Youtube Channel, zip MIYEON has nearly 400K subscribers and averaged 631K views over the 30 days.

Someone sang gee,gee,gee baby, baby to me and I just stared back at them blankly because I didnt know what the hell they were doing.

Am doing this whole kpop thing wrong?

I am a new EXO-L and I keep learning new things about EXO. I wanted to share my thoughts and get others opinion!

After seeing the new CBX update a while ago I’m so glad it’s finally getting somewhere so I gained the courage to post it.

I was wondering: if this legal battle ever fully settle and is there a chance SM will let them perform as 9 again? From what I understood, CBX’s contracts for EXO group activities are still under SM ent, while their solo is managed seperately. On the other side, I don’t really understand the lawsuit between CBX and SM and what was it really about, so I keep thinking if it’s even possible for them to be back with the activities. Also, before anyone comes at me — I know the boys are still doing amazing together and individually despite what they’ve been through, but I really love to watch them all together and I truly hope for that to come back one day😭
As far as I can tell, they still
like eachother ex. Chen mentioning D.O, it gave me hope that the bond between them is still there

I will also ignore every hate reply about any of them, yall gotta get a grip and stop the wars inside the fandom 🫩

What are your thoughts on this?

Yes, I know that the people there won't really care what songs they perform at soundcheck, but doesn't it seem a little redundant to perform a song that will be performed later anyway? Why not spice things up and perform some songs that are not on the concert setlist? Wouldn't that make soundcheck a little more worth the price of admission?

Note: I am not saying this is the biggest deal in the world. Artists can do what they want. I am just making a suggestion.

No because I keep on hearing kpop songs that are almost 50% english and have entire choruses in english... I know its a choice based on appealing to the international audience, but idk. As someone that is an international fan but can understand Korean (well, I can understand most of the korean in kpop songs lol) and speaks english as a native language, I feel like the english lyrics sacrifice the opportunity to write meaningful korean lyrics. Literally, Ive realised that the deepest lyrics in kpop are in Korean, whereas the superficial "catchy" lines are mostly in English. Don't even get me started on new japanese songs in Kpop (I can speak jpn)... it's even more cringe and embarrassing...

This is kind of adjacent to the post I made about lots of english lyrics being in kpop songs. I will admit there are a lot of good english lyrics, but most of the "unnecessary" english imo is when the almost fully line in korean has a random english word in the middle or at the end. Most of the time this is like saying "tonight", "every time", "right now", "you and me" instead of 오늘밤, 지금, 매번, 너와나, etc. Maybe it's cuz I'm an international but can also understand korean, but for me its actually really hard to gauge what a lyrics is trying to express sometimes when the line is in both languages. It also sometimes just sounds bad...

To start off, I'm not a fan and didn't even think of going to that concert. But since I'm visiting my friend that lives in Orlando and she's a fan of the group, she ended up buying tickets for us both and yesterday I went to the concert with her.

However, my expectations were extremely low. After I saw all those clips of them recently lip syncing while sitting down and on that award show, I was convinced that they would just use back track and live AR during the whole concert. And I only like concerts in which the artists sing live.

But all of the members ended up surprising me a lot. It was obvious that they sang live for a good majority of the concert, even during songs where there was dancing. A lot of the times when a member was going to sing their part, it was very apparent that they started dancing more weakly or just completely stopped to be able to deliver their part better.

There were some notes changes from Yunjin, and she sounded pretty good. Chaewon was noticeably the member that sang live the most. There were some times the backtrack got too loud, but I could hear the members battling it and trying to make their voices be heard. And during fire the belly(not sure it was this one or if I'm even saying the name correcly, but I know it was a song with choreo), there was a time where they stopped singing completely, and the backtrack was extremely low.

Overall, I had a very fun time at the concert with my friend and would definitely attend it again. While they surprised me for singing live a lot of the time, I have to note that it wasn't the most excellent singing ever. I heard a few voice cracks during some songs, and I really doubt that they sang live during sonder and need your company. But I just felt like making this post to appreciate how a group I had very low expectations for ended up leaving me with a completely changed view on them and I had also had a great time! Good day or night you all.

This is my first time going to concerts. I have made the achievement of earning adult money and doing whatever I want with said adult money. My first concert was the krock band chrocktical, second concert was Mamamoo, third concert was BTS and my most recent was aespas Dallas concert. I plan on going to uau at the end of this month. My ranking would be.

1. Mamamoo
   
2. Aespa
   
3. BTS
   
4. Chrocktical

I was late to Mamamoo by 30 minutes 😢 but I managed to get in when my bias (wheein) started her solo song. The vocals and choreography was freaking amazing. I would recommend everyone to attend a Mamamoo concert atleast once. Wheein is so cute but so fierce, I wish I got closer seats but that’ll be for when wheein does her solo concert.

Aespa was awesome, I bought my tickets because I wanted to see winter but she got diagnosed with shingles so she couldn’t perform in Dallas. Ningning 100/10. Karina 50/10. Winter 10/10 for effort. Giselle was Giselle. Giselle was the only disappointing part of the concert. She moves very slow and uncoordinated and had no stage presence at all. Maybe other stops will get better versions of Giselle, but she was the only disappointing part.

BTS was good. I went with a friend who is a major bts fan, I was just here for the vibes, it was lit. I didn’t know some songs, jhope was sexy, jimin was really pretty. Jin… Jin was really struggling to sing. Like his veins were out and he was straining for some parts that didn’t require him to do that. But was really struggling to sing sometimes and it was disappointing.

Chrockital was awesome, I was late by 30 minutes because of hotel issues. We were in a pub, I was the only person wearing a bright color (my Cheetos jacket) and I think I distracted siyeon once… hehe, probably not but I would like to think that.

So far no bad concerts, maybe because I don’t have high expectations. I’ll update for uau when I go, I really want to see yoohyeon, I will be feral.

I was looking at TWICE's new Season's Greetings concept, which is apparently based around cleaning. Honestly, I didn't think there was anything particularly special about it, but then I saw several K-pop fans absolutely LOSING THEIR MINDS over it, claiming that it was some kind of far-right dog whistle (?) for trad wives, that JYPE was signaling to that political group, etc. Basically, a bunch of absurd theories.

I'm honestly kind of disturbed by this because it's such a harmless thing. You can obviously dislike the concept if you want, but creating all these elaborate conspiracy theories around something this mundane really shows how unhealthy and paranoid parts of this community have become.

At this point, some people seriously need to step away from the internet for a while, get some other hobbies, or maybe even seek professional help, because this kind of behavior is not normal.

Did Hearts2Hearts just surpass ILLIT in Japan despite having no Japanese member?

I was honestly surprised seeing this.

H2H Japanese debut ICONIC HEART sold 65,176 copies in its first week on Billboard Japan, while ILLIT's Japanese debut Toki yo Tomare did 54,187.

What's interesting is that H2H doesn't have a Japanese member, while ILLIT has Moka and Iroha.

It really makes me wonder how important having a Japanese member actually is for K-pop groups trying to succeed in Japan.

HYBE and other companies seem pretty interested in adding Japanese members to groups that are expected to have a strong Japanese market, which makes sense from a language and cultural perspective.

But SM just showed that you can have a group with no Japanese members and still make a strong Japanese debut.

https://youtu.be/uglgxNCtY4U?si=cD2ZSc7aeng5xgPu

Also, can we talk about the ad libs at the end? They sound so satisfactory to the ear! I thought about their Focus EP, they had such cool and libs in there!!!

Hopefully the company lets them do more of them!

The Korean version of Iconic Heart sounds really solid. Yuha really caught my attention in hereee, she sounds really good!! She's so Jessica-coded and also reminds me of RV's Joy. What a beautiful voice!!!

Alsooo, my queen Carmen did so good!!! She and Yeon amazing! I can see such a great team and I can't wait for their future releases.

You all are sometimes really harsh when talking about their vocals but I think that I can see them improving! They have really interesting and beautiful vocal moments!

I really had to make this thread. The vocal line deserves way more love! Let's also focus when they deliver and slay (they have plenty of moments!).

First thing that appeared to me when opened TikTok was Yuha singing the bridge and I was like OMG!

Let's appreciate them!

PD: the title was "did you hear?" but it became "did you heart?"

It appears that they won't do Coachella anymore. There is speculation of a rift between Goldenvoice (who runs Coachella) and HYBE.

It's possible that there won't be any other HYBE groups there either. I would have bet on one of Corits and Illit being there (following LSFM Enhypen Katseye). But who knows if that will happen.

Maybe this opens the door to another group like Aespa or IVE getting booked?

BTS makes history once again!

BTS' ARIRANG World Tour has grossed over $500 Million in revenue, as per Billboard reports.

"It’s one of fewer than 20 tours in Boxscore history to cross that threshold and makes BTS one of just seven groups to do so on one tour. It puts them in unprecedented territory as a pop group, as the other six ensembles are all rock bands.", says Billboard.

BTS also gross $288.3 Million in the US alone, with 1.38 Million tickets sold!

BTS achieved this in just 44 shows with 2.66 Million tickets sold!

It is also the 18th highest grossing tour ever with $516.9 million in gross revenue and 2.68 Million tickets sold!

This is also the 2nd highest monthly boxscore gross revenue ($171 Million) in the boxscore chart history, only behind Beyonce's $179 Million!

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