Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 12) — While most parts of the world were on lockdown due to the pandemic in 2020, Joc Bulan and his friends suddenly found themselves in a rabbit hole called Korean pop or K-pop, thanks to Blackpink’s Netflix documentary “Light Up the Sky.”
“We came across this ‘Light Up the Sky’ ng Blackpink, and one of my friends, parang ‘Shoot your shot kumbaga, try lang natin ‘to,’ pinanood lang. And then, eventually, ayun okay naman pala,” said Bulan. “From that point on, mas nag-research kami kumbaga sa four girls na nakilala namin through that documentary.”
[Translation: We came across Blackpink’s ‘Light Up the Sky’and of my friends said, ‘Let’s shoot our shot, let’s try watching it,’ and we just watched it. And then, eventually, we realized that it’s okay. From that point on, we researched more on the four girls that we knew from that documentary.]
READ: Lovesick Boys: Why I’m a Blackpink stan
Bulan is a huge fan of American hip-hop music especially of Eminem, Drake, and Kanye West. Although he is already familiar with the K-pop genre, he thought that such music was all about cute and bubbly concepts.
But his misconceptions on K-pop have changed after listening to Blackpink’ s 2020 hit “How You Like That,” an EDM and hip-hop track that matched his music taste.
“Especially within my circle, ang music talaga na pinapakinggan namin was really more on rap, mga Kanye West, Drake, Eminem. I’m a huge fan of Eminem, more or less doon nagre-revolve yung sound na nae-expose ako, “ said Bulan.
[Translation: Especially within my circle, the music we usually listen to is more on rap music from Kanye West, Drake, and Eminem. I’m a huge fan of Eminem, so more or less that’s the type of sound that I was exposed to.]
“When you think about the genre siguro ng ‘How You Like That’, more on parang rap and bass heavy, medyo may pagka-EDM nga lalo na sa outro part. Na-realize ko na may ganito palang tunog sa K-pop, kasi akala ko before talaga cute side, parang bubblegum pop,” he added.
[Translation: When you think about the genre of ‘How You Like That’ , it’s more on rap, it’s a bass heavy track, and it has an EDM sound on the outro part. I realized that there is such kind of sound in K-pop, because I’ve always thought that it’s just all about the cute side or like a bubblegum pop.]
’10’: ‘contentWidth’: ‘100%’ ’embedCode’: ‘He noted further that the music genre has become accessible to many because of social media.
“Just because there are so much content out there and there are so many ways to consume it, hindi mo na maiiwasan (you cannot avoid it),” said Capistrano. “It’s everywhere and it’s so easy to consume such content these days, so it’s easy to get hooked.”
Opportunities
Capistrano said that K-pop music has also helped many male fans in terms of their personal and professional growth.
He shared that within the Girls’ Generation fan base that he is part of, five of them fanboys are also busy with their day jobs.
\”Nagtuturo ako (I’m teaching), and part of my mandate as a professor is to do research and publish,\” he said. \”Right now, I have at least four academic journal articles, which are research papers on K-pop.\”
He continued: \”Mayroon akong isang case study on K-pop and I’ve also been invited to talk in a number of symposia, na nakatulong din sa professional development ko (I have a case study on K-pop and I’ve been invited to talk in a number of symposia, which helped in my professional development).\”
\”Obviously, these opportunities are not limited just to the female fans, so it’s also a way for the male fans to grow,\” he added.
Meanwhile, Bulan was inspired to start his own YouTube channel which initially featured unboxing videos of Blackpink merchandises.
\”So bumili ako ng albums tapos gumawa din ako ng unboxing videos pero may hiya pa rin,\” he revealed. \”So ang ginawa ko lang dun sa videos ko ay more on kamay ko lang and even the name of the channel is not my name. Para hindi talaga siya parang mahanap ng friends out of nowhere, kasi may side pa sa akin na nahihiya ako.\”
[Translation: So I bought albums and I made unboxing videos, but I still felt shy then. So what I did was only my hands were seen in the videos and even the name of my channel was not my name. I didn’t want my friends to accidentally find it, because I was still shy about it.]
Eventually, Bulan became more comfortable and open about being a K-pop fan boy. His channel \”Boc Unboxing\” later expanded to reaction videos to music videos of different K-pop groups and other content.
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