counting at war (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kerpingtack) wrote2017-04-11 12:44 pm
kerpingtack) wrote2017-04-11 12:44 pm
Entry tags:
SHINee till the end
FEELING TEN MILLION FEELINGS after finally watching this "8 Years With SHINee" fanvid, made for last year's anniversary
shinee all got really emotional at swc3 (2014), tokyo dome (2015), and swc4 (2015). thanking the fans, thanking the members.
i feel kinda like... they must, in some way, feel like they're on a precipice at all times. it's harrowing enough to see groups disbanding and imploding all over the place from a fan's perspective; how much more intense could it be as an idol in the industry - especially for shinee, who are one of the very very few groups from their cohort (let's say 2007 - 2010) that are totally intact, and who are definitely like... the ONLY active group in their company without any lineup changes.
idk if i'm just projecting, but i get the sense that shinee thinks that this is crazy too, and they're constantly grateful. and realistic, to the point of being absurdly humble. (ex: key, jonghyun, and minho all saying that they were lacking and/or weren't sure they deserved their daesang win in 2013. taemin to the fans @ swc4: "even if you happen to support/like other people, i hope that you'll still watch over us." and he was really heartfelt about it, he couldn't say it all at once.)
idkkkk. i just imagine the pressure that everyone in the industry must feel, how many compromises you'd have to make, how hard it must be know what you really want when you're so young and controlled by so many different people.
this thread from the kpop subreddit has been kicking around in my head since i read it a couple of weeks ago, particularly this comment: "Sometimes I wonder if SHINee is literally treated better? That doesn't really make much sense to me, but maybe?" bc i've wondered that too.
but then i think of that behind-the-scenes video of jjong being groped at SNL korea, not to the extent that infinite and b1a4 were, but it was also during his solo She Is promos - i.e., not his first SNL appearance, and obviously he was an established idol at the time. so it's just like - what we don't see, we don't see.
not saying that i believe SM is "slave labor abusive!!11," bc i don't, but given how disciplined shinee are, and how relatively prone to... self-effacement? always feeling "lacking"? idk... well, given that, i can see them being forced or reallllly pressured to work while injured and all of that. they just haven't said anything about it, or showed it. and they have definitely been plain overworked since they debuted in japan, imo.
what's my point here? it's just to say that i don't think SHINee have been objectively exempt from the pressures that other groups have experienced that led to intergroup/intercompany drama or tensions. (though a. within the idol world at large, it helps that they're from SM and have all the protection that entails, and b. within SM, it helps that they've always been a niche group, instead of something meant to dominate the mainstream.)
my best guess at how they've been able to stay together like this is literally that they've made it priority to stay together. like the members, particularly jjong and Key, have said: they think of each other as coworkers. people still get soooo touchy about this lmao. like even to this day, i recently saw long-ass comments "proving" that the members were close and friends with each other to refute the "shinee are coworkers" thing.
but it's not that they think of each other as ONLY coworkers; it's just that they are coworkers first. this isn't a distinction about boundaries so much as it is about priorities, i think. emphasizing that helps tamp down the myth of "unbreakable bonds" within groups, but ~paradoxically~, i think it makes it more likely that the group will stay together. bc it's about putting the GROUP as a unit first, ahead of any individual relationships or individual ambitions. shinee are all sensible/pragmatic (onjongkeyho), or at least savvy about their ambitions (tarmin lol). i think they recognize that they can go farther as a group than they could separately, that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and that the whole is a qualitatively different entity than just a collection of five people. ultra-SHINee transformation!!!
like, jjong's statements about his solo work shows that he doesn't think of it as a zero sum game against SHINee. ("My music can be divided largely into two; work that I do for personal interest and work with a purpose of wanting to create a certain image to the general public. Both are meaningful but for solo I think it’s only correct to show focusing on the former. I didn’t want to create another view of SHINee.") his solo stuff is an opportunity to express a side of himself that's different from SHINee, but it's not like one is false and the other is true. imo I think he considers both of them necessary to his development as an artist.
also, i think by now, any reservations about being close or awkwardness btwn any of the members have really dissolved. the more i think about it, the more i like that they still say "co-workers" though (i mean, at least jjong and Key as of SHINee's Happy Together appearance on 161027). i think it's healthy that they put each other in a separate, special "existence" from other people in their lives, bc their job is SO time-consuming and all encompassing, you need a word for the only other people who are there with you during it all and who understand what it's like. it kind of reflects the amount of respect they have for their group/career/each other. and it's a term that they get to define themselves and put their own expectations on.
"co-workers" meaning: people who value the same things in this highly uncertain, intense life path that you've all chosen, who have the same incredible work ethic you do, who are committed to the music, performance, and fans the way you are; people for whom you care deeply, for whom you're grateful, who you've known for years and years and years, who you've seen grown up and who have seen you grow up, who you love.
[placeholder thoughts: "No one can do this better than you." ; professionalism ; patience ; relationships beyond identity/family]
shinee all got really emotional at swc3 (2014), tokyo dome (2015), and swc4 (2015). thanking the fans, thanking the members.
i feel kinda like... they must, in some way, feel like they're on a precipice at all times. it's harrowing enough to see groups disbanding and imploding all over the place from a fan's perspective; how much more intense could it be as an idol in the industry - especially for shinee, who are one of the very very few groups from their cohort (let's say 2007 - 2010) that are totally intact, and who are definitely like... the ONLY active group in their company without any lineup changes.
idk if i'm just projecting, but i get the sense that shinee thinks that this is crazy too, and they're constantly grateful. and realistic, to the point of being absurdly humble. (ex: key, jonghyun, and minho all saying that they were lacking and/or weren't sure they deserved their daesang win in 2013. taemin to the fans @ swc4: "even if you happen to support/like other people, i hope that you'll still watch over us." and he was really heartfelt about it, he couldn't say it all at once.)
idkkkk. i just imagine the pressure that everyone in the industry must feel, how many compromises you'd have to make, how hard it must be know what you really want when you're so young and controlled by so many different people.
this thread from the kpop subreddit has been kicking around in my head since i read it a couple of weeks ago, particularly this comment: "Sometimes I wonder if SHINee is literally treated better? That doesn't really make much sense to me, but maybe?" bc i've wondered that too.
but then i think of that behind-the-scenes video of jjong being groped at SNL korea, not to the extent that infinite and b1a4 were, but it was also during his solo She Is promos - i.e., not his first SNL appearance, and obviously he was an established idol at the time. so it's just like - what we don't see, we don't see.
not saying that i believe SM is "slave labor abusive!!11," bc i don't, but given how disciplined shinee are, and how relatively prone to... self-effacement? always feeling "lacking"? idk... well, given that, i can see them being forced or reallllly pressured to work while injured and all of that. they just haven't said anything about it, or showed it. and they have definitely been plain overworked since they debuted in japan, imo.
what's my point here? it's just to say that i don't think SHINee have been objectively exempt from the pressures that other groups have experienced that led to intergroup/intercompany drama or tensions. (though a. within the idol world at large, it helps that they're from SM and have all the protection that entails, and b. within SM, it helps that they've always been a niche group, instead of something meant to dominate the mainstream.)
my best guess at how they've been able to stay together like this is literally that they've made it priority to stay together. like the members, particularly jjong and Key, have said: they think of each other as coworkers. people still get soooo touchy about this lmao. like even to this day, i recently saw long-ass comments "proving" that the members were close and friends with each other to refute the "shinee are coworkers" thing.
but it's not that they think of each other as ONLY coworkers; it's just that they are coworkers first. this isn't a distinction about boundaries so much as it is about priorities, i think. emphasizing that helps tamp down the myth of "unbreakable bonds" within groups, but ~paradoxically~, i think it makes it more likely that the group will stay together. bc it's about putting the GROUP as a unit first, ahead of any individual relationships or individual ambitions. shinee are all sensible/pragmatic (onjongkeyho), or at least savvy about their ambitions (tarmin lol). i think they recognize that they can go farther as a group than they could separately, that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and that the whole is a qualitatively different entity than just a collection of five people. ultra-SHINee transformation!!!
like, jjong's statements about his solo work shows that he doesn't think of it as a zero sum game against SHINee. ("My music can be divided largely into two; work that I do for personal interest and work with a purpose of wanting to create a certain image to the general public. Both are meaningful but for solo I think it’s only correct to show focusing on the former. I didn’t want to create another view of SHINee.") his solo stuff is an opportunity to express a side of himself that's different from SHINee, but it's not like one is false and the other is true. imo I think he considers both of them necessary to his development as an artist.
also, i think by now, any reservations about being close or awkwardness btwn any of the members have really dissolved. the more i think about it, the more i like that they still say "co-workers" though (i mean, at least jjong and Key as of SHINee's Happy Together appearance on 161027). i think it's healthy that they put each other in a separate, special "existence" from other people in their lives, bc their job is SO time-consuming and all encompassing, you need a word for the only other people who are there with you during it all and who understand what it's like. it kind of reflects the amount of respect they have for their group/career/each other. and it's a term that they get to define themselves and put their own expectations on.
"co-workers" meaning: people who value the same things in this highly uncertain, intense life path that you've all chosen, who have the same incredible work ethic you do, who are committed to the music, performance, and fans the way you are; people for whom you care deeply, for whom you're grateful, who you've known for years and years and years, who you've seen grown up and who have seen you grow up, who you love.
[placeholder thoughts: "No one can do this better than you." ; professionalism ; patience ; relationships beyond identity/family]