I made a new graphic for this article, but I downgraded my current host, and so I’m out of space for new uploads, I didn’t think about that, lmao. So I’m reusing assets. 😅
Anyway, hiiii. I’ve been away from the blog for about seven months, and in that time frame, so much bs has happened in the world of Kpop. I was already feeling burnt out and questioning my next move within the community as a creative. I’ve been blogging about Kpop pretty exclusively since 2016, with ATK starting in 2018. There has just been something in the air that’s been off for a while.
But the first notes of the saxophones playing were the leaked footage of Lisa, Rosé, and Jennie singing the N word during their training period. While I didn’t say anything official on here, I’ve pretty much unstanned the group and the girls. Manon’s “hiatus” from KATSEYE and the discourse with Heesung leaving ENHYPEN/the fallout since, have been demoralizing.
But Mark Lee, formerly of NCT (crazy times we live in), wearing a Confederate flag shirt, posting the apology on his label’s IG story (so if you didn’t catch it, it almost didn’t happen), and nothing on his personal account, is indeed the straw that broke the camel’s back. Oh, and him allegedly crying/complaining about losing about 30,000 followers (I guess 29,000 on the label’s Insta and 1,000 on his personal account). I proudly was a part of that mass unfollowing.
I’m not stopping being a fan of Kpop as a music genre. I love it; however, when it comes to blogging and promoting these groups, companies, etc, I’m just not having fun with writing about this genre as I used to. The mismanagement, disbandment, and constant lineup changes are exhausting. It doesn’t encourage me to put my time and money into new groups either. So while I’m sunsetting ATK, I will still listen and buy merchandise, but I don’t see myself being anywhere near as attached to any other groups as the main ones I already follow.
I may come back if inspiration really hits, but that will probably be in video form on Tiktok. And I will continue sharing purchases/hauls and concert clips on my socials. But for the foreseeable future, I won’t be continuing to create new articles for this blog.
Thank you all for reading, likes, and reposts over the years! I sincerely appreciate it! If you’re not already following me on socials, my main accounts are Twitter & Tiktok. I’ll see you there!
Take care,
Ash💫🩷🩷