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@ojou dance *moves* or *movies*? Not sure if that's a typo

have you seen Yibo's dance movie *One and Only*? I don't know if it's available anywhere for streaming, alas. https://click.justwatch.com/a?uct_web_app_version=3.8.2-webapp%233b1044f&r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.justwatch.com%2Fau%2Fmovie%2Fre-lie&cx=eyJzY2hlbWEiOiJpZ2x1OmNvbS5zbm93cGxvd2FuYWx5dGljcy5zbm93cGxvdy9jb250ZXh0cy9qc29uc2NoZW1hLzEtMC0wIiwiZGF0YSI6W3sic2NoZW1hIjoiaWdsdTpjb20uanVzdHdhdGNoL3RpdGxlX2NvbnRleHQvanNvbnNjaGVtYS8xLTEtMCIsImRhdGEiOnsidGl0bGVJZCI6MTM1NTYzOCwib2JqZWN0VHlwZSI6Im1vdmllIiwiandFbnRpdHlJZCI6InRtMTM1NTYzOCJ9fV19&utm_source=share&utm_medium=web

My fave Yibo dance:
https://youtu.be/oI7Ejv33fiw

Not sure who snk boys are, maybe autocorrect didn't like "skz" (stray kids)?

Some skz dance faves:

Red Lights
https://youtu.be/k8Y6ZTjmCXs
(just 2 of them)

...

@lookitmychicken haha I did mean dance moves, weird typo, was probably thinking of music videos

also hot damn WYB really does have moves. lol imagining when LWJ had time to learn how to breakdance. you get bored during the cloud recesses...

also damn that SNK video is next level homoerotic bless them!!!

@ojou to be fair to them, stray kids have a pretty high baseline level of homoeroticism. I didn't really register that one as much gayer than their usual work, although it was a big leap forward for them in terms of kinkiness & overt sexiness

@lookitmychicken haha fair, this is my first exposure to stray kids. historically my main exposure to kpop was the sort of 2010-2015 era of stuff (super junior, shinee, aoa, 2ne1, miss a, etc etc) so this is a level of homoeroticism I didn't realize korean idol culture was down with :D

@ojou
I'm not sure if Korean idol culture is down with it, more generally speaking. I think most queer idols are still closeted.

I've been told that stray kids can get away with a bit more than average, in part because they're not as big domestically as they are internationally. The domestic audiences can be less forgiving of openly queer idols, I think??

But this is a second-hand assessment. I don't have a broad enough understanding of K-pop to assess it for myself

@ojou also stray kids seem to have a lot more artistic freedom than most other idol groups. (Similar to BTS in that respect maybe?)

Nearly all their songs are ones they've written & produced themselves, & it seems that they have a strong influence on what reality tv stuff they make.

Of course they're still part of a big K-pop agency & don't have total freedom.

I'll be interested to see what they do next year when their contracts expire. Go for more freedom or keep the agency security?

@lookitmychicken oh interesting! Yeah it'd be interesting to hear from someone who knows the Korean side of things. But very interesting about the contracts...

@lookitmychicken also, how did you first discover/get into stray kids, if you care to share?

@ojou
I listened to a lot of kpop already, thanks to my kid who has been deep in the kpop trenches for about ten years

(They're mostly into girl groups, and their first love is BTS, which is why I'm forbidden from perceiving BTS too closely, even though I like their music a lot.)

I started listening to more K-pop when kiddo showed me some things they suspected I'd like (namely, Taemin, BIGBANG, Vixx). Then Spotify suggested other things it thought I might like.

@ojou started noticing stray kids music in 2019, thanks to Spotify suggesting more of their tracks.

Asked kiddo about them, and was told they were put together by an agency on a survival show.

I wasn't especially interested in their backstories cos I hadn't watched the survival show.

I kept noticing more of their songs and gradually realised that most of my fave kpop tracks were by stray kids.

Made a mental note to find out who wrote & produced their songs, so I could find more like them

@ojou but like most mental notes, I didn't do anything about it

Occasionally kiddo shows me kpop videos, funny interviews & suchlike. They showed me a few compilations of the 2 Aussies in skz being Aussies, and I thought they were cute & funny.

Finally, early this year, I got around to investigating who writes & produces most of their songs. And ... it's them. And they write and produce a LOT of songs.

@ojou So then I had to know more about them as people.

I watched a bunch more videos.

I watched EXchange Island, which is a reality show they did where they all pretended to be each other's ex-boyfriends looking for a new love, or possibly rekindle the past love.

I went WHAT THE FUCK, THIS IS A BIT GAY ACTUALLY, WHAT IS GOING ON

I found a fansubbed version of the original survival show. It was nothing like I expected.

@lookitmychicken

> here they all pretended to be each other's ex-boyfriends looking for a new love, or possibly rekindle the past love.

THIS is when I did a double take while reading this. WHAT?! lmao this is real???!! absolutely wild! what?! haha

@ojou i also did all the double takes when I first watched it. I knew that there was fanservice in kpop, but I didn't know it had reached that level.

Not expecting you to actually watch it, but if you have time and curiosity, here's the first of 2 40-minute episodes:

https://youtu.be/IE6DvqpzLAg