Ep 343: On Queer Women Loving Boy Bands
Transcript Info:
Sounds Fake But Okay Podcast
May, 4th, 2025
Speakers
Speaker 1: Sarah
Speaker 2: Kayla
Ep 343: On Queer Women Loving Boy Bands
SARAH: Hey, what's up, hello! Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl (I'm Sarah, that's me.)
KAYLA: And a bi demisexual girl (that's me, Kayla.)
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode, ‘Boy Bands.’
BOTH: Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod.
KAYLA: Hi.
SARAH: It's yap o'clock.
KAYLA: We've already been yapping.
SARAH: We've been yapping.
KAYLA: I fear, I like got on the zoom and I was like, “I'm feeling good energy.” Like I properly like did the caffeination I need to do on a Wednesday. And then we sat here yapping for so long. And I think I expended too much of my energy…
SARAH: We used the energy on the yapping.
KAYLA: Having fun before the recording.
SARAH: Having a silly time. Well, bring it back. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Do we have any housekeeping?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Cool. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week, we are fulfilling Sarah's dreams. We are giving Sarah a full episode just to yap. Just to yap.
SARAH: This wasn't even my idea.
KAYLA: It wasn't. This week, we were talking about boy bands and why queer people I feel like specifically queer women have such an affinity for boy bands. I saw an Instagram post that was like…
SARAH: It's because I… Oh, you sent it to me.
KAYLA: I sent it to you.
SARAH: And then I put it on my…
KAYLA: About like why lesbians like a boy band so much, and I sent it to Sarah.
SARAH: Yeah, like One Direction specifically.
KAYLA: Yeah, and I sent it to Sarah. And then we were like, “what are we gonna do today?” And I was like, “not to encourage you to talk about BTS more. But I do think it would be interesting.” Because I know we have brought this up.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: Probably many times at this point, during episodes like the queer women loving boy bands phenomenon, but we've never done a full episode on it.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: To my knowledge, at least.
SARAH: I will warn all of you, I have not thought about this at all. Like I have not had time to think about this at all because I was working.
KAYLA: It's true.
SARAH: Like a big girl.
KAYLA: It's true.
SARAH: So, everything you're getting is just me raw dogging this. So sorry if it's not polished.
KAYLA: I forgive you.
SARAH: Thank you. But when you said the thing about lesbians, and then One Direction, I thought of my friend who is a lesbian and is really into One Direction, the Beatles
KAYLA: Oh, OG
SARAH: BTS, TXT, and also TWICE, which is a girl group.
KAYLA: This makes me think... Do you think this was the case in the early 2000s with like NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys?
SARAH: I think it also depends on what parts of community you find yourself in.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: For example, as a queer K-pop stan, I am surrounded by mostly queer K-pop stans.
KAYLA: That is fair.
SARAH: But it has been brought to my attention that there are unfortunately some straight ones.
KAYLA: That is difficult to hear.
SARAH: The only straight ones I will accept are the cishet male fans of boy groups.
KAYLA: Yeah. I see this.
SARAH: They can also be fans of girl groups, but they have to also be… because I have a friend who is a cishet man who is a BTS stan. And he's also into Red Velvet, but that's allowed because he's into BTS.
KAYLA: But does the same apply to cishet women who are boy band fans? Do they also need to be fans of a girl group?
SARAH: I would appreciate it if they were.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Fortunately, I do have one friend who I can think of who is a cishet woman who likes K-pop boy bands and that’s... We all have our faults and our flaws.
KAYLA: Yeah. No one is perfect.
SARAH: But most of the people I know, even if they're straight passing, even if they're married to a man, they are queer.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And most of them are AFAB. But not all of them. Most of them, though.
KAYLA: I also feel like it really is specifically queer AFAB people, too. I feel that the phenomenon is that gay men love a pop diva. They love a Lady Gaga, an Ariana Grande, a Britney Spears. Notably, often people, Lady Gaga excluded from that list and I suppose I don't know everyone's sexuality, but typically it's not a queer artist.
SARAH: Yeah. They become a queer icon, not because they're queer, but because queer people like them.
KAYLA: Right. Which I think is a whole other phenomenon that I'm sure lots of people have discussed.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: But I feel like gay men usually go for the pop divas, and that gay women go for the boy bands.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: You would think that people would go for the gender that they are attracted to.
SARAH: You would think.
KAYLA: Like, that would be the most obvious thing, I guess. You know what I mean?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So why aren't we doing that?
SARAH: Yeah, it's hard. I think a lot of times when we get into things when we're young, when we're teenagers, like, I was into One Direction before I ever knew I was aro-ace.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: And so, there was this assumption that the reason or part of the reason why I liked One Direction, why I liked 5SOS, was because I was attracted to them.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And because that's what… like the people around me who also liked them, that was supposedly a factor in why they liked them.
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, I remember that discourse from that time in our lives of people, because I've never really been a boy band person. So, I was never really into One Direction at the time that they were super big. But I remember that being the thing of it was like, which is your favorite guy? Who do you think is the cutest? And so that was the assumption was that everyone who was a fan thought that way.
SARAH: Yeah. And if there's a male fan, it's because they're gay. Like that's just assumed to be to be fact. And I think because so many people when they're still young and they're still trying to fit in and they don't know necessarily exactly what they are yet, they kind of follow along those well-trodden paths, if you will. But then once they get older and they realize, oh, actually, I'm queer, they don't stop liking those things.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: I think they just learn to like them and appreciate them in a different way. I don't want to say like, queer fans…
KAYLA: Truth.
SARAH: View K-pop in a more nuanced way than the straight girls. Like, I don't want to say that, although, you know?
KAYLA: But she will
SARAH: Listen, if you're gonna say it. It's not my fault. Um, but I think… like a lot of times, when I see on Stan Twitter, specifically, when I see queer people talking about male idols, a lot of times it's very gendery.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And I have heard some discourse recently… What was the context of it? I was listening to an interview. I was listening to you know, Matt Bernstein, the guy who posts on Instagram with the gradient of the blue to pink…
KAYLA: Yes, I love him.
SARAH: Mm-hmm. I came across one of his podcast episodes on YouTube one time. And I was like, “Oh, this is interesting.” So, I ended up listening to it as podcasts, so then it got added to my podcast app. And so sometimes I listen to it. And he was talking recently about, he did an episode about Maia Poet, who is the D trans activist, who was like, “I lived through October 7 and that made me realize that there are more important things than being trans.”
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Anyway
KAYLA: A lot to unpack there.
SARAH: Oh, so much to unpack. It's a good episode. But the person he was talking to is a trans YouTuber who has been on YouTube for like, 20 years, like since she was 15, like in 2005.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And she was saying that back in the day… like of the people that she knows who detransitioned after transitioning, a lot of them were people who back in the day when the gender binary was more binary and we had less of a good idea of like non-binary identities. They thought that the way to present themselves, the way to be what they wanted to be, was to be trans.
KAYLA: Mm.
SARAH: But really that wasn't it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so like, they kind of undid some of that, because they realized that that wasn't it. And there are other ways in between the boundaries of the binary to exist.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so, that has just kind of been like in the back of my head recently.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And I do feel like a lot of the people I know who are queer, who are into K-pop, there's so much just talk about like gender, like, “oh, that's my gender.” And I never do that at female idols. Because I…
KAYLA: Yes, you do. I've seen that on Instagram with close friends.
SARAH: Okay, no, that's true, but it's like very, very specific instances.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It's way less often.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
[00:10:00]
SARAH: And I think it's… like a lot of queer women, queer AFAB people look at male idols, and they're like, “that is who I am trying to be.”
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: Because male idols are often quite androgynous.
KAYLA: I was gonna say I think not even just K-pop idols, but I think boy band members in general, present masculinity in such a different and more androgynous way.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: Because they are pop stars. And I don't think of pop stars as being extremely masculine. Like if I was thinking of all of the genres…
SARAH: There are a few, I guess.
KAYLA: Yeah. By thinking of all the music genres like country. I don't even want to say rock because rock has a lot of roots and like… like in the 80s, like glam rock and stuff.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, I don't even know maybe just country like I see is more of like, “I'm a fucking man,” thing.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But pop stars because there is…
SARAH: Beer, dirt truck…
KAYLA: Beer, dirt truck jeans. Yeah. Because being a pop star is so much about the performance and theatricality. And those are not things that are classed as masculine.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like, I wonder if that is part of it, because they are not so masculine, you know, they like, they do their outfits and their makeup and like, you know?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: There's a group of them, which like, I feel like it's somehow less masculine that they're like, collaborating as a group.
SARAH: Yeah, just polyamory
KAYLA: I don't know. I wonder if that almost feels like slightly more achievable to a woman because it is not… if you're looking at binary terms of very feminine to very masculine.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: They are a little bit towards the middle as far as like men go.
SARAH: Yeah, I think so. And also, there's just the idea, specifically with K-pop, I think with other boy groups too, but not as much. There are fewer, like boundaries of masculinity. Like in K-pop, like they're much more open to like being touchy with each other, because that's just the Korean culture there. It's more okay.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so, I think that appeals to queer people as like breaking boundaries of what masculinity or femininity or whatever is.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: And so, I think that's appealing, but I don't think that's necessarily true in all boy bands. Like, I don't know that that's true in One Direction, because…
KAYLA: It's definitely not
SARAH: Because Louis and Harry got too close and the Larry Stylin said people got a little too crazy and it kind of ruined their friendship.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So…
KAYLA: I remember studying, I took a class, I took a couple classes in fandom in college, which is hilarious because what was I doing spending thousands of dollars studying fandom at college. But we like studied Larry fanfic specifically.
SARAH: Larry Stylin stan.
KAYLA: Well, because it's just such an interesting… it's an infamous case of like what fan culture can do, you know?
SARAH: Yeah. I've seen, this is a bit of a pivot and we won't go off too far on this, but I've seen a lot of…
KAYLA: Or will we?
SARAH: Ha ha. I've seen a lot of discourse recently about how fandom post-pandemic has been fucking ruined because during the pandemic, normies became involved in fandom because they had nothing else to do.
KAYLA: Ah, interesting.
SARAH: And they don't respect the long-held values and expectations in fandom spaces. There have been so many people online that I've seen like talking about like fanfiction and how like it's so weird and it's so messed up. And it's like…
KAYLA: Hello
SARAH: You've been here. You've been here since 2021. Sit down. You know how long fanfiction has existed?
KAYLA: At least…
SARAH: You know, the first MPreg was in like the seventies or eighties, it was Han Solo.
KAYLA: It was all Star Wars and Star Trek.
SARAH: The first documented MPreg that we can track was fucking Han Solo, icon.
KAYLA: Go pay your respects to the Star Trek community and the queer women who started the Kirk/Spock fanfiction and then come back to us.
SARAH: Then come back. Yeah. They just don't respect…
KAYLA: Their elders.
SARAH: They don't respect their elders. And especially for like RPF, like real people fiction, like they don't understand that there are certain boundaries that are baked in and you should not be crossing them.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: And then they're like, “I can't believe this exists.” And it's like, but you're not respecting the… you know?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And then also there have been… there's this group that is under a K-pop company named Katseye, but they are a global girl group. And first of all, one of their members came out as queer, which we love that.
KAYLA: Slay.
SARAH: I mean, we all knew, but… like she said it not explicitly, but she said it clearly enough that we all knew what she meant.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like there have been lives where they have been like, “let's read fanfiction about ourselves,” and they have on live done that. And people are like, “Oh my God, that's so invasive” and like, sometimes like you see their faces like, uh.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And like, people are like, “Oh my God, that's so invasive, that that exists.” And it's like, no, but they sought it out.
KAYLA: Yeah, they did. They did go there.
SARAH: They sought it out. They didn't have to do that.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Also, on a live recently, they were… I don't know, being gay. And then one of the comments said, “these lesbians,” and one of them read it out loud.
KAYLA: Oops. Well…
SARAH: Anyway, they just came out with a new song and it's, um, it's legally considered a song… It's a song.
KAYLA: Oh no.
SARAH: Everyone hates it. Like, even…
KAYLA: That’s not good
SARAH: Like, I consider myself a fan, even like the diehard fans, like in the comments on the YouTube video are like, “I'm going to hold your hand when you listen to this”
KAYLA: Oh no. They hate it.
SARAH: Anyway, back to boy groups.
KAYLA: Back to a boy group. I wonder… I guess this is less about queer women
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: And more about women in general, but personally, because I feel that boy groups are like less masculine, I feel safer around them. Do you know what I mean by this?
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: I feel like they're less likely to assault me if I were to be with them.
SARAH: For real. Like, I think that also has been in the couple instances of like K-pop idols being… it being uncovered that they are big pieces of shit.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like that I think has been extra shocking for people because like you are under the impression that this person is a safe person and then they turn out to not be.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Did I tell you about the person who on TikTok was like, “I have the worst taste in biases. All of my biases turn out to be abusers.”
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: And then someone in the comments was like, “I mean, I don't know if this is better or worse, but all of my biases have died.”
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: So.
KAYLA: Maybe it's time to step away from the fandom at that point. It kind of feels like you are like…
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Doing something.
SARAH: Yeah. So, people were like, “I guess you're like a red flag detector if you like them, there's something wrong.”
KAYLA: I guess.
SARAH: Um, but I do think it’s… these people are like seen as safe and also these people, boy groups cater to women.
KAYLA: Yes, that’s very true.
SARAH: Like that is objectively what they do. And so, they want to be viewed as safe to women.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so, like they act in such a way that is actively… like they're thinking about the way their actions are being perceived in a way that a regular man out there might not.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And I think that's helpful. I also think because the fan bases are primarily female or just like queer, like not cishet men.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: The community feels safer.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: Because there aren't men in the community. I saw another tweet just today about… it was a video of my girl Chuu, icon. Um, she was a member of Luna and now she has a solo career. I'm not a Loona girly, but I respect y'all so much. Big stan. We love Chuu. One time she came up to two men in a park sharing a birthday cake and just automatically assumed they were gay.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: And she was like, “congratulations on your date.” And they were like, “Oh no, it's just his birthday.” And she was like, “congratulations on your date.”
KAYLA: That's so funny.
SARAH: Anyway. Um, but there was a fan-cam from a music show of a recent thing. And like the comment on the video was just like, oh my God, like her styling, and like this is great. But I saw it because it was quote retweeted with someone being like, “I don't know how girl group stans get over all of the men yelling the fan chants.”
KAYLA: Um
[00:20:00]
SARAH: And so, I clicked on the video with sound and it's so jarring because with boy groups, the people doing the fan chants are primarily women.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But then with girl groups, especially with like, when these songs are like super girly and like girly pop and bubble gum.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And then you have these men doing the fan chants sounding like this.
KAYLA: Do girl K-pop groups like market themselves towards men or are they just who ends up there?
SARAH: In Korea, the vast majority of girl group fans are men.
KAYLA: I don’t like that
SARAH: I don't either. The gender lines in Korea, to my understanding, are a lot more cut and dry with K-pop fans. Girls are fans of boy groups. Men are not fans of boy groups. The only ones that are allowed to be are like the ones who are like aspiring future idols. Like that's the only thing that's allowed.
KAYLA: Is it because like it's seen as like gay to like a boy group?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Okay. And then girls don't like girl groups?
SARAH: Some girls like girl groups. There are more girls who like girl groups than boys who like boy groups.
KAYLA: Right. Yes.
SARAH: And it is always very entertaining when there are like fanboys for these male groups because they always tend to get a lot of attention because they're always like, “what?”
KAYLA: “Where'd you come from?” “For me?”
SARAH: And there are some groups like Mamamoo has a very female fan base, like a disproportionately female. Also gay as fuck. Because they're gay as fuck. So, like some groups have a larger portion of male fans than female fans. In the West, it evens out a ton more.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But in Korea, it's very cut and dry. And so, then you hear these fan chants and it's like, cutieeee, like, strawberrrrrrry lemonade. And then it's just these men doing the fan chants. And I saw a comment today that was like, “I can't imagine these men just listening to this song in their car.”
KAYLA: This is what I was just thinking is like, to me, what I assume is that the reason men in Korea are not fans of boy groups, and really the reason like men in America are not like fans of One Direction or whatever is because it's seen as gay. Like it's seen as like a feminine thing to do. And you don't want to like, God forbid someone thinks I'm gay.
SARAH: Because to like them is to be attracted to them. And that is assumed.
KAYLA: Right. And so, I get that, I guess. But also, from what I have heard of girl group music, like the performance of it, I can see is very catered towards men. They are wearing like very little clothing. It's very like, seductive in like an innocent way, which like I find highly disgusting. But like that…
SARAH: A lot of aegyo.
KAYLA: That's not my vibe, because I'm not a fucking whatever. Um, so I understand the visuals.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: I do not understand how it is not seen as gay to listen to like…
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Because that's a very feminine song. So, you're telling me it's gay to listen to a boy band who has like, I would say relatively like androgynous sounding music, if that's even a fucking thing.
SARAH: Mm-hmm. Or I mean, a lot of a lot of K-pop boy groups make fucking noise music.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like, it's not my cup of tea. Some people like it.
KAYLA: But that’s like seen as a more masculine type of music.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, you're earnestly telling me that these men who like feel very in their heteronormativity and like must stay there, are in their cars on the subway listening to like bubblegum pop and that’s not gay?
SARAH: I’m sorry, you're listening to ‘cheer up’ by Twice. You're in your car and they're going to “cheer up, baby, cheer up, baby…” You're listening to ‘TT’ by Twice and they're like, “I'm like TT, just like TT” and you're just singing along to that in your car?
KAYLA: Do you think they are actually listening to it?
SARAH: I don’t know, someone is,
KAYLA: Or they listen to boy bands in the car, but don't go to the shows, they just like… it's like their secret?
SARAH: Uh, I don’t know.
KAYLA: And then they like go to the girl shows.
SARAH: They might listen to like Western artists. For some reason, K-pop idols, specifically male K-pop idols are obsessed with Justin Bieber and I need them to get over it.
KAYLA: I love that though, because that's like their equivalent.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like he is…
SARAH: They all fucking love Justin Bieber.
KAYLA: He was the K-pop idol of our time, I feel.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: More than anyone else, that's really funny.
SARAH: Anyway. And I think girl groups in the United States have a less storied history. They do have a history. If you're going back to like Motown and stuff.
KAYLA: I think even like early two 2000s, like…
SARAH: Oh yeah, Destiny's Child,
KAYLA: Destiny's Child, like…
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But I think those groups were not catered towards men.
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: Those were catered towards women.
SARAH: I agree.
KAYLA: Do men get any good music?
SARAH: They get dubstep.
KAYLA: Mm. They get EDM, I guess.
SARAH: They get EDM. And that's not my cup of cup of tea personally.
KAYLA: I like working to a chill EDM no words playlist sometimes.
SARAH: I disagree.
KAYLA: That's okay. It just feels like all of the good music is catered towards women and gay people.
SARAH: Yeah. Men are only allowed to have like rock, which is good. Rock is good. And like punk.
KAYLA: Punk is gay. They can have punk.
SARAH: Oh, punk is secretly very gay. It's like all the MAGA people being upset that Green Day at Coachella changed the lyrics to MAGA. And they're like, “I can't believe Green Day would get political.”
KAYLA: This is a conversation we have often at our house because Dean is a huge Green Day fan. Like since he was young, he has seen them so many times, like top of his Spotify every year, like he's a Green Day guy.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: And we have this discussion all the time because they have been, they're a punk. So, they've been radical since they started. If anything, they have gotten like less so as they've been mainstream, if anything, but not really.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And then people are like, “how could they?” And I'm like, “have you listened to American Idiot?”
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: That was what we were doing the whole time.
SARAH: A couple of years ago, people were getting mad at ‘Rage Against the Machine’ and they were like, “who do you think the machine is that they're raging against?”
KAYLA: They are literally raging. What do you think we're doing here?
SARAH: And then people who are like, “oh, I wish that you can be emo and you can be punk and still be conservative.” It's like, literally, no, you can't. They are fundamentally...
KAYLA: I fear that is a growing thing, though. I was recently talking to someone who is in the punk scene and they were telling me about like some of the… especially the groups that are like all guys.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: These are people who I would say spiritually and like belief system-wise are not actually punk as it was like conceived to be.
SARAH: Yeah. They just like the aesthetic.
KAYLA: Yeah, but they are like… they hate women.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And I feel as though you cannot be punk and hate women.
SARAH: No
KAYLA: I don't think that's like allowed.
SARAH: You can be punk and express sexist beliefs, because men are conditioned to do that.
KAYLA: I suppose. I’d rather you didn't, though.
SARAH: The thing about being punk, though, is that like, if someone calls you out for that, you like reflect, you know
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And these men are not gonna do that.
KAYLA: No. Is modern punk dead? I say knowing nothing about the culture. I can't wait for the people to message and be like, “Actually, you know nothing about punk.” And you're right, I don't.
SARAH: Mm, listen…
KAYLA: I'm just saying things
SARAH: I know a little bit about pop punk, but not that much.
KAYLA: I don't. I don't know all that much.
SARAH: I once had a panic attack at an all-time low concert.
KAYLA: I love that for you.
SARAH: It's the only time that I think I've ever really had a proper panic attack. Anyway…
KAYLA: Okay, brag.
SARAH: Sorry
KAYLA: Who asked you?
SARAH: Some of us are wildly depressed. You know, it's a give and take.
KAYLA: That's fair. That's fair. You are ill in different ways.
SARAH: Ill in different special ways. Okay. Boy groups. Queer. Queer. I mean, we both know someone who came to realize they were non-binary and like was able to accept their non binariness through BTS.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I know quite a number of non-binary lesbian K-pop fans.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: Including ones with children.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: When I found out they had like a 13-year-old child.
KAYLA: Oh, that's weird.
SARAH: The way I was shook.
KAYLA: I just assume everyone is my age.
SARAH: This person is not that much… like they're in their 30s.
KAYLA: Oh, that's crazy.
SARAH: I don't know that their kid is 13, their kid is like at least a preteen.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And then they have another kid who's around there. Anyway.
KAYLA: That's weird.
SARAH: They're getting divorced. Anyway.
KAYLA: Oh. Uh-oh.
SARAH: But they have a new partner and... Anyway. Love that for them.
[00:30:00]
KAYLA: I keep thinking back to what you said much earlier in this episode about starting to like boy groups at a younger age before you fully like know what your identity is.
SARAH: Mm-hmm.
KAYLA: And part of me wonders, especially for people our age, if like that is part of the reason so many queer women have transitioned specifically from being like One Direction, 5SOS fans into K-pop stans. Because like we have heard from so many aspec people like making up crushes when you are young to like try to fit in. I can only imagine there are so many gay women who when they were younger were like, “oh, yeah, I'm totally a One Direction fan and this is my favorite guy and I have a crush on him,” whatever, to like fit in.
SARAH: And my sister's male crush was one of the Jonas Brothers.
KAYLA: Oh, Jonas Brothers, this is another good one. Yeah.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And then you like… so you start under that guise, you actually become a fan. And then later in life, you're like, “oh boy bands are back,” in this like different way.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And now that's like my life now.
SARAH: I also think… this is very specific to like our generation, like zillennials kind of specifically.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Because we were teenagers at the height of One Direction.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like I was… when One Direction was like getting big and I was really getting into them, I was like a freshman in high school.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so like, that's a very formative time.
KAYLA: There was a One Direction poster in our freshman year dorm.
SARAH: Mm-hmm, that's true.
KAYLA: With a sticky note over Zayn's face.
SARAH: Yeah. I would take that off now.
KAYLA: Well, it was there, it's just the truth. It's just the truth of what happened.
SARAH: I know. He hurt me. He hurt us. He hurt us all.
KAYLA: That's fair.
SARAH: Anyway, I think One Direction was like the big thing to be into.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: And so, I don't know if this… obviously you can see it with other generations with Backstreet Boys and NSYNC and whatever. But like, I think our generation, it being such a thing going from like One Direction to like being into like K-pop and like boy bands, boy groups, that might be a very specific generational thing.
KAYLA: Yeah, I also think it probably has something to do with just the increase in online fandom. Obviously online fandom has been a thing since the internet started.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like they're just talking about back to Star Trek. I have to imagine though, that the online community for bands like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys is smaller just because less people were using the internet in that way.
SARAH: Yeah, less people had access.
KAYLA: Yeah. I wonder if too, it's… the pipeline is stronger because people joined online fandoms and... At least the way like I experienced fandoms when I was like more in online fandoms when I was younger is you start in one fandom and then you hear about others and then you kind of like branch off and they all kind of interconnect. So, it does feel like it would be a much stronger pipeline for our generation and even just going into the future that people are just more online in that way.
SARAH: Yeah. Two things. One, I've said it before on this podcast, I'm pretty sure, people joke that there are two main pipelines, like two types of people who get into K-pop. One of them comes via One Direction and one of them comes via Pop Punk.
KAYLA: Interesting.
SARAH: And sometimes you're a little bit of both because there is a decent amount of overlap. For me, what happened was I was into One Direction, 5SOS opened for One Direction on two of their tours. I got into 5SOS. Through 5SOS, I got into more punkier pop pumps. Still not like punk punk, but like I just mean like, all time low, like less boy bandy more.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And so, like that was kind of like my gateway.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so, some people kind of have both.
KAYLA: How do you get from punk to BTS without One Direction?
SARAH: I don't know, but a lot of people do it.
KAYLA: I'm just wondering what the pipeline is. Where are they coming from?
SARAH: I don’t know. A lot of people do it though. It's quite common.
KAYLA: Good for them.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I just can't see that pipeline as clearly as like the One Direction, 5SOS thing. But…
SARAH: Yeah, who knows? And that's specifically boy groups. I don't know as much about girl groups. I do like girl groups, but I am primarily a boy group fan. Like of my five top groups, four of them are boy groups, so.
KAYLA: It is honestly interesting to me that girl groups have not caught on it seems as much in the mainstream in the West, because I feel like we're having such a resurgence of like the pop girl era right now.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like what we had in the early 2000s with like Britney Spears getting into Kesha, like it was such like a girl era and then we kind of left that and I feel like we're very much so back now.
SARAH: But now we got Charli XCX, we got yeah, Chapel, Sabrina.
KAYLA: So, it's like surprising to me that there is not a bigger push for girl groups when we are like in that, you know? I feel like they're missing out on some like marketing or something.
SARAH: Yeah. You have Black Pink, but they're really splitting up. Not like… I don't mean that they're disbanding. I just mean that they're focusing more on like solo activities.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And I mean YG has done a horrible job managing them. Like they could have been so much bigger.
KAYLA: Yeah. I feel like… I heard about them so much more years ago, like before BTS got super big and then they just like dropped off.
SARAH: They were like peaking, they were like rising and then they stopped releasing music for years.
KAYLA: So weird.
SARAH: Like why the fuck did you do that? This is K-pop where you have at least an album a year, often more.
KAYLA: Yeah. That's very odd.
SARAH: So.
KAYLA: They hate women.
SARAH: Anyway, I also think, I kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, but queer people are more likely to, you know, don the aspec glasses, deconstruct, you know?
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: And not feel boxed in by certain boundaries and expectations. And so, there's less shame in feeling like you're a fan of something that is like a little more taboo or it's seen as like, oh, it's like a teenage girl thing, you know?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And I feel like queer people are just more likely to be like, “fuck that. I don't care.”
KAYLA: Yeah, that’s fair.
SARAH: Whereas like cishet women who are fans of boy groups might be like, “I mean, well, yeah, I am attracted to them.” “I mean, yeah.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And they're fucking valid for that. But like, you know, it's interesting. Also, I think you mentioned earlier talking about like One Direction, like having a favorite member and how in K-pop that's very… there's terminology. You have a bias, you have a bias wrecker.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: There's standardized, institutionalized ways of talking about this.
KAYLA: Does that language transfer over like between countries? I have to assume that's not just like an America thing.
SARAH: Oh, no, no, no. They don't use the word ‘bias,’ but they have an equivalent word in Korean that they use.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Yeah, they've got all that. It's also interesting because I feel like a lot of people, if they're following the standard idea of if you're a fan of a group, it's because you're attracted to them.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: That they assume that your bias is like the one you want to like marry or like, fuck.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And for some people that is true.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But like my Seventeen bias is literally my son, I gave birth to him.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: Okay? When like, you know, people will do like edits or like video, whatever, where they're like, “ooh, sexy.” Whenever I see those for him, I'm always… I'm just proud of him. Like it does nothing for me. I'm just like, “I'm so proud of my son.”
KAYLA: That's so funny.
SARAH: And like, that doesn't happen… Like for other biases, like also like sexy edits and like, they don't work on me in the same way.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But like, I get it still.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But like for him, I'm literally like, “I'm so proud of him.”
KAYLA: “I’m so proud.” Do you think… so, obviously some people pick their bias because I feel like back to One Direction, at least when we were younger, it was like your favorite member was like the one you thought was cutest or like for the Jonas brothers, it was like the one you thought was cutest.
SARAH: Yeah. So, everyone picked Nick.
KAYLA: And then he had diabetes and everyone freaked out.
SARAH: And everyone thought he was dying.
KAYLA: I feel like I was too young at the time to fully like freak out about the diabetes. I like don't remember hearing about that until like years later.
SARAH: Maybe you just weren’t paying enough attention?
KAYLA: Yeah, probably not. I also, I didn't have cable.
SARAH: Ah, that’ll do it.
KAYLA: So, like, I was not watching the Disney channel at that age. So obviously some K-pop fans pick that way, but like at least… maybe I'm like, my view is biased because I see everything through you and like the people that you are like internet friends with and those are all queer people.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But it seems like that's less common.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: In K-pop, picking that way.
SARAH: I mean, it is interesting because I have the experience… with Seventeen, my bias is my biological son.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: One of my bias wreckers, I think is like the closest I've ever been to like actually being attracted to a K-pop idol.
[00:40:00]
KAYLA: Interesting
SARAH: Like I'm not, but I'm like, okay, you know?
KAYLA: Yeah. If I were to be.
SARAH: Like, why would you do that to me? You know?
KAYLA: Aha
SARAH: But he's also legally married to my other bias wrecker, so it's fine.
KAYLA: Okay. Interesting.
SARAH: But I was talking to one of my friends about this and she has a similar situation with TXT where her bias is her biological son who she birthed. And one of her bias wreckers, she unfortunately has a very heterosexual need to fuck.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: But her bias is not the one that she has an unfortunate heterosexual need to fuck. Her bias is her son.
KAYLA: I wonder if part of it is because there are so many members in each group that like you can't truly just pick based on like who's most attractive because they're all attractive.
SARAH: They're all so hot, that’s the thing.
KAYLA: That's the point of them.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like they have to be or else they don't get in the group.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, I feel like it forces you to like, you have to get a little bit more nuanced into like…
SARAH: Yeah. Like you have to like get to know them.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And with K-pop you really can, especially in the wake of everything that BTS did on their rise, on their ascension to global superstardom, if you will. Because the media and stuff they did was so personal and was so just like them being them that has become the standard.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so like, of course it's still curated and of course it's still, you know, you're seeing what they let you see, but it is a lot more personal than… also, just because of the internet
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Than it ever has been in previous iterations of, you know, for Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, it was like, you knew what was in Tiger Beat Magazine.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Whereas now it's like...
KAYLA: I see what you ate for breakfast.
SARAH: Exactly. Like I see every photo that Hoshi posts of his family's dog in a cute little dress.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Like, I know what… there's so much.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Hoshi does lives from his parents' house eating ramen. And then there was one where his sister and his mom came home with the dog while he was on live. And so, he immediately says to his sister, he's like, “I'm on live, don't say anything weird.”
KAYLA: Oops
SARAH: And then he goes… so he was like being, you know, whatever to his sister. And then the dog, he was like, “Latiiiiiii!!” It was like the difference in his reaction to his sister and the dog were very funny. But like Jung Kook goes live at four in the morning folding his fucking underwear. Like that is a thing that has happened. So, it's just a whole other level of like… it's also just like parasocial, whatever.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: That meme often goes around on K-pop stan Twitter of the… where it's like, “parasocial relationships are unhealthy,” and then it cuts off and it's like, “I don't give a parafuck. This is my family.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So…
KAYLA: What are you gonna do?
SARAH: I think what it comes down to is spaces where queer people feel safe amongst other fans, amongst the people that they are fans of. Also, because K-pop idols are trained to be so apolitical.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: That they can appeal to all sorts of types of people.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: And they can be kind of sneaky about showing support for certain things.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: I saw a thing recently, this was from a while ago, but it was one of the members of Seventeen. It was my bias wrecker who I have to fight, I'm going to fight him, I'm going to cage fight him. And he was like doing a thing where he was given two photos of himself with different color hair and he had to pick which one he liked better.
KAYLA: Okay
SARAH: And one of them was red hair and one of them was blue hair. And he was like, “I don't know that I can do this,” because it was around the time of the election.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: And like those are also the colors of the parties in Korea.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: And so, they were like, “okay, the election is over. The election is over. This has nothing to do with the election.”
KAYLA: Oh my God.
SARAH: Like that's how careful that they have to be.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But they kind of… they find ways to, you know, be sneaky and supportive and that sort of thing.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: You know what happened recently? There was a idol of a boy group who I had never heard of, but apparently has been around for a little while, came out as gay.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: And his members have known that he was gay for two years. Love that for him. Never heard of his group, but I love that for him.
KAYLA: Love that for him.
SARAH: Love it for all of us. Anyway, safe spaces also starting cosplaying as a cishet person in these spaces where the outside world thinks that everyone is just there because they're attracted and if you're a teenage girl, like that's what you're expected to do and that's what you're allowed to do. So, you do it and then you come into yourself and then you realize, oh, actually I have no interest in dick.
KAYLA: I do think… the safe spaces, I think, really stands out to me because you're… right, like not even just a K-pop group, but thinking like boy groups in general, they are made to mass appeal to women. So, they're not going to be making unsafe spaces.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: So, it makes a lot of sense then that queer people would be like, “okay, I can be here and be okay.” Even if they're not doing like overt support for queer people.
SARAH: Right. Also, like so many times, like they'll have like lyrics where it's like, “well, you could interpret it this way, but would we?”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Or like, there's always the threads of like this group, like supporting queer rights and stuff. And it's always kind of like vague stuff.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: But there's a famous post where it was BTS and they were showing all of the like gay, like pride-branded things that they had ever been seen wearing. And one of them was… were these pride Vans that were like special edition, only available for a certain amount of time at a certain store.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And people were like, “well, that doesn't mean anything, they're just shoes, the stylist got them for him.” And then the response was like, “yeah, and isn't it gay that the stylist looked at these shoes and thought, perfect for Yoon-gi.” And went through all that effort to go to the specific store to get the specific shoes.
KAYLA: A limited edition, because even if those are like rented by the stylist, those aren't going to be cheap if they're limited edition.
SARAH: Yeah. So that's always just a good famous post.
KAYLA: Love that
SARAH: But yeah. And just like K-pop concerts too are… fan wars aside because fan wars are the worst. But the thing about fan wars is that they're online.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And when you go into physical K-pop spaces, they're very welcoming.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: You go to K-pop concerts, people hand you freebies. Like I remember when the Eras Tour was happening and people were like, “Oh my God, people are trading bracelets, that's so sweet and cute.” And I was like, “trading?”
KAYLA: Been doing this.
SARAH: “No, we don't trade, they just give them to you.”
KAYLA: They just give, yeah.
SARAH: Like I have shit sitting on my desk right now that I got for free at K-pop concerts. Like people will just walk up to you and be like, “do you want a freebie?” And then you're like, “what? Am I going to say no?”
KAYLA: It's free.
SARAH: I complimented a girl on her keffiyeh hijab.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: And she was like, “wait, I have something for you.”
KAYLA: Oh
SARAH: And then she gave me this really pretty… it was like a key chain and it had like the keffiyeh like that like pattern and it had the Palestinian colors and it said, “hope.” And because the concert was J-Hope and it was hope on the stage and it was so pretty. And she just gave it to me because I complimented her hijab.
KAYLA: That's very nice.
SARAH: Go off queen. Anyway, is that it?
KAYLA: Yes. I have to be going to bed now.
SARAH: Great. Kayla, what's our poll for this week? Who is your bias?
KAYLA: Are you a boy band fan? Have you or someone you loved ever been affected by a boy group?
SARAH: By a boy band. Yeah. If you're a Seventeen fan and you don't already know my bias line, I really want to see if you can figure out who my son is and who the demon that I need to fight in the back alley is.
KAYLA: In the back alley?
SARAH: With the hint that that demon is married to my other bias wrecker. Legally married. Bound by the law.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: I’m just curious if anyone can conclude. What is our poll? Have you or a loved one?
KAYLA: Have you or a loved one?
SARAH: Should that be the actual poll?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Okay. Kayla, what's your beef and your juice for this week?
KAYLA: My beef is the general world around us.
SARAH: Yep.
KAYLA: It is really bad.
SARAH: Yep.
KAYLA: It is bad. My juice is that I am reading a book that is very good. And you might hear about it soon.
SARAH: Oh, that book?
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: I gotta read that book.
KAYLA: You should. It's very… we'll discuss it. We'll discuss perhaps soon. Very good. Very unsettling, but like in a good way.
SARAH: Oh, okay, tea. My beef is I have, you know when it feels like you have something stuck in your throat?
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
[00:50:00]
SARAH: A constant state of that for like three days.
KAYLA: Oh, that's nice.
SARAH: Won't go away. And I'm always like, “I got it.” And then I didn't.
KAYLA: Mm-mm
SARAH: I'm like, is this a tonsil stone? I don't think so. I think it's in my head.
KAYLA: Not down there.
SARAH: Yeah, exactly. I think it's… because it’s like right here. I think it's completely in my head. It's psychosomatic, which is a word I know from the BBC Sherlock pilot.
KAYLA: Wow.
SARAH: That's my beef. My other beef is that I don't have enough iron in my body, but when I try and give my body more iron, it voms.
KAYLA: You're allergic to iron?
SARAH: I don't think that's it. The crazy thing about the like iron that you need in your body is the same shit as like iron in a hammer.
KAYLA: Flakes.
SARAH: Same shit. Same fucking shit.
KAYLA: You could just like take a block of iron and like shave some off and like eat it.
SARAH: I would probably puke immediately.
KAYLA: I mean, yeah, it seems that way, but.
SARAH: My juice. I had a juice, what was it? Oh, my juice is that… I don't know. This is not a juice; I have started doing the Stair Machine at the gym.
KAYLA: That's very brave.
SARAH: That is the devil's fucking machine.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: But once you like are going… like once you pass five minutes, you can keep going.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: But I also do it pretty slowly. And I do the thing where I do three steps very fast and then I wait for it to lower me down.
KAYLA: Oh, interesting
SARAH: And then I do three steps very fast and then I… because I don't have cardio skills.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Anyway, that wasn't juice. Whatever. Okay. I got some trash cookies and I've been eating two a day, which is not what you're supposed to do.
KAYLA: Well, you know.
SARAH: I already had my two today. Will I have another? Only time will tell.
KAYLA: Who is to say?
SARAH: You can tell us about your beef, your juice… Oh, I got Jin tickets. Cool. On our social media, @soundsfakepod. You can also tell us about who your bias is in everything, including girl groups, I want to know who your girl group biases are. Social media, @soundsfakepod. We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod, if you want to support us there and if you are a $5 patron or above, you can get episodes early, sometimes.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: Sometimes it's like a full day early, which is what it's supposed to be. Sometimes it's like 12 hours.
KAYLA: 10
SARAH: 10 hours, but it is early, so, jot that down. Our $5 patrons who we are promoting this week are Mary S, Mel McMeans, Meredith, Morgan I, and Philip Rueker. I said Alma last week, right?
KAYLA: I could not possibly say.
SARAH: Well, just in case, Alma, new. Alma? Elma. Thank you.
KAYLA: Yay
SARAH: Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are Alastor, who would like to promote the podcast ‘Shadows and Shenanigans.’ Ani, who would like to promote the importance of being kind to yourself and others. Arcnes, who would like to promote the Trevor Project. Benjamin Ybarra, who would like to promote Tabletop Games, and Clare Olsen, who would like to promote @Impact_Frame. Our other $10 patrons are Derick and Carissa, Elle Bitter, Eric, my aunt Jeannie, Kayla's Dad, Maff, Martin Chiesl, Purple Hayes, Barefoot Backpacker, SongOStorm, and Val. Our $15 patrons are Ace, who would like to promote the writer Crystal Scherer, Andrew… nope. Sometimes, the instinct kicks in, and I start to say a name of someone who is no longer a patron.
KAYLA: Mm, that'll get ya.
SARAH: Nathaniel White, nathanieljwhitedesigns.com, Kayla's aunt Nina, who would like to promote katemaggartart.com, and Schnell, who would like to promote accepting that everyone is different and that's awesome. Our $20 patrons are Dragonfly, Dr. Jacki, my mom, and River, who would like to promote Sarah is going to start editing the podcast today.
KAYLA: Yay!
SARAH: Today! She's going to do it today! She's very brave. Thanks for listening, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears. You could also put boy bands in your ears, and I hope you do.
KAYLA: Uh-huh. Until then, take good care of your cows.
SARAH: Play them boy band music.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]