Here come the career regrets

A little trigger warning right here that Tamar Is Getting Very Personal in this Newsletter. Feel free not to read. I'll be back with normal, a bit more fun programming, next week (hopefully!)

In my email to myself about a month ago, I wrote, "Eaj, Elul, and long overdue apologies and regrets". While the first two words may seem like a bit of an alliterative word jumble, I was reminding myself that I wanted to write a bit of a reflective newsletter about career failings and regrets.

Breaking it down a bit, eaJ is the artist name of Jae Park, who was formerly a member of the Korean pop-rock band Day6. Elul is the last month of the Jewish yearly cycle (but confusingly the sixth month of our calendar!), and a period leading up to the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year, which took place on Oct 2-4 this year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement 11-12).

eaJ recently went viral for discussing his thoughts about his career regrets, particularly his time with Day6, during an interview on the Zach Sang Show. Elul is a time where Jews around the world reflect on their failures, mistakes, regrets, and try to reflect, atone, apologize, and all around just be thoughtful and Do Better.

Which means that I was having a lot of feels at the time, and because I became too busy to write about them then, I'm doing some reflection now, during the holiest week of the Jewish Year when we are supposed to Get Intensely Introspective and do some literal soul searching ahead of the day when G-d judges us regarding our fate for the coming year. (Yes, that's what Yom Kippur is! We are very dramatic, but don't worry the songs we sing amid a whole day of prayer and fasting are as stirring and catchy as they are morbid and terrifying.)

Now that I gave you a brief explainer about Judaism, here's what it has to do with Notes on K-pop: everything and nothing.

You may not know this, or maybe just don't care if you're a reader of this newsletter, but I have spent a lot of my career making mistakes. People have literally documented them and made articles and videos about them. I've made typos, and factual errors. I've misreported stories, and framed things in a way biased by my own opinions. I've been unprepared or overwhelmed by stories and interviews I shouldn't have been doing. I didn't handle social media and myself online properly. I spurned haters and baited them with mockery of my own. I didn't apologize when I should have, and did when I shouldn't have. I could have been better, I should have been better. (If you're reading this, and familiar with the Yom Kippur liturgy, imagine I'm typing that list out as I beat against my heart and chant, because that's how it feels.)

I could go on for many paragraphs and many pages. I have tried to go on, at times, and explain myself, and my actions, and my work. To apologize, to repent, to express how I've done wrong. I've written pages upon pages trying to address situations where I've done something wrong and infuriated one fan group or another, and still sometimes wish I had just once spoken up about something and denied it, or explained it away. But it took me a long time (and many hours of therapy) to realize that as bad as what I did or didn't do to some people was, it was simply me, being human. eaJ also acknowledged that: we can have regrets, but we also grow, and move on from them.

We keep regrets of our past with us, and try to do better. Sometimes we fail at even that, but so we try to do better again the next time. That's what being human is, and that's what the Jewish High Holiday season is about: it comes every year, and gives you the chance to reflect, repent, and grow again. It's like a mandatory check-in with oneself: are you doing what's right? I kind of wish I had one of those as a young writer, when it felt like if I wasn't always working and writing I'd lose out. That frenzied energy did me, and the beat I covered, little good. I will always have the regrets, and wish I had spoken up at some point, or maybe less at another point, but that's okay. Everyone gets it wrong sometimes (really, really wrong, even), but unless your actions are criminal or cruel with lasting intention (bullying, for instance), that harm is more often than not larger in your own mind than in that of others.

Personally, I've been weighed down by many of these regrets. Not because I could have done better in any given moment (though one can always do better, in retrospect), but because I could have always done better in the aftermath. I always tried to update any factual errors I made in articles, and that's where I did my best to learn and grow; with the breaking pace of digital publications even there I failed, and continue to fail even with small typos in a recent article making me want to curl up and cry.

But beyond that, I had a big mouth and little self-awareness, and sometimes even if what I said was right I said it in a terribly wrong way. I felt victimized, targeted by giant fandoms like many journalists (female journalists) especially, and that in truth did happen. It made my not want to cover certain things, or not reference certain artists. It still does, honestly. Because it's just not worth it, sometimes. And sometimes it is. I often think about this bit that Jill Mapes said about the anxiety that stays with you as a journalist after covering things, whether right or wrong, that results in backlash:

"Jill Mapes: It still gives me anxiety. There’s all this big pop stuff coming out, and I feel like I should pitch reviews, but I don’t want to because I don’t want to engage with that. And also, I don’t know who it serves, because everyone knows these things are coming out. It’s not shining a light on artists. It’s not necessary. It’s not like a smaller artist or even a mid-level artist that you’re making a case for." -"The Oral History of Pitchfork", which I linked to in my recent reading list.

But regardless of all that, I could have handled it better. More kindly perhaps, or just ignored it as I do now, because I know when I'm wrong and I don't need to fear disappointing anyone worse than I've disappointed myself over the long years. I've lived that then, I'm still reeling and learning from it now, and aiming to do better, and be better, both in work and life in general.

I guess this is all to say is that, like eaJ, we can all be kinder to ourselves when thinking about the regrets we've made, in K-pop spaces, professionally or otherwise, and beyond them.

What I'm working on

Not K-pop-related, but I spoke with Aidan Bissett for Marvin. The feature I wrote is only available in the physical copy, but there's a brief Q&A with Aidan on the site, featuring some of the truly glorious photos that appear in the magazine.

What I'm listening to

Along with eaj's when the rain stops album, I also was listening to Epik High's "Hear Comes the Regrets" with Lee Hi on repeat while writing this.

I'm a bit behind on new releases because the holiday season is slowly killing me (it doesn't end until late October this year, wish me luck!!!) But I would love to refer you all to Yuta's debut album Depth, which is a really cool artistic show of the NCT member's philosophical approach towards music.

What's on my mind and in the news

Bang Si-hyuk was profiled by the New Yorker and dubbed "The K-pop King".

JTBC's "Newsroom" has been sanctioned for sharing false reporting regarding Suga's drunk driving while on a scooter incident. I wrote about the JTBC's journalistic failure a while back if you're interested.

Details have come out regarding the sexual crimes that Moon Taeil, formerly of NCT, is being investigated for. He is being investigated for the "quasi-rape" of an incapacitated woman alongside two acquaintances. "Quasi-rape" is a legal term in South Korea, which you can read a bit more about here.

Because everyone and their mother in South Korea is concerned about K-pop's growth slowing - growth, not sales, which are still strong - the industry is looking to focus on trot. Trot is a feverish, upbeat and sentimental genre. It's often considered outdated and a bit cheesy, mostly a genre enjoyed by older generations, but has seen a revival in recent years in Korea where it has dominated charts.

SM Entertainment just launched a trot group that is gaining attention because a) SM's first official trot group (though Super Junior had a subunit known as Super Junior-T way back when that did trot and saw success with "Rokkugo") b) the members are not teenagers but in their 20s and 30.

Live Nation's 'Future Sound' study spotlighted Asian pop. There are a few different takeaways, but the final note of "77% of Asia Pop fans agree that 'Brands aren’t doing enough to support the Asian community''" is something to think about.

Em over at Active Faults has an interesting take on how enlistment periods enhance the thrall of K-pop boy bands, and ruminates on how its lack impacts China's idol scene in imaginative, kind of realistically dystopian, ways.

Exiled Fan's thoughts on the damnation of the numbers game. Also enjoyed this piece on if it's possible to opt out of stan culture.

This Grammy piece about the environmental cost of touring provides some food for thought.

The next phase of Hallyu may be... books about burnout?