Frank Kogan

[REVISED VER. DEC 26, 2025: Happily for us, a second viral story has been found lurking just beyond the first, so I've added gobs of edits and updates and two massive new footnotes since I first published 14 days ago.]

Haven't put much thought into music going "viral" and the various things it means these days (as opposed to what it might have meant in 1966 – if they'd used the metaphor – when "Hanky Panky" started to get airplay while it was still a bootleg). But what follows is the story of a motif, a riff, a meme, how it's been traveling – through SE and South Asia, mainly, though I wonder where it will go from there.

Recently posted a new Eardrums playlist – proud of this one for how I torture you with art in the first half and pummel you with dance in the second.

Emergency (Frank's Eardrums November 2025):


My playlists are probably the art-type endeavor I'm most happy with recently, the way I make them flow and jar and contrast like cassette mixtapes of old. There are a slew of them on my YouTube channel if you want to look.

You'll notice that several motifs recur on the new playlist, insinuated in one song here, another song there. I'm devoting this essay to the motif that recurs most. Keep in mind that not only don't I know the local culture of these musics, I'm also grossly ignorant of the great nation-state of TikTok – especially haven't figured out how to search it. So maybe I've got the story all wrong, but nonetheless I can tell this as a kinda story, so here goes.

[ADMIN sentence: When a linked track is also on the playlist I put the track's number in parentheses.]

As I recount my story I mostly hold back on song titles and performer names. I think doing so emphasizes best – and most humorously – how the story pings internationally across borders. I do list artists and song titles in a "Legend" at the end. And for those of you going in with confusion regarding what is where, I recommend this primer on East Asian placenames by Alex Chilton.

I'll preface our tale by linking a nice song, Indonesian, from 2020, a sidelight but it does enter our story a bit later – guess I'd categorize it as "pop" though it feels a bit indie; am not sure why I think so, maybe 'cos of the video, the skirts, shirts, shorts, roadway; though categorizing it as indie disregards the bouncy keyboard that seemed even then to be inviting a budots bubblegum treatment. [EDIT: My "indie" designation turns out to be hilariously wrong – or if not entirely wrong, it's overwhelmed by the track actually having lifted musical elements that in 2020 are already dance and TikTok viral; I'd had no idea of this when I originally posted! This doesn't affect the main line of the APT Thai story, though, so I shunt this nice song's own viral tale down to brand new footnote 4.]

Now, for the story proper, we're going to flip back to 2010, Thailand, a movie, a comedy whose title is given in English as Holy Man 3. In a short cameo, a white-haired comedian, who's made up to look older than he is, delivers a combination chant, incantation, and love spell, hamming it up as if a bit agitated and unsettled by the power he's pretending to unleash, while those around him dance to his rhythm. The clip shows up on YouTube in 2015 with the title "Thai Ghost Funny movie" and then with better visual quality on YouTube again and TikTok on the same day in August 2021. [EDIT: Have discovered that the first part of the incantation goes back at least to 2005, though it's the 2010 version that makes the belated splash. But we do get yet another new footnote out of this: footnote 5.]

Chant, incantation, love spell (excerpt)


I surmise that the incantation-love-spell subsequently gets more TikTok posts, because a year later, in 2022, a pretty boy-idol type teams up with White-Haired Comedian (having grown into his makeup) to put forth a slamming rock song prominently featuring White-Haired Guy and his love chant – now with melody and chord progression! – the video tagged "TikTok" in the YouTube caption, implying some notoriety already, though the tag could've been added later.

Slamming rock song w/ love chant:


Helpfully, the YouTube post also includes the song lyrics; and by running them through Google Translate we discover that the chant syllables don't translate. That is, they are just that: syllables. They don't represent other Thai words, any more than "abracadabra" represent some other English word usable outside its magic purpose – as opposed to, say, "Eenie meeny chili beanie, the spirits are about to speak."

So, "อะนันตะปัดชะเย อะปัดติเถเถนา อะปัดติยา อะปัดติเถเถคือ อะปัดติโถ อะปัดติกึด กึด กึด อะปัดชะเย," Google Translate giving us "Anantapatchaye, apatti the na, apattiya, apatti the the khe, apatti tho, apatti kud, kud, apatchaye" but that actually drops a few syllables; I've transliterated it myself (giving you "ay" for the long ā sound and "i" for the long ee):

Anan-tah-pah-tchay-ay a-pah-ti tay tay nah, apah tay-yah a-pah-ti tay tay koo, a-pah-ti-toe a-pah-ti kud kud kud, a pah tchay-ay-i-ay-i-ay-i-ay

The way he says it, the "anan-t" is sort of introductory, so it's like "[anan-t]ah-pah-tchay-ay a-pah-ti tay tay nah" etc., which will be important for further orthographic and cultural developments.

Also, I have no idea if our chant has had previous life in Thai culture or whether the comedian and/or his scriptwriters thought it up themselves. [FOOTNOTE 1]

And I don't know the adventures of our motif over the next couple of years, really, except that it does show up at least now and then on TikTok both as chanted by the shaman and excerpted from the rock track (playlist Track 9), as well as live clips. But then – *pause* *for* *dramatic* *emphasis* – there's the fateful day in October 2024 when a New Zealand-born member of a K-pop superstar girl group releases a super-catchy track whose start and hook are based on a Korean drinking game. By coincidence it's spoken vehemently, not exactly an intonation or a chant, but not NOT a chant, either; and though the rhythm and sound are not a precise match for our shaman love spell, the opening vowel "ah" and top 2 consonants "puh-tah" of the drinking game's not-quite-chant, ah-puh-tah puh-tit, are the same vowel-consonant-consonant of syllables 3-4-5 of the first word of our love spell and syllables 1-2-3 of love spell's second word and most of the rest. So within two days someone on TikTok does a cut-up of the Thai shaman chant, mashing it over the NZ-Kpop beat. A few days after that, someone else on TikTok mashes the NZ-Kpop quasi-chant into the shaman chant (both using the shaman's chanted version rather than the sung version), then comes another, a day after that.

None of those initial shaman-NZ-Kpop TikTok mashups actually work for me as mashups, as enhancements rather than just "well, here's this, and this." But nonetheless, going forward from here, our anantapatchaye (or however it's been getting spelled, e.g. "ana pad chaye") not only has gotten yet another title – "APT Thai," "APT Thailand," "APT Thailand version" – this new attention has caused the floodgates to pour forth (does TikTok even have gates? can gates pour forth? these do).

So we're now getting reposts of the mashup and also – riding the hot new title – more posts of the white-haired spellmaker guy's chanted excerpt and of his sung excerpt; and, going beyond TikTok into the world as a whole, especially (for our story, anyway) down in Indonesia, our ana pad chaye is being grasped and grappled with by local DJs, live DJ mix sets, "Apt Thailand," mixed with or running into this track and/or that track, e.g. "DJ Paling Enak Sedunia || DJ Apt X Menina Do Job X Moki Moki Style Terbaru Paling Banyak Dicari" (this particular mashup, btw, if I'm getting it right, is – among other things? – an Indonesian DJ mashing a Thai rock track into a Brazilian favela funk track as well as into a track using a Punjabi vocal). These Indonesian DJ sets garner millions of YouTube views (e.g., here [flashing lights] and here and here).

DJ Paling Enak Sedunia || DJ Apt X Menina Do Job X Moki Moki Style Terbaru Paling Banyak Dicari


Meanwhile, remember our nice maybe-a-little-bit-indie pop song from our tale's prologue? In late December an Indonesian teenager gets the idea, or is given the idea (is it for a talent show?), to sing that song but to include APT Thai (the sung version with melody and chord progression) as its intro and its break. Maybe the two songs had already been run together in a DJ set or remix, though if so I haven't found it on YouTube. But now, not only does her new APT segment get merged into DJ sets, but (it's January 2025 now) a different singer, a young woman in her twenties, definitely a talent show contestant, basically covers the teenager's intermix of the APT Thai and the nice a-little-bit-indie pop song. [EDIT: Er, probably not a talent show, either version, just a couple of labels that promote artists through live performances; I simply misinterpreted what I was seeing. By coincidence, turns out our nice indie-pop song from the prologue is getting its second, third, or sixth wind as its own viral phenomenon in mid-to-late 2024 (for more of nice song's backstory, see brand new footnote 4), which is why our teenager and then our young woman are singing it in December 2024 and January 2025 – young woman's agency had already tried it out on a different singer a month-and-a-half earlier, though without the APT Thai interpolation. Afaik interpolating APT Thai into it begins now, late December 2024, with our teenager. And there's a genuine achievement here, what the Indonesian teenager does, which the young Indonesian woman capitalizes on, putting the two viral tracks together, nice pop song and APT Thai. It's not just "We've put two songs together." As intro and break, APT Thai sets the pace and feeling of the whole. Each song ends up enhancing the drama of the other. The combination is a song in itself. Do think the young woman's version isn't just sung better, it's put together better than the teenager's. But it couldn't have gotten there without the teenager's.] [FOOTNOTE 2]

Indonesian 2nd intermix (Track 14):


This new one, the young woman's cover, changes the game once again, reflooding the gates in the ongoing rush of going viral, the young woman's version getting so much attention that for practical purposes she's created a second canonical version of APT Thai to compete with the white-haired guy's. It's a hit (according to the Internet) in Tamil-speaking sections of India (more from India a few paragraphs down; here's a man and woman singing gentle mashups on Facebook). On TikTok and YouTube it's now the 30-second APT Thai intro by the 2nd Indonesian intermix singer that gets lip synced and danced to.

Meme is danced to (Track 19):


This singing really is lovely, and forceful, and catchy; as, actually, was the gruff shaman comedian's in its sung version, catchy and beautiful for all its gruffness.

I'll add that the young Indonesian woman's syllables differ slightly from the shaman's in that she leaves out the first "t" in the initial word, and two syllables later she skips the "ch" (so his "Anan-tah-pah-tchay-ay" becomes her "Ananna-pah-tay-ay"), and at the end she skips the ch again, so his " a pah tchay-ay-i-ay-i-ay-i-ay" becomes " a pah tay-ay-i-ay-i-ay-i-ay." So for those singing along at home, the young woman's version is:

Ananna-pah-tay-ay a-pah-ti tay tay nah, apah tay-yah a-pah-ti tay tay koo, a-pah-ti-toe a-pah-ti kud kud kud, a pah tay-ay-i-ay-i-ay-i-ay

As for the transliterated title (when we're not getting "APT Thailand" and such), it's sometimes "Anan Ta Pad Chaye" for the guy's version; but, also, this spelling is sometimes used as the title for hers, too, even in the closed captions, though she's definitely not singing the ch. "Apataye" or "Apateye" has become a standard title when they remix her in the Philippines (which we'll get to), leaving the introductory "anan" out of the title (the song dispenses with the "anan" in the second phrase anyway). --On the guy's version I've no trouble with transliterators substituting d for t (in English t's can be pronounced "t" or "d" depending on the syllable, ditto d's, e.g. the word "stopped").

Over in India, the title is "Annana Pathiya," matching our young woman's pronunciation. [FOOTNOTE 3]

A popular remix mashes "Annana Pathiya" into (among other things) a couple of Telugu hits, fiercely percussive tracks. Other Indian DJs take this idea and embellish it, mess with it, e.g., this, and here is the best messed (though with dropout in the middle):

Best messed Indian mashup:


And mashed into yet another Indian language (I think) here.

Next we go to the Philippines, which for now is our last stop, though for me it was first: I initially ran across our little motif when strolling among the two hundred or so tracks and remixes DJ Danz put forth between January and November, and I immediately said "What is this?" and started searching. Turns out the excellent Danz is only fourth-best among the budots versions I've linked here. My favorite of the budots is this one, for not losing the young woman's sweetness even though he chipmunks her.

Fave budots version retains sweetness even when chipmunked (Track 16):


(And a couple more are here (Track 20) and here.)

A little bit counterintuitively, since they're what grabbed me originally, I'm ending up a bit disappointed by the budots mixes; their being so-called "Thai" remixes – see footnote 2: the budots tracks are still Filipino but (I'm presuming) are meant to be in more of a Thai style, which at least in these instances means the bass goes less onto exuberant offbeats, and the rhythm is steadier (incl. steady gtr chording, even though the guitar is on the offbeat) (but maybe my ears are inventing a distinction that isn't there – see the footnote).

One could argue that the incantation that's our source is already funny-HaHa and funny-Peculiar enough even before budots adds its high pitch. So a supposed "Thai" mix's relative steadiness is what you want from the rhythm. And obviously it works plenty well, worthy of both my Eardrums playlist and the rabbit-hole it pulled me into. My feeling, though, is if we were to add a gregariously pushy bass, it would improve the remixes by pushing us more towards peculiar rather than ha-ha and potentially bringing us back to the menace, danger, and disruption inherent in a mystery spell.

Maybe something like that is happening in India? Those Indian remixes seem to be pushing the tonal and rhythmic envelopes, sounding deliberately chaotic, or maybe it's just that I don't know enough to know what they're doing.

Don't think I have any special insight to accompany my story: we've got a motif that – thanks to musicians and DJs and dancers, on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube – changes its emotional and social complexion as it travels. This of course is true of any music that travels, even just from one ear to another, or from orchestra to orchestra and singer to singer, and sax player to trumpet player, etc. and now from many hands to many ears on the Internet. Don't know if my eyedropper's worth of description ("slamming rock song," "this singing really is lovely, and forceful, and catchy") even tells you much about the socioemotional life of the music as it hits me. Hope my general tone-of-voice conveys something, and hoping to uncover lots of written commentary on SE Asian dance music though I don't yet know where to look.

Finally, though (so I was wrong: the Philippines aren't our final stop), let's return to the song's country of birth and a non-budots remix, a "racing" remix by someone I assume is an actual Thai (though I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Thai DJ is consciously mimicking Filipino budots' ideas of a Thai remix).

Thai racing remix:


LEGEND:
--Indonesian pop song, feels a bit indie: Nisa Fauzia "Culik Aku Dong" (2020) [FOOTNOTE 4]
[--EDIT: Viral phenom that "Culik Aku Dong" is lifting from: Jawsh 685 "Laxed (Siren Beat)" (2019)]
--White-haired comedian: Noi Chernyim [FOOTNOTE 5]
--Slamming rock song: Ek Anupap ft. Noi Chernyim "Anantapatchaye Khunsai" (2022)
--Chili beanie: Bullwinkle the Moose.
--Super catchy pop chant&song by NZ-Kpop star: Rosé & Bruno Mars "APT." (2024)
--Favela funk track: MC Xangai "Menina do Job" (2024)
--Indonesian teenager: Niken Salindry "APT Thailand X Sayang Culik Aku Dong" (2024)
--Young woman, 2nd Indonesian intermix singer: Silvy Kumalasari "APT Thailand X Culik Aku Dong" (2025)
--Popular Indian mashup: DJ Love Rajesh "Annana Pathiya Vibe Mix" (2025)
--Popular and fiercely percussive track that I believe is in Telugu: Ramu Rathod "Ranu Bombai Ki Ranu" (2024)
--Best messed Indian mashup: DJ Strange "Anna Na Pathiya X Bombai Ki Ranu X Peelings" (2025)
--Favorite budots APT Thai remix: DJ EJ "Apt Thailand (Apateye) TikTok Viral (Thai Budots)" (2025)
--Racing (non-budots) remix by an actual Thai: DJ Tebang "APT Thai อะนันตาปัตชะเย New Version ThaiRemix SSKK Ver.BUSTEC" (2025)
--(Ref in footnote 2) Budots "Thai" mix of nice Indonesian pop song: DJ Kent James "Culik Aku Dong Thai Mix" (2025)

( Footnotes )

CROSSPOST: HTTPS://KOGANBOT.LIVEJOURNAL.COM/394813.HTML

CROSSPOST: https://koganbot.substack.com/p/apt-thai

I posted the following comment to David Cooper Moore's Favourite 50 at rockcritics.com:

My affinity list continues with David Cooper Moore: t.A.T.u.'s "Cosmos (Outer Space)," except I voted for "Kosmos,"* the Russian-language version – since I don't speak Russian, though, and the lyrics are a good part of the emotional wallop for me, I don't know why I didn't choose the English version. I guess once I get the basic meaning – "Another time, another place, another world"** – the wallop is in full effect no matter which language I'm hearing.

—Checking Google Translate, the idea is definitely the same – "Our home forever is outer space" vs. "We'll meet forever in space" – but there do seem to be pretty big differences, actually; the Russian version has nothing like my favorite line in the English, "Black stars and endless seas, outer space," but meanwhile the English, "Bridges burnt, fingers crossed... Same before, same again," simply can't compete with, "Tails are torn off, the legs are unscrewed, but – all the same, all the same," in the Russian.

Anyway, knowing both versions you get more meaning and better-confuted meaning!

*Тату's "Космос," if I want to go all Cyrillic.

**Pulled a fast one on you, didn't I? "Another time, another place, another world" isn't from "Cosmos," it's from Margaret Berger's "Robot Song"; like Dave, I'll sometimes put "Cosmos" back-to-back with "Robot Song" on playlists, the two songs of forbidden love.

[nb: Dave puts "Robot Song" and "Cosmos (Outer Space)" side-by-side on his list as numbers 4 and 5.]

Dave posted this on Tumblr:

I seem to be subconsciously looking for the closest thing I can find to the vibe of “My Teenage Dream Ended” each year (last year it was Jenny Wilson's EXORCISM).

This year it appears to be Mahawam: Is an Island, which is very brief and very good.

I replied:

Dave, I just checked YouTube to find that Farrah Abraham has taken down all her vids from My Teenage Dream Ended. Still has "Blowin'," a more conventionally song-like track from a couple of years later, and she continues to put vlogs and the like on her YouTube channel (some contributed by her daughter, she says on her "About" page). Haven't explored them yet. [EDIT: It's possible that there's some other explanation for the absence of the videos than "Farrah Abraham has taken down all the vids." But I can't think of what another explanation would be, since I don't know who else would or could take them down or if someone else could claim some authority or ownership over them. Publisher? MTV?]

My guess is that, unfortunately, she must have internalized all the criticism and hatred that was thrown at her for her absolutely odd and original music. The music's still up in bits and pieces, posted by one fan here, another there, sometimes creating their own videos. In the meantime, no one's made music like it, before or since.

"On My Own - Farrah Abraham" (Watch on YouTube)

(I realize that it's hard to explain or justify that last sentence, since any description I'd give — "singing, but not melodically, the words being scraps of images, confession, events, feelings, some rhythm but no attempt at meter or rhyme" — could describe at least some, for instance, spoken word, improv, jazz poetry, hip-hop (the latter probably something of an inspiration; she may be an outsider but that doesn't mean she's from Mars*). So the conception isn't radical. She's not going rhythmically against meter and line, it's just that her rhythms and repetition don't come from there, come from speech instead, but with dancebeat music backing her she's not constrained by the coherence of normal conversation either; nor by poetry. So it's the result that's radically different.)

(Dave and I once talked about some related Farrah issues on LiveJournal ("I'm In With The Out Crowd"), and Dave and lots of others talked about her all over the place at the time, Dave even getting a piece into The Atlantic.)

*And it wouldn't hurt modern Soundcloud rappers to give her a listen. I bet you some would get ideas.

Crayon Pop seem to be occupying a social space that doesn't exist in America: not of the mainstream but with no apparent estrangement from the mainstream either, not even to the extent that the mainstream itself is estranged from the mainstream (being estranged from the mainstream is a mainstream attitude). And while Crayon Pop gathered a fanatic core audience before they hit big — people who traveled miles to the Crayon Pop appearances and chanted along with the guerrilla street performances — that audience seemed to be doting-uncle types, not connoisseur types. But then, what counts as "connoisseur" isn't set in stone. For instance, Sunday evenings are an unofficial car show in the parking lots along Federal Blvd. on Denver's Hispanic west side, people hopping into their vehicles and finding spots to show off. There are many venues for discerning eyes.

In any event, Crayon Pop seem to be into music more for the art of it and the process than for fame and fortune or even a career.* Going "trot" this year with "Uh-ee" (and dressing like aunties) fits this: the attitude is "What can we try next?" Makes me think of the otherwise very different "Gentleman," by Psy: not a followup to "Gangnam Style" so much as "What can I do to shift around and fake you out?" But Psy is coming from a well-trod social territory, the outsider hip-hop guy who breaks big but still wants to set the terms of discussion. Whereas with Crayon Pop it's more like, "What color should we paint our house now?" At least that's how Crayon Pop come across. So even if they are secret bohemians (Way did got to art school, for instance), that's not where they live in the public landscape.

Whether or not you think I'm right about Crayon Pop, and even if you don't pay attention to K-pop, I have this question:

Who else — anywhere, present or past — seems to be occupying a social space similar to the one I describe for Crayon Pop?

I'm thinking that certain potential stuff wouldn't count, the reason being it has too much of a chip on its shoulder and too much outsider status: early hip-hop dj's in the Seventies, for instance, or the custom car shows and stock-car races and demolition derbies of the early Sixties that Tom Wolfe analyzed and celebrated in The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. Or maybe I'm wrong, and we should count these things.

Anyway, bohemia from nowhere near bohemia.

Also, we need a new term. "Bohemia" is played out. Care to coin one?

As delinquent lollipop girls in "Bing Bing," five months before fame [EDIT: Had embedded the Feb. 15 show at Music Bank but it's no longer on YouTube, so substituting Music Core from a couple weeks earlier, Crayon Pop dismayingly without lollipops; RE-EDIT but here's a link to Show Champion on Feb. 27 where they've got the lollipop, though the presentation is not quite as slinky and delinquent as I remember Feb. 15's being]:


( Disco trot Hey Mister )

( Opening for Gaga in Milwaukee )

Although the powers that be are transliterating the title, "어이," of the forthcoming Crayon Pop single as "Uh-ee," that's very wrong: first, in pronunciation it's "Aw-ee" not "Uh-ee" if you separate out each syllable as written; and second, Crayon Pop shout it out fast without separating the syllables, and clearly they're saying "Oy"!

The title is "Oy"! The title is "Oy"! The title is "Oy"! We should circulate a petition.

May they do a trot version of "Hava Nagila" shortly.



David Frazer has taken to calling them Crayon Trot in the New Digs thread (which has become a thread about what he and I are digging, incl. not just the new Crayon Pop but also tracks by Tren-D, Vixx, PungDeng-E, LPG, and Dal★shabet; also contains the interesting information that Crayon Pop will open for Lady Gaga* for about a month of Gaga's North American tour this summer), the "Oy" rhythm definitely being trot. Crayon Pop are also deliberately crossing us up sartorially, donning elegant duds in the teaser (away with the cute speed racer helmets) and then crossing us up further with old-woman ajumma costumes in promo photos and onstage. [UPDATE: Turns out it's not them in the elegant duds, but rather upper-crust "clubgoers," audience members in the video whose elegant boredom is disrupted by Crayon Pop's ajumma act and are then won over.]

Had to look up "ajumma" in Wikip when David dropped the term on us; "is a Korean word meaning 'aunt' literally, however, it is used for calling name of 'married woman,' which is generally only used to refer to women who are middle-aged or older, and working-class." "The Lonely Planet guide to Seoul describes ajumma as a term of respect, but most other sources say it is mildly pejorative. An ajumma is often a restaurant worker, street vendor, or housewife. Ajumma has connotations of pushiness, with ajumma described as hard-working and aggressive people who 'push and shove their way through a crowd to find a seat in the bus or subway,' 'grab you by the arm and try to get you to eat at their place,' or 'push' friends and relatives to buy insurance."

( Crayon Pop in it for the art of it )

*Whom they expect to mash with, er, mesh with.

What's the name of the new T-ara single?

In aggregate it seems to be "Do You Know Me?" at least in translation. But the first track (ballad) and second (dance) have different Korean names, with the title "What Should I Do?" sometimes showing up on YouTube. Since the vid uses both versions, I'm not really separating out which is which. Maybe Wikipedia will eventually figure it out. In the meantime I'm going with "1977 Do You Know Me?" for the ballad and "What Should I Do?" for the dance. Google Translate is its usual pickled self, giving us "I Do Not Remember 1977" for "1977 기억 안나" and "I Cram" for "나 어떡해." [UPDATE: Melodically, the two parts are mostly, but not entirely, the same basic song. Combined version is off YouTube, so I've embedded the two parts separately. Google Translate now gives "What Should I Do? Chinese dance version" or "What To Do With Me MV Chinese dance version" as the second part's title, though notice the English caption on the vid is "Do You Know Me? M/V china dance ver"]

Also — the k-pop news 'n' entertainment sites are not clear on this — is there some 1977 input or origin for the song?





It seems to be a flop right out of the gate (fewer than 450,000 views for both streams after four full days), but I love it from the first instant. I still fear for the future of Jiyeon's unique aura and bearing if she continues to emote (her former uninflectedness and detachment being a form of evocative resistance, at least in my hopes), but nonetheless, in the present, I love how she and they — non-"impressive" singers — so easily brush every poignancy button, and then reprise it all as a romp.

Glad they're ending the year strong.

Fancam of forthcoming track from Crayon Pop, "Bar Bar Bar." CRAYON POP DO NOT DISAPPOINT. I had to get out of my chair: I was laughing so hard I was afraid I'd hurt myself. I think those are toboggan helmets. Anyway, I can't wait on this. (H/t to David Frazer, as usual, for all things Crayon Pop.)



Subtract the visuals and there's still a great little song, a girl chant that's an earworm with harmonies (or harmonic something, anyway; I would welcome a musical analysis).

Starting this second thread regarding the Minami incident to forestall Livejournal's terrifying collapsed-thread syndrome encroaching on the previous thread (here).



My guess is that it'd be hard for any fan to endorse Minami's self-abasement. Even those who support idol "purity" and manage to link it to being sex-free and boyfriend-free will have that overridden by the sense that Minami is a damsel in distress. In fact, those people might especially be the ones who will have their "damsel in distress" buttons bumped, and will be genuinely torn.

The rest of my thoughts are about K-pop, since I know next to nothing about J-pop:

( Is the no-dating rule all that pervasive? )

( What do you mean by this word SCANDAL? )

( Conspiracy theory )

David McHugh of the Associated Press ("After 3 bumpy years, Europe turns corner on crisis"):

The worst of Europe's financial crisis appears to be over.

European leaders have taken steps to ease the panic that has plagued the region for three turbulent years. Financial markets are no longer in a state of emergency over Europe's high government debts and weak banks. And this gives politicians from the 17 countries that use the euro breathing room to fix their remaining problems.

McHugh does go on to say that Europe's economy is likely to get worse before it gets better, then quotes Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank in London, as saying "coming waves of turmoil will be less severe." (Article seems to be conflating the receding fear of imminent defaults and a Eurozone breakup, on the one hand, and nonimmediate prospects on the other.)

Tim Duy, on his blog Tim Duy's Fed Watch ("Europe's Back In The Spotlight"):

We are now looking at another year of dismal growth in the Eurozone. This crisis seems to have no end in sight.

To be sure, a little relief today as the Greek parliament pushed through the latest austerity package, throwing the bailout back to the Troika. But the relief was short-lived....

I am guessing that the Troika increasingly sees no way out for the Greek economy, at least under the current policy path. Does anyone really expect this to be anything more than just another effort to kick the can down the road? Everything to date has simply intensified what Ambrose Evans-Pritchard described as the "Greek death spiral."

( Spain too )

To be precise, Duy isn't predicting a default or breakup, just another year that's worse than the last, with unemployment that's already depression-size in Greece and Spain getting worse.

( My understanding (or not) )

Here's HyunA displaying her Pikachu voice (segment begins 26 seconds in), anticipating how a year later she tells Psy he's just her style. But what's striking me now about the clip is Jihyun saying, right at the start, "We're famous for not having talents." I can't tell if this is just a quick quip, a "talent" merely meaning a special side attribute, or if the comment is coming from somewhere deeper.

Watch on YouTube

There's a TV clip a bit later (here, and continues here) of their discussing how they deal with harsh comments, the guys who told them, "It's okay, just get your faces done first" (i.e., told them that their performance wasn't bad but that before they debut they ought to all have plastic surgery*), and people later who called them "deud minute," an acronym for "I couldn't even listen to or see 4minute." Those of you who've been following this longer and more attentively than I have: Are 4minute's looks considered a challenge to typical idol-girl faces and fashion? HyunA, of course, is Sex Symbol Of The Moment in K-pop, and she seems a master at being able to switch from goofball and brat in one second to total command in the next, donning and shucking off cuteness at will, while nonetheless coming across as fundamentally warm and spontaneous, and a light-hearted attention grabber. (If you stick with the Mr. Teacher vid beyond Pikachu, you'll see a funny sequence where HyunA's videoing the rest of 4minute head-on as they walk along a Kuala Lumpur street, but complains that it's scary for her to walk backwards, so makes all of them walk backwards so that she can be walking forward while continuing to work the camera.) But I wonder if the rest are considered non-idol-style in their looks and demeanor (and if that's felt to be a plus by their fans). Gayoon's face looks squashed-in, and Jihyun's can fall into a weary or sardonic droop, though I don't think that makes either of them unattractive.

I also wonder if HyunA's quick image switches make the general K-pop audience uneasy; to me she's thoroughly coherent and has done a smooth job of disarming the opposition.

( Update: All hail Jiyoon )

*I gather that their label president encouraged them not to. And as Jihyun says, it's too late now anyway, since everyone knows their faces.