Notes on K-pop interview: Isabel Jones

Taylor Cross (who also writes under the name Carmen Young) is one of Notes on K-pop's summer fellows. She is a Bay Area-based freelance writer and Crunchyroll News contributor with a passion for K-pop, K-dramas, and intersectional pop culture conversations. She previously wrote a guide for getting K-pop concert tickets.

This is the third of a series for Notes on K-pop focusing on creatives who work within and around the K-pop sphere. The first is featured producer Dem Jointz and second is Jinsol Woo of OHT NYC. If you have any creatives you'd like to see featured, please leave a comment.

Tips for the Lovecraftian Horror that is K-pop concert ticketing

Taylor Cross (who also writes under the name Carmen Young) is one of Notes on K-pop’s summer fellows. She is a Bay Area-based freelance writer and Crunchyroll News contributor with a passion for K-pop, K-dramas, and intersectional pop culture conversations. Tamar: As we all know, ticketing is absolutely hellish nowadays,

Notes on K-popTaylor Cross

What have I gotten myself into? I was a bundle of nerves driving from Berkeley to Vibe Dance Studio in Martinez. Dancing to KATSEYE’S “Touch” from the safety and comfort of my bedroom was one thing, but learning the official choreo in the span of one and half-hours from the instructor Isabel Jones, who I was set to interview post-class? Insanity. 

Isabel Jones is a multi-hyphenate content creator with over 1 million followers across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Her resume speaks to her rock-solid ambition and open-minded approach to the opportunities that come her way. A professionally trained dancer, she is best known for her viral K-pop dance covers and her impressive run on Lizzo’s Emmy-winning reality TV dance competition, Watch Out for the Big Grrls. She also holds a Master’s Degree in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) and (fun fact!) was the cover model for the book I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee. MC, vlogger, and now a K-pop dance instructor in the Bay Area. Girl does it all and then some. 

I wanted to go to this dance class, and was even excited at the prospect of living out my idol fantasy to the dreamy, Bratz-coded bop that had been blowing up on everyone’s For You page. But I knew myself, and proprioception and spatial awareness were never my strong suits. Finding the rhythm, sure. I could do that. Dancing to said rhythm while executing choreography? Ha! A cute little two-step? Maybe, on a good day. But Choreography? Hell no. All this coupled with my arthritis and surgery-induced atrophy made this whole endeavor feel like a fool’s errand. I honestly considered hopping back in my car and booking it back to Berkeley. 

The funny thing is, almost after every interview that I’ve had, I’ve mentioned that I’m body neutral, and it gets cut 90 percent of the time...Body neutrality, in my definition, is thinking less about what my body looks like and more about what it’s able to do.

As I dragged myself into the studio, Isabel instantly recognized me as the random journalist who had reached out to her. She greeted me with the brightest smile and reassured me that the class was all about having fun. After overhearing me chat with a classmate about my undying love for Hyolyn, she played one of her singles at the start of class, and a genuine smile spread across my face. I’m not gonna lie, the warm-up whooped my sedentary stay-at-home ass, but instead of leaving me drained, I was reinvigorated, ready to tackle the choreography and push my limits.

Isabel broke down each move into simple, digestible steps, so the routine never felt truly overwhelming. Still, the cutesy pinky-to-thumb "touch" move remained elusive despite her best efforts. When my joints hollered and I needed accommodation, Isabel responded with refreshing tact and understanding, adjusting the moves accordingly without any unnecessary fuss. At the end of the class, we recorded the dance to track our progress. I tried to scoot out of the frame, but my encouraging classmates clocked and thwarted every last attempt. And I’m genuinely glad they did. Despite my earlier dancing ability self-drag, the overall positivity of this class truly made  me confident that if I kept at it, I would see myself improve.

My experience taking this K-pop class was more than an interesting side quest for my journalism assignment, but an introduction to a new hobby that I could use to supplement my dry physical therapy homework. From beginning to end, I felt welcomed—zero judgment, just good vibes, good music, and good people. 

Speaking of good people, I couldn’t ask for a better interviewee. Isabel chatted with me as if I were an old friend. Our conversation took place right after class. We talked about a host of topics, including her MC-ing experience at KCON 2024, her journey into content creation, and her advice for aspiring content creators. We also discussed the toxicity of thinspo, the balance between passion and profession, and how the media misrepresents her as a body positivity advocate, completely disregarding her true perspective: body neutrality. 

Isabel doesn’t just aim high; she sees her own potential and doubles it, even triples it, with dreams too big and too grand for any manifestation board to hold. 

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to interview with us. This series shines a spotlight on creatives who work within and around the K-pop sphere, and I knew you’d be perfect for it considering that you’re a K-pop girly who has done so much within this space and beyond. You’re like a jack of all trades, master of all!

I think this is just an Isabel compliment session. [laughs]

It is! It is! But let me get through the questions first. [laughs] Recently, you were an MC at KCON 2024. What was that like? 

It was my second time MC-ing. I MC’d last year at 2023 KCON LA for a game thing with Lapillus, and it was quite fun, but really short. I mentioned it this year that, “Hey, I’d love to MC. I can also speak Korean.” So this year I was able to translate and host at the same time. Of the three groups that I worked with, none of them spoke English. I was translating and MC-ing at the same time. It was really, really fun because there were game-type panels, so I got to do a lot of interactions, and everyone was really excited, which just made the entire panel go through quickly, unlike a serious sit down interview. I made a fool out of myself. [Laughs]. I goofed around. I made myself embarrassed so no one else would feel embarrassed, but it was all good. I had a lot of fun, and I hope to do more events next year and see where translating and MC-ing takes me as well. 

Most people would shy away from new experiences—especially when it comes to anything public. But you just said you made a fool out of yourself, and with a smile and giggle at that, like it was empowering. I could never. Are you a natural extrovert?

I think I’m actually quite an ambivert. Like I’m very good at working by myself, which is why I’m self-employed.[Laughs]But like an extrovert, I do need a lot of social interaction to make sure that I’m happy too. 

And you’re just seeing where certain things take you, and I’m wondering: when certain opportunities come your way that you’re not necessarily familiar with—something new to you or maybe out of your comfort zone—what is the impetus behind you actually going for it?

I think, for the most part, I’m a very open-minded person. I want to try everything once before I just say no to something, but I am also a really big overthinker. I think the open-mindedness kind of overcomes that because, with most things, I’m like, “Okay, let’s try it,” and I usually end up liking it. It’s very rare that I dislike something.

I’m sure that open mindedness played no small role in your decision to start recording K-pop dance videos for social media. I’m curious, how did you get into it all? 

I grew up watching K-pop and YouTubers, like the very first generation of YouTubers is what I grew up with. So, I’ve always kind of looked up to them and wanted to be an online persona of some sort. When I finally had the time to sit down and record, I just went for it. When I couldn’t make excuses anymore. It was always, “Oh, I have school.” Or, since I was in colorguard, “I have colorguard practice—I don’t have time for this.” But when I finally had the time, I thought, “You know what? I might as well just try it. I’ll put up a few videos. I’m learning these K-pop dances anyway, so I could just record myself.” People around me knew I danced, so I didn’t see what I had to be afraid of. 

That’s one big thing that people come up to me for. They want to know: “How do I start?” “How do I become an influencer?” Well, the first thing is to start caring a little less, which is the biggest and hardest step of all. It’s really just about putting down your camera on a tripod or against the table, recording yourself, and then uploading it because you never know where that video is going to take you. But once you get the first one, two, or three videos out, it’s so easy to maintain consistency in doing what you love and realizing why you like doing it.

By the way, how did you get your start? I know you from TikTok and YouTube, and of course, Lizzo’s reality show. Can you tell me about your journey as a content creator? 

So, my first, I guess influencer-type thing was when I was in college. I started on a college dance team at UC Davis called SoNE1, it’s a K-pop dance team, and we did K-pop covers online. K-pop in public—we used to get millions of views, and that’s kind of just where I started. I grew a really tiny, small fanbase from there of a few thousand people who would just watch the video and comment on my Instagram, like, “Oh, I love your dance.” Yay! But the thing that really pushed me was that there were a lot of comments that said, “Oh my god, I love seeing women that are my size doing these K-pop covers because I’m so afraid to even dance in my room. I’m afraid that my parents are gonna walk in. And you’re out in public, in the street, wearing cute clothes and dancing, and you’re not a size 0.” I was like, oh, it’s not so hard for me anymore, and it’s obviously helping them, and I enjoy doing it.

So once I finished college, I wasn’t on a dance team anymore, so I thought, “Ok, I still wanna keep dancing, so why don’t I just start doing my own very nonchalant covers on my Instagram?” I started on Instagram right after I finished college, and then I was consistently posting maybe once a week, twice a week, just in my local gym, school gym. So, when TikTok came out, I started uploading stuff there. My first video that I posted on TikTok got a like from J-Hope.

That’s crazy! 

I was like, that’s kinda cool. Okay, maybe this TikTok thing is kind of working, so I continued uploading videos on TikTok. Then, eventually, YouTube Shorts came up, so I started posting YouTube Shorts, and that’s how my online influencer life started.

That’s so exciting that your first video got the attention of one of the best dancers in the game! I know this is probably old news for you, but that’s just so cool.

It was… 2018? So, six years ago. 

God, that doesn’t feel that long ago. Reflecting on your journey, most people wouldn’t want their passions, their means of escapism, to bleed into professional obligation. How do you keep your love for K-pop and dance alive while also managing the pressure of making it financially viable?

Regarding keeping my love for K-pop alive, since I’m Korean, I grew up with K-pop; I didn’t grow up with American pop music. For me, K-pop is just music, and I don’t see myself ever falling out of love with it. 

I didn’t think I was ever going to become an influencer. I was in graduate school and teaching ESL when the pandemic hit, and my entire school shut down. It never reopened to this day, so I never got my job back, nor did any of the other teachers there. [Laughs] But at that same time, Lizzo crawled in and said, “Hey, come to my show,”' and I was like, “OK.” That’s when I realized I was making significantly more money online as an influencer than I ever did as a university professor.

That’s a different conversation. [Laughs] 

Well, not significantly more, and yeah, the U.S. government and paying wages for teachers is, uh, not great.

Yeah. 

But it was the same monthly wage basically that I was getting paid for being a university professor and significantly less work on my end. And I’m doing something that I love doing. So I was like, do I do something that I love doing and I already have my degree? I mean, I can put this on hold whereas with this influencer stuff it seems to be right now. In a perfect world, I would say “Yeah, even if I wasn’t getting paid I would do this forever,” but the reality is that I’m an adult and I have things to pay for so it does help that this comes with monetary reward to some extent. 

I’m probably in my tenth year of being online and dancing, and it still rarely feels like a job because I genuinely enjoy it. Sure, sometimes it’s work, especially when I have to cover dances or music I don’t like but know will be popular. But those moments are short-lived—I just finish in an hour and either get over it or grow to love it. For the most part, it hasn’t felt like a job, and that’s what keeps my passion alive.

Well, that’s wonderful, considering that I’ve met other people who’ve monetized their passion, and it just sapped all the fun out of it. 

I keep a very healthy work-life balance; I never overwork myself. If I don’t feel like dancing this week, I just don’t dance—unless I have a sponsored post I have to do, of course. But for the most part, if I need a break, I just give myself a break.

You have freedom. 

I have freedom. I mean, I’m self-employed. If I wanna record in the morning, I’ll record in the morning. If I wanna record at night, I record at night and do whatever and move everything around. This is fairly new: working at a dance studio and teaching K-pop. 

To a certain extent, I do have some normalcy in my life since the dance classes are on a schedule. But it's still just twice a week; it's nothing crazy. I actually really like my life’s schedule right now.

If you were talking to your younger self, would that 12 or 13-year-old you think, “Oh my god, this is so cool! I’m living the dream!”

Honestly, I think little Isabel had really really big dreams.[Laughs] I think she would have been like, “You’re not a K-pop idol? What the hell.” [Laughs] Excuse me, that’s not what we signed up for.” To be honest, I think she would be kind of disappointed for the most part.[Laughs] She was dreaming a little too big. Let’s say that. 

“You’re teaching Katseye, why aren’t you IN Katseye?” 

“Why aren’t you Britney Spears?” Maybe realistic high school me would have been like, “It’s actually cool that you’re not holding it down in an office job quite yet.”

You seemed pretty confident from a very young age. 

Yeah, I loved being on stage. I started at age five in hip-hop dancing. 

Your parents put you in hip-hop right?

Yeah, from there, I loved praise, and to this day, I’m a very words-of-affirmation person. If I get compliments, I’m like, "YAY!" I’m also an only child, so I love attention. If I’m going to be totally real, I like attention.

I would hope so, considering what you do. [Laughs] 

Because I’m putting myself online, there are, of course, great, great things that come out of that, but also a lot of negative views because of my size. So it’s like a win-win-win, slight lose, win-win-win situation. But it makes up for it. 

Is this confidence and self-assuredness that you’ve had from a young age why you’re so comfortable in front of the camera? I just watched your very first vlog and, of course, saw you on the reality show, and I notice a throughline of authenticity and charisma that comes across. You’re a natural. What fostered that? 

Actually, the thing is, I don’t think I’m quite natural in front of the camera. 

That’s a twist. 

I think I edit it that way so it doesn’t seem that way. 

A little movie magic. 

I still think talking to the camera is a little bit foreign to me, which is why I started vlogging—to fix that. So I’m like, "Okay, I think I can work on that." Public speaking is something I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to do, even though I was a teacher, but that’s different. So that’s always something that I’m working toward. I try to think of it as just talking to a friend for the most part. I’m not thinking about the audience or that I have hundreds and thousands of views on it, which, in reality, I do. But I kind of pretend that I’m just talking to a friend or sending her a quick Snapchat or FaceTime video of what’s going on, rather than thinking, "This is for people to watch."

Would you say that’s ultimately advice that you’d give someone if they were starting out, wanting to be a content creator? 

Oh yeah, for sure. You’re most natural in front of your best friends. You’re your realist self. Like even more so than with your parents, to be honest, PG-rated of course. Being your most natural self in front of the camera is usually pretending that you’re with your friends and just having a normal conversation, and then eventually you just build upon that. 

And people really respond so well to that. I’m curious about the parasocial relationships that must happen between you and your over 700K followers. 

Yeah, I stopped checking my DMs, which is why it was so hard for you to reach me. I get some weird stuff in there, so I don’t open it. I don’t think anyone has had that big of a parasocial relationship with me, but I’ve had quite a few creepy DMs from older men. 

Ah. 

But I think that comes with any female that has an online presence. But for the most part, all the fans that I’ve met in person have been really, really sweet, if not overly sweet. I’m like, “How much could I have done for you?” To be honest, I’m just dancing online, but then they see me, and they’re crying, and I’m like, “Really, am I really making that much of an impact?” Which is why every time I do go to K-con or these K-pop events, it really fuels me to keep going because sometimes I’m like, “Uh, I don’t really want to do this K-pop cover, is anyone really watching it?” Because it’s all online, and I don’t really see the faces of these people; it’s just words on a screen, it feels like.

So when I meet these people in real life, and they’re like, “You inspire me to make my own page, now I have my own K-pop dance team, I became an influencer because of you, I built so much confidence, da-da-da-da,” that’s really all I can ask for as someone who just dances online. Like, to me, it doesn’t seem like I’m doing much on my end, but the reception on my end seems to be a lot more. So I’m like, “OK, well, if I just take two steps forward, it seems like 20 steps forward to these people. OK, I guess I should keep going.”[Laughs] 

How does that feel? Is it pressure? Is it empowering? Is it weird? What is that like? 

I don’t know. 

Because it just seems like you’re just in spaces doing your thing and existing, and people are acting like that’s the most revolutionary thing. What does that feel like for you?

Wow, how does it feel? That’s a good question. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten that question, actually. How does it feel to know - I feel like you used the right word, empowering, because I feel like it’s really an exchange of energy, like I’m empowering them and they’re empowering me back. Like it’s just continuously building my confidence and myself. Because I’m not starting from base zero, of course, but I still am not the most confident person in the world.

Even myself, I don’t consider myself to be body positive, and I don’t think I ever will be. I consider myself to be an advocate for body neutrality. I’m not somebody who is completely comfortable in their own skin, but I think that’s OK. I’m not a big like, “I love my curves! I love my stomach!” It’s just not... I think it’s just the culture that I grew up in. It was so hard to even think of being in the spotlight at my size, so to not think of it at all seems to be the best resolution for my mental state.

It must be strange to see your interior life, what you know to be true about yourself— “This is how I feel about my body. I support body neutrality. This is the context in which that came to be” —so misrepresented in the media. I’ve seen other interviews with you, and you’re essentially portrayed as “Miss Body Positivity.” How do you handle the fact that you’re not in control of your own personal narrative and, by extension, your brand? Have you ever felt the need to correct them?

The funny thing is, almost after every interview that I’ve had, I’ve mentioned that I’m body neutral, and it gets cut 90 percent of the time. So, if you’d like to mention this... [Laughs]

I’m definitely keeping it. [Laughs] Can you define body neutrality? 

Body neutrality, in my definition, is thinking less about what my body looks like and more about what it’s able to do. That’s the basic dictionary definition of it in my brain. How I interpret that is I’m not really looking at my size or how my body looks when I dance, but what kind of techniques I can use to make sure it looks like a quote-unquote normal body, right? That the media thinks is what it is. So I don’t really like to dive into that. 

A lot of the spaces that I open, I make sure to consider that everyone is able to do what I’m able to do. If you need to take a couple of steps back, and we need to change up a routine or a move, then let’s change it if that’s what makes you more comfortable. It’s about making spaces that are more accessible for everyone. People who are bigger and people who are disabled, with hip issues, come to my class, and I always make sure to ask, “Okay, what can I do to make this choreography more comfortable for you?”

One thing I want to say—this isn’t a question, but more a comment on my experience in the class—is that usually, when I mention I’m disabled in a dance or yoga class, or at the gym, it always leads to this awkward skirting around of my “issue,” and a ton of words of encouragement: “You’re so strong!” “Look at you go!” It feels patronizing. I didn’t want to mention that I couldn’t do the hop move in class today, but I did, and I’m glad I did because you treated me like a person. It was so refreshing. You didn’t infantilize me.

There’s no reason to. [Laughs] 

Although I believe ableism is an entirely different conversation, I see it converging with the body positivity movement. Sometimes, it really sucks to be disabled. Like I wish I could do the “hop” move without my knees feeling like they’re on fire. It’s my truth, but I feel compelled to ignore or fix it because I want to love myself, and to love myself is to be “body positive.” When you’re taught to always feel positive about your body, every time you’re not, it’s often internalized as a personal failing— self-hate, even. I’d love to hear your take on it. 

I think body positivity works for a lot of people; it does not personally work for me with how I approach my life and how I think of things. But I think it works because I’ve met people who are very heavily body positive, and their outlook on life seems significantly healthier than mine sometimes.

It be like that. 

Yeah, it be like that. 

Because sometimes they don’t take personal feelers. But I think it also, if they seem inadequate, it’s more so more like they place the blame on society for making them think that or wanting them to think that way, which I also think is one way to approach it. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but I do think that sometimes it could be a little bit too critical on the opposite spectrum. But I do think in almost any situation for anything, if you're on the extreme spectrum on any side, it’s detrimental. So I always feel safe in the middle. I feel safe being body neutral and just not thinking about it at all and whatever size. If I end up being a size zero, if I end up being a size 20, I hope that I’m able to keep doing what I’m able to do.

Thanks for saying that it was a good question. I too appreciate words of affirmation.  

I get a lot of similar questions during these interviews because they usually don’t know much about dancing, K-pop, body positivity, or body neutrality at all; they just kind of research it.

Wonyoungism, K-pop & TikTok: a Convo with Steffi Cao

In April, the Daily Beast published an article titled “TikTok’s Latest Wellness Trend: Starving Yourself in the Name f K-pop.” “Pastel pink and soft vignette filters, images featuring thin girls with long eyelashes, and good grades and skin-care products: These are all manifestations in the world of “Wonyoungism,” a wellness

Notes on K-popTamar Herman

I grew up on Tumblr. That’s where I learned about it. [Laughs] 

Me too. [Laughs] 

It was crazy because body positivity and thinspo were going on at the same time. 

Oh, don’t even get me started. It was all bad. Thinspo. Fatspo. I am a topic of conversation on thinspo. On eating disorder Twitter. 

What? 

Oh yeah girl. 

What do you mean by that? 

So there’s a lot of K-pop eating disorder accounts on Twitter and they love to post threads of Fatspo, of K-pop influencers, so they’ll like have a bunch of dance covers of bigger individuals and then make fun of them. 

What?

I’ve been in many many many many threads. That’s what really messed up my head a few years ago, like when I was on the show, when I was crying, that’s why I was crying. 

I’m so sorry. 

I’m over it now. [Laughs] I’m in such a better place, but that’s where it was. 

[Extended silence]

That stunned me. What? 

The first time I found it, it was 2 a.m. in my dark room, and I was just scrolling Twitter before I went to bed. Then I found a thread of probably like 600 retweets and quotes and comments of the worst things you could possibly say to someone. Like, “If I was this size, I would off myself. If my thighs looked like that. If my stomach looked like that. If I did this. If I looked like that.” Oh yeah, it really messes up your brain when you first see that. But the thing is, I had, like, at that point, five or six years into my influencing career, so I’ve had those comments personally in my comment section. So I had the power to delete and block. But when it’s on Twitter and it’s out of my control, and I have no way to touch it, I can’t delete it. It’s just out there in the public, and no matter how many times I report it, it won’t go down.

That’s insane! 

Yeah. 

Because I was around thinspo tumblr.

The moment you said tumblr I was like you know you know. 

From what I saw, thinspo consisted of really frail, waifish girls in this lolita-esque aesthetic. By definition, I knew it was fatphobic, but I didn’t know there was this level of cruelty. Well, that speaks to my privilege at the time; I just wasn’t exposed to it. That’s horrible. I don’t know if it’s still like this. When I was on Tumblr… actually I don’t know how old you are.

I am 28. 

We’re the same gen. 

Period. 

I was gonna bring up Girl’s Generation. What groups were you into growing up? 

My first group was SHINee. I grew up with SHINee, BIGBANG, before that Shinhwa, DBSK*. I grew up with all first-gen K-pop. Bleeding that into this conversation, I mean first-gen K-pop is just hoarded with eating disorders and thinspiration. SNSD** coming out wearing size 00 skinny jeans and then saying, “I’m only eating an apple a day and then a sweet potato at night,” like it’s completely normal.

I want to say that, yeah, the K-pop industry has changed, but I think they’ve just gotten more secretive about it. They’re using the same tactics, but now there’s more scrutiny. They still need to do it regardless 

I noticed comments about Jeongyeon [of TWICE] saying, “Oh, she’s so healthy” and since I’m not Korean, I had no idea that it’s actually a backhanded compliment. What’s your opinion on non-Korean individuals who unintentionally use fatphobic language due to a lack of understanding or ignorance of Korean culture?

At least there’s honey thighs, that’s cute.

Honey thighs is usually a very sexually demeaning comment. 

Dang. 

Usually by men. 

Can’t have nothing. 

I think in their mind, when they say “healthy,” they’re using it as a compliment. They are not trying to be demeaning because in their culture that means a good thing. 

All the Korean comments I get are always direct. They’re never beating around the bush. They’re saying, “You’re fucking fat. Earthquake! Earthquake! Ew, ripples on your thighs. Ripples on your stomach. Are you pregnant?” Like they are direct to the point ain’t gonna beat around the bush they’re gonna tell you that you’re fat. 

My friend would tell me all these traumatic stories about when she lived in Korea and I was shocked, like “Your mom said that to you?

Let me tell you a story. I walked into a store. I was 13 and probably a size 12. So I walked in, and an older lady, I was probably a size 10 or something at the age of 13, said, “We don’t carry your size here,” the minute I walked in. I’m a 13-year-old, and she shooed me out of the store. And that was normal.

So I’m putting your story together. You are confident at a young age, and yet this is what you were getting from your community? How are you not just… 

I think it’s because I grew up with the harshness that when I came across the harshness quote unquote harshness online - it was like… Ok. Go ahead. Say it. [Laughs] I could delete and block you. I couldn’t delete my family’s comments but I could delete and block you. You’re a stranger. F U. I think that’s kind of where the confidence is. I think it’s because of when I loved K-pop and I loved dancing so much that literally nothing could stop me. 

What would you call yourself? 

I think content creator is what I like using the most. The word influencer is like I’m trying to influence you into buying something. I’m creating content online. 

You said the comments in your community are very straight forward, and you’ve been doing this for some time now, have you noticed any sort of shift? 

[Laughs] No girl. Nothing has changed. 

I was hoping there was a little improvement. Something. 

I think there’s slightly more shame. 

Can you clarify for me what you mean by that? 

There are more people shaming those individuals, like in replying to them. But also, I don’t give them the benefit of the doubt, so I don’t leave it up. I know there are a lot of content creators who leave those comments up and don’t touch their comment section; they just let it flow. Some people like to argue, and they do that on purpose, and I’m just like, I’m not gonna give you that freedom, so I just delete it. We’re not gonna have a conversation about my body. Thank you. Even if it’s positive.

The comments now, at least half of them are about my body and it’s a dance video. 

So it’s from the haters and the people who love you. 

I think it’s also a very tough conversation as someone who’s not exactly body positive but a lot of my followers are body positive so they’ll say something really really nice about my body, but I’m like, I don’t want you to talk about my body at all because it’s a dance video. 

Does it ever feel like you’re divorced from the talent and hardwork that you do, that you’re here to be objectified? 

I work so hard on these textures and this timing right and the rhythm right and all you have to talk about is “Wow, waist snatched.” “Oh my god wow thick thighs.”  That’s how the men in the comments are. 

How does that make you feel?

I look past it because, again, I love K-pop so much that I look past it. But yeah, it’s dehumanizing sometimes. 

Do you experience racial microaggressions on top of this? 

Recently, the most recent one, I was called Jeongyeon a million times. I’m like, I look nothing like her! You just don’t know another Korean woman who’s thick. You look like this, you look like that—I get that left and right all the time. Whoever is the thick girl at that moment, yes. A few years ago, Kyla (from Pristin) was fat-shamed; I was called Pristin Kyla. Jiwoo from NMIXX—I was called Jiwoo from NMIXX for a while. Now Jeongyeon is the new one.

Are your fans saying this?

Fans. People who pass by. Most people who comment on my videos are people who are just passing by. Not my followers. 

Oh God, I was thinking passing by like in-person. 

Oh, no no no. Usually, a lot of my followers are not from the U.S.; most of them are from Asia or Saudi Arabia, where it’s okay to make those kinds of comments, or there aren’t enough Korean people to talk about this. While it does come off as a microaggression on my end, to them it’s totally normal because they do that on a day-to-day basis with each other. So, it’s like a good place where it’s coming from. When it starts getting nasty, that’s when I’m like, “OK, delete, block.” I just let the conversations go. Also, it’s interactions. Good for my page. [Laughs] Go ahead, fight. Keep commenting on my videos; I’m getting more views. Sometimes, if it’s not super ill-intent, I just let the arguments happen. When it comes to my body, I don’t like it. But when they’re just saying racial microaggressions, I’m like, “You need to learn that. You should learn where your mistakes are.”

How do you move past all of the negativity that you deal with as a content creator to stay so warm and effervescent. How do you deal with that negative energy and expel it? 

Put my phone down. [Laughs] I’m being completely real. Honestly, the best—I’ve done this for ten years now—the best medicine for that has literally been just deleting and blocking. I’ve tried to talk to these people, tried to initiate a healthy conversation, tried turning off my comments. But if I turn off, like I’ve heard that a lot, even from a therapist: “Hey, why don’t you just turn off your comments?” But then I don’t get the positive affirmations either. So, where am I gonna get that? So deleting and blocking as fast as I can usually is what helps the most because I forget about it. If I don’t linger on it, if I leave it there, I’m gonna have to see it again. I’m gonna have to see it every time I look at my comments section; it’s gonna be there, whereas if I delete and block, I’ll probably forget about it in the next ten seconds. So… that’s what helps me. Keep it positive. Also, 99.9 percent of the comments I get are really sweet and nice. So it’s really hard for me to just say—to get a hate comment 1 out of 100 and be like, “OK, I’m done, I’m calling it quits,” because there are just so many people who are so nice about it.

You have a positive fandom surrounding you. 

I have a very positive fandom surrounding me, so those off comments are just passerbyers anyway. They’re not stalking my page and leaving hate comments on every single video; they’re just passing by. Usually, they get over it because they’re young—like 12, 13, 14. So they’re just having a bad day at school and have found a target online. So, delete, delete, get over it. And of course, love for K-pop and love for dance has always been big in my life. Definitely, going to KCON and making the videos has been significantly helpful in making me continue doing what I do. It makes it real. When you have a job like this, it’s hard to put those numbers into reality because in total I have like a million followers. I can’t even imagine 100 people in a room sometimes, so to actually meet these people face to face and have them tearing up and hugging me and having these big conversations about how I’ve inspired them really puts my career into a real space. It makes it reality rather than a side hustle. That’s just what keeps me going—going to these events and meeting people.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Just because you’ve done so much. I even saw you were on the cover of a book. 

That was way before, though. That was like 5 or 6 years ago when I was in college, but that’s another thing. I got scouted for it, and I was like, “OK, sure, let’s do it.” I was in the middle of school, and they were like, ‘Can you come on Friday?’ I was like, “I’ll cut class; let’s do it.” Come to New York? OK... 

They flew you to New York? Did you have representation? An agency? 

Nope. Nope. I don’t have an agency now. 

What? So did they find you on Instagram or something? 

They searched “K-pop,” “dancer,” “Korean,” and “plus-size,” and they found me. They were like, “Wow, you look great! Wanna come?” So I said, “OK.”

How did you know it was legit? Sounds sketch.

I searched it up. My dad’s a private investigator, so I’m like FBI. I triple-check anything. They were like, “We will give you this money now if you want to fly over.” OK. “You can meet us at the studio.” I’m like, “OK.”

What do you do? Do you have a manifestation board? 

I tried. I tried to make a manifestation board once, and it... It did not work. I think it's because my dreams are too big. If I have a manifestation board, I end up only meeting one of those ten goals, and then I psych myself out and get really sad.

Just like how you answered my previous question, “You’re not Britney Spears.”

Damn it. [Laughs] I don’t have a million dollars next year, dang it. Like, it ends up being “have a million dollars,” “become a top model,” “a singer”—like that’s where it ends up going because I’m a big dreamer. I don’t know if you know anything about MBTI, but I’m an ENFP, which are huge dreamers—super, super creative but they can’t get anything done. They have big ideas, big thinking, big dreams, but it’s hard to start. So I think that’s why I’m like, okay, it’s hard for me to start things, so if I get the opportunity to do it, I just do it. So going back: in ten years, where do I see myself?

Let’s not do ten years; just, where do you see yourself in the future? What are you interested in doing? On the reality show, I remember how you were concerned about how the nude photo shoot challenge might affect your future employers in South Korea, since you wanted to teach there. I’m curious—is that dream of teaching in South Korea still on your mind? If so, do you consider that while creating your content? Self-policing. Are you trying to conduct yourself in a way that will lead you to that ultimate goal? 

I think, to a certain extent, yes, but I don’t think about it as much as I used to. Right now, my ultimate goal is to be able to do what I’m doing now for as long as I can—until I become irrelevant! [Laughs] Because I love doing it so much. And that teaching job is going to be there no matter what; it’s not going anywhere. When it comes to self-policing myself, I don’t think I particularly do that because I’m not that type of person. Instead of my job making me overthink things, it’s usually the men online who make me overthink things. Like, I’m not going to wear anything overly sexual or do a significantly sexual dance: a) because I don’t really feel comfortable doing it, and b) even if it was popular—like, I got asked to do a specific dance for a sponsored post that had a lot of twerking and showing butt cheeks and stuff like that. It was a really popular dance at the time. But I said no because I knew that my male audience would say really awful things to me. I didn't want to hear it, even if I was getting paid for it and it was really popular, and everyone else was doing it. I just said I don’t want to do that. But I wasn’t thinking about my teaching job, even if I should have [laughs] because obviously that’s a no. I was thinking more about how I don’t want to be sexualized. So I think it’s more about my personal view of how I want to be perceived.

When did you start teaching by the way? 

February. 

Wow, so this is a pretty new venture. Is there anything else you’d want the people of Notes on K-pop to know about? 

If you want to do something and you’re scared of what people will think about you, just do it anyway. I feel like most people are scared of the "what ifs" rather than the "what wills" because usually, it doesn’t turn into a "what will"; it’s a "what if." It’s a case-by-case scenario. Most of the time, people do not care about what you put online or what you do. And honestly, it’s probably a character-building experience. [Laughs]

I have the biggest FOMO for everything, so if I didn’t do it, I would have probably been really sad, thinking, "Dang, I should have done that." Even with the show, even though I wasn’t picked at the end, I don’t regret doing it because I gained so much out of it. When I got the application, I was scared to put it in. It was so out of my comfort zone. Me? A backup dancer? I just chill in my room and do K-pop dances; it felt silly of me to think that. But then I submitted the application and got picked. I got to go to Hollywood and do these really cool things because I said, "What if?" What if it does happen? And I got character-building out of it.

My experience of life has changed because I took a chance. It wasn’t a detrimental chance; doing that didn’t negatively affect my life in any way. I did it because I thought, "Hey, maybe?" It’s like putting in a dollar for a lotto ticket and getting a million dollars—that’s what it feels like. It’s not like a thousand-dollar lotto ticket; I just put in a dollar. So, just putting in those small increments of a dollar can eventually lead to a payout of a million. That’s kind of how I want to explain it—though I don’t think gambling is good. [Laughs]

Final Question: Do you have advice for anyone who is mired in regret? They feel like they’ve already missed their chance—they could have gone to KCON and auditioned to dance with Taemin, but they didn’t. They think, “That was my one shot. The dream is dead, and now a gray, unfulfilling life awaits me.” Melodramatic, I know. But what would you say to a person who believes they’ve run out of time to pursue their passion?

I think that’s a really closed-off way of thinking because there’s always a chance. You can be 90 and start a TikTok account and get a million followers. I don’t think there’s ever an opportunity where you’ve completely missed your chance—for anything. If you keep trying, it’ll eventually come to you. When I first started doing K-pop covers, it didn’t go exactly as planned. I wasn’t getting millions of views. It took me a few tries. Even for a lot of K-pop idols, they went from company to company to company. They took years and years and years of training doing random things. They were cut, then put back in, then cut again, and suddenly they were selling out stadiums because they got lucky. You’re doing yourself a disservice by believing you’ve lost your chance—life is long. I hate saying it, but YOLO. [Laughs] But literally, it’s so real. You only live once. So if you really want to do something, and you know it’s something that makes you feel good, just keep trying. Whether or not you put in a lot of effort is up to you, but I don’t think giving up and tipping the wagon is the best choice for anyone. So keep trying.

Keep pushing. 

Even if it’s low effort, just keep trying. 

Thank you so much! This is my first in-person interview and first K-pop class. 

Probably more to come.

Hopefully. Thank you so much.

*DBSK is another variant of TVXQ!'s name

*SNSD is the acronym for Girls' Generation's name in Korean, Sonyeo Shidae