It is weird to see, cuz at least in terms of artistry i’d argue this is the last place you wanna look for acceptance. Our music industry, our film industry, there’s tons of negative stigma around it cuz we take good things/ideas and burn em out till no one is interested in it anymore (15 season tv shows vs 1 epic Kdrama season) or we make the most cookie cutter safe trendy versions of music we can, or we just dilute stuff with money and marketing and overtly sexual sounds/visuals. I’ve watched it happen with underground electronic music, with esports, film, etc and sadly i’m seeing it start to unfold in Kpop it seems.

Bit of a bummer, seems like everything goes this way eventually (the money beckons I guess) but I was hoping it’d hold out longer cuz I just got into it a few years ago. Also…idk maybe it’s just me but seems like most people got into kpop cuz it didn’t sound like every other western artist.