much ado about chois
Jul. 26th, 2010 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elapsesThis weekend I got tongue-raped by some dude at Vivian's cabin party? I mean I could tell he was into me (everyone could tell, Vivian asked me if I was okay with being hit on and offered to make him stop and she was REALLY DRUNK, so the fact that she noticed is monumental, but like a fool I said no because he seemed pretty harmless and fly-like) but I really did not expect the night to end with him CLIMBING DOWN ONTO MY BUNK BED AND JAMMING HIS TONGUE DOWN MY THROAT WITH NO WARNING. Why would he think that was okay!?!!!?!? Why would anyone think that was okay? HE LEGITIMATELY DIDN'T SEEM DRUNK ENOUGH TO BE THAT STUPID. I was definitely, definitely not drunk enough for it not to be life-scarring, oh god I keep having these moments where I'll be like, at Starbucks or in the library and I will just THINK ABOUT IT and cringe. Ew ew ew ew.
I bought the most magnificent notebook at the school bookstore, it looks like this and it is everything I would ever want in a notebook, except that it's... $4.50. WHAT IS THAT, even. I was thinking I'd google and find it cheaply in bulk and live happily ever after but uh. NOT SO MUCH. I think I was posting this in hope that one of you is a secret office supply geek and knew a secret that I do not, but I also doubt anyone can help me. Luckily I often enjoy fruitless whining almost as much as fruitful whining.
Anyway maybe my weird ladyboner for office supplies is a more natural segue than I would've thought into... this. This which is actually the nerdiest thing I have ever posted on livejournal. Hands down. I think most of you can recognize how monumental a thing that is, I..... am pretty dweeby! This... is pretty dweeby.
I don't know that it's really difficult to figure out that every single SM Entertainment band has a commonality: members surnamed Choi who are really tall and really conventionally attractive. It's kind of hilariously coincidental that the members who were clearly valued for their ~*good looks*~ over their talent all have the same family name (especially since that name is not Lee or Park or Kim). But oh god at some point the amount of energy![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goldenmelisande and I have spent determining the rules of CHOINESS and how well the Chois fit them (RIGHT NOW WE'RE INVESTIGATING OBSESSIVE LOVE OF FOOD AS A POTENTIAL CHOI TRAIT) just got... really weird. There were sliding scales, pseudo-Chois and anti-Chois, all sorts of criterions that you must fulfill in order to be ~*qualified*~. And then... this post happened. See it kind of goes like this:
goldenmelisande: omg sulli
is pure choi
elapses: I KNOW OMG
she might actually be the purest specimen
goldenmelisande: yes
completely useless
prettiest girl in the entire world
a budding giantess
adorable eyebrows
dumb as shit
♥__________________________♥
Except sometimes it's about Minho or Siwon or Sooyoung or whoever, IT IS A THING, we revel in their towering talentless beauty. And then our bizarro obsession came to even more of a head a head when we saw one of the dudes from DBSK (the SM band we don't care about) in this video with his name written as "Choi Gang Chang Min". I DON'T THINK HIS NAME IS ACTUALLY CHOI, because apparently he has a lot of names for no reason, and the Choi Gang(/Kang, Korea doesn't like to distinguish between voiced and voiceless plosives, but aspiration and tenseness are contrastive which makes for two totally opposite sound systems which makes for really weird/constantly changing romanizations) part appears to be the least useful of all of them:
Name: 최강창민 / Choi Kang Chang Min
Japanese Name: チャンミン (Changmin)
Also known as: Max
Real name: 심창민 / Shim Chang Min
BUT IN THE END IT DOESN'T MATTER, because whether or not he was born a Choi the advent that he was in some way a Choi could only end in me googling every possible way I could think to phrase "least talented member of DBSK" to see where he fit on the other scales of Choiness. And as soon as I was there I was here, finding ways to express Choiness with scales and diagrams and mathematical algorithms. Why am I this way.
ANYWAY
Part I: ~*BEAUTY*~
THESE ARE OUR SUSPECTS:
Choi Sooyoung, SNSD
Sooyoung is in a really pretty band full of pretty girls, but they all think Sooyoung is the prettiest.
Choi Sulli, f(x)
Sulli's face is actually perfect (with or without makeup), and she knows no awkward phases. Although sometimes she looks exactly like Minho and that's a little awkward.
Choi Minho, SHINee
Choi Siwon, Super Junior
~BLUE STEEL~
Kind of a Choi Changmin, DBSK
BASICALLY THEY ARE ALL PRETTY PEOPLE, full Choi marks for everyone on this one.
Part II: Height
You would think height would be really, really simple. IT IS NOT AMONG KOREAN IDOLS. The heights on their official debut profiles are almost always fictional/exaggerated, so you can never quite tell how much taller everyone really is. Also sometimes they debut really young and keep growing. Not to mention heels for the girls and shoelifts for the dudes are constantly being made use of, it's especially complicated with the dudes because HOW CAN YOU EVEN TELL WHEN SHOELIFTS ARE BEING USED. And then you have photoshop and all of the sudden teeny tiny Ryeowook is BASICALLY THE SAME HEIGHT as Zhou Mi the friendly giant. (Super Junior M is the FUCKING WORST re: height shenanigans, this video still confuses me, WHY IS ZHOU MI SO SHORT AND WHY IS HENRY SO TALL?!?!) ANYWAY IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO VISUALLY SHOW HOW TALL THE CHOIS REALLY ARE, but I have done my best.
I also really like the verb to tower. I apologize in advance for that.
Choi Sooyoung, SNSD
You can fairly well tell, just by looking at Sooyoung, that she is a monstrous creature.
But if you're a doubting Thomas, here is further evidence:
Sooyoung is so tall it's pretty much an ongoing joke.
Choi Sulli, f(x)
In the beginning of f(x) (last September), Sulli was not a towering monster. But, since she istwelve sixteen, she shot up like a beanpole and now the f(x) stylists are going to spend their lives compensating for how much taller she is than the rest of them.
I love this fancam of Sulli at a Super Junior encore for many reasons, but partly because it compares her height to Suju and she is almost as tall as them (and taller than Ryeowook, but everyone is taller than Ryeowook). Furthermore they could have shoelift shenanigans going on, who knows, but Sulli was definitely not wearing heels during the Nu ABO performance that day.
Sulli is a Choi, towering over her bandmates with or without heels is pretty much her job, you know how it goes. There are legit articles about her "embarrassing" male idols with her height (although lol Korean entertainment reporters' idea of a "legit" article).
Choi Minho, SHINee
Minho's function in SHINee is basically making the others look eight so that they match him and his stupid faces.
According to ~*very reliable sources*~ he has grown over the course of their promotions and is possibly still growing. I uh, have no idea how old these pictures are and whether they're from 2008 or 2009 or 2010. These are pretty recent and he's way taller than Shindong, BUT I'M NOT SURE I CARE ENOUGH TO RESEARCH THIS PROPERLY. Here is a tardface for your time:
In any case he is very tall but not so much taller that his Choiometer is completely full for this.
Choi Siwon, Super Junior
Super Junior is a mass of secret shorties and falsely reported heights and shoelifts and it ends up being legitimately impossible to tell who is really taller than whom, but one thing is set in stone: Siwon is the tallest one.
Although for whatever reason in that picture Kyuhyun looks to be approximately the same height-- this is not the case. Siwon is definitely taller.
In the end though, he loses some points, because although he is taller than all the other twelve members of Super Junior, he is not taller than all the other members of Super Junior M. That honor would go to Zhou Mi:
So in the end,
Kind of a Choi Changmin, DBSK
Google claims Pseudochoi is the tallest member of DBSK. I am inclined to buy this:
He does not totally appear to be towering over anyone but BoA there, but I assure you sometimes he towers.
Pointy Chin is also really tall, but apparently Pseudochoi is still growing/was still growing in the last couple of years, so now Pointy Chin has to wear heels to be up there. I say "up there" because in this (really boring) video he's measured as being 190 cm, which is 6'2.8" for usplebians Americans. SO, Y, REALLY REALLY TALL.
Also Donghae is deeeeefinitely wearing shoelifts here because no way he is that close to Minho's height but aw, Minho is jealous of Changmin's towerin' powerin'.
Part III: We Don't Like Talent Here
Choi Sooyoung, SNSD
I............. really don't want to talk about why I am a person who spent actual time coming up with math to determine how talented a person is within their band. I don't really want to think about it, actually. BUT THE FACT IS I DID, SO. This is a sketch of the talent math I did for SNSD, you can see it is based on a ~*scientifically determined*~ ranking of the members abilities to dance and sing that they get points from (the number of members being the number of "points possible", so Hyoyeon got 9 points for dancing, Yuri got 8, Sooyoung got 7, etc). Singing is weighted double because Yuri was way too high when it wasn't, and as much as I am a Yuri stan that... is not right. Also these bands make music! SO SINGING IS IMPORTANT. But then Hyoyeon and Seohyun were way too low, so we created the best bonus (5 extra points if you are the best singer or dancer in bands with 9-13 members, 2 extra in bands with 5-7) and the double threat bonus(2 extra points if you can sing and dance well in the bigger bands, 1 extra in the smaller bands). Then the total number of points is divided by the highest-scoring member's number of points and you have your talent rate! VOILA!
ANYWAY YOU CAN SKIP AHEAD NOW, I am done talking about the basis for my completely ridiculous and still mostly inaccurate mathematical formula. Basically Sooyoung was determined to be 50% talented, which is pretty high for a Choi but she is also fairly talented for a Choi. Girl can dance. And I actually really like her voice, even though she's somewhat weak/inconsistent live.
Choi Sulli, f(x)
Poor Sulli has the misfortune of being in a band with Luna, who is so teeny and talented that she represents anti-Chois on the Choiometer. If talent math was divided by the points possible (disregarding bonuses) rather than the highest points achieved, Luna would actually be more than 100% talented. LUNA IS FLAWLESS. I HEAR HER HAIR'S INSURED FOR $10000.
Anyway point being, in actual land Sulli isn't really any less talented than most of the other Chois, but her score is still the lowest because Luna exists. The other thing is that she actually isn't bad at dancing, it's just that all of f(x) is good at dancing. But sometimes that is the way the cookie crumbles, and my very scientific formula has determined Sulli to be 18% talented.
Choi Minho, SHINee
I am unfamiliar enough with the ways of SHINee that I had to ask![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
omonatheydidnt to help me with the rankings, and uh... we all know omona can be a little crazy. I FEEL LIKE THEY ARE STILL RIGHT, BUT JUST PUTTING THAT OUT THERE. Anyway Minho is 28% talented.
Choi Siwon, Super Junior
I knew, going in, that the Super Junior math would get complicated. I thought we'd probably have to scale it, because Super Junior is kind of the most untalented band. WE WOULD SAY THAT THEY WERE A CHOI IN BAND FORM, except they are not nearly tall or pretty enough. Definitely dumb and untalented enough though! Even the members of Super Junior who are actually talented in either dancing or singing are usually hilariously inadequate at the other thing. IT'S FUNNY HEARING ABOUT THE BANDS THEY MEANT TO CREATE WITH SUPER JUNIOR MEMBERS AND DBSK MEMBERS, because it makes it seem like they scrapped those plans and made a ~*super talented*~ band of double threats and then put all the others in Super Junior. God bless Suju, they are so lame. But anyway because of that I did Suju M math first, where he ended up with a whopping 52% talent rate until Catherine helped me invent the Suju bonus for those that are the opposite of a double threat -- if you are neither particularly good at singing nor particularly good at dancing, MINUS 2 POINTS. This dragged him down to 42%. In regular Suju he was 36% talented. I... don't know. I guess I am okay with that number, Siwon is Mr. Average. It is rare that he sings or dances in a way that you notice him being bad at it, because he is super earnest and tries really really hard. HE'S JUST A LITTLE BIT LAME, YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES.
Also I wanted to note, re: the rankings, not that anyone aside from me cares, that Ryeowook and Kyuhyun are "tied" as best singer in both bands, and both according received full points and bonuses. Kyuhyun's dancing was especially complicated to rank, because he was awful, and then Bonamana happened and he was actually pretty good, but it's like as soon as he had proved that he could be DanceKyu, being good at dancing was way too much effort for him/cut into his gaming time time way too much, because in every performance of No Other you can see him the whole time, in the back, with very little idea of what he's doing. And then this weekend the bad dancing bled into Bonamana, so god who even knows. Maybe he really did sell his soul to the devil for dancing talent and ~*hotness*~ for duration of Bonamana performances and now he has bought it back, the evidence for that theory is mounting. In any case he has never proven himself as anything but a dancing black hole in Super Junior M, and his scores there reflected that. I... barely knew where to put him in regular Suju though.
Kind of a Choi Changmin, DBSK
My familiarity with DBSK is clearly off the charts, most of that information was googled for. And quite possibly biased, we didn't want him to be extremely talented :( The 52% feels a little false, BUT FUCK IT, I'll take it.
Part IV: The Choi Brow Wow Eyebrows-For-Emotion Acting School
Choi Sooyoung, SNSD
I like to think that the problem with Sooyoung is not that she is not achieving her duties as a Choi eyebrow-wise so much as it's that we can never properly see her eyebrows, because of the bangs. She is subtler than some Chois, but her brows can definitely be expressive.
Choi Sulli, f(x)
Our Sulli is a model student.
Choi Minho, SHINee
If Minho can graduate anything, it's the eyebrows for emotion school. He's got this covered, y'all.
Choi Siwon, Super Junior
Siwon's eyebrows are magnificent, ART IN ITS' PUREST FORM. He makes all the other Chois look like eyebrow amateurs. EYEBROW INFANTS, EVEN. Entire advertising campaigns have been based around their beauty. He cannot go two seconds without moving them in some delightful way or another. His eyebrows are more than the Choiometer can handle, tbqh.
Kind of a Choi Changmin, DBSK
I FIND HIM SO ADORABLE, I cannot even. And his eyebrows display surprising mobility!
Part V: Stupid and Earnest
It is pretty much impossible to quantify the intelligence levels of people you don't know, especially in a visible way. SO WE TURNED THIS INTO A STUPID FACE COMPETITION? BECAUSE THAT'S FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY?
Choi Sooyoung, SNSD
The thing about Sooyoung is that she is not dumb. By any stretch. It's hard to qualify calling anyone the "smartest" member of any group, but she is definitely the wittiest member of her group, which you can't do without brains. EGADS SOOYOUNG YOU ARE ALREADY PUSHING THE TALENTLESS THING, work with us a little here, what is wrong with you. Actually she totally does make dumb faces though, I suppose that is something one might consider as working with us.
Sort of.
Choi Sulli, f(x)
The problem with Sulli is that she is so completely pretty that most of her stupid faces faces are cancelled out by her perfect face. LUCKILY SHE IS A CHOI, SOMETIMES NOTHING CAN COMPENSATE.
Choi Minho, SHINee
You really don't have to do more than look at a couple of pictures of Minho to figure out he is a grade A dimwit. Cases in point:
GOD HE IS UNQUESTIONABLY THE BEST PART OF SHINEE, thinking clearly takes so much effort for him.
Choi Siwon, Super Junior
Because Siwon likes to make things easier for us, he keeps a twitter! That is basically entirely made up of stupid faces and hilarious but surprisingly adept attempts at English.
Jesus faces.
:D? :D? :D?
Omg I just, WHAT A DUMPKISS
Kind of a Choi Changmin, DBSK
Honestly, putting this whole thing together has fully convinced me that he is a pretty pure Choi speciment, talent or no talent. Although apparently he is more snarky than actually stupid? BUT HE TOTALLY KNOWS HOW TO TARDFACE LIKE A TRUE CHOI :')
T.O.P. of Big Bang may not be part of the same SM ~*family*~ and therefore could not go through the same extensive testing, but his real name is Choi Seung-hyun, and he is totally their cousin, by way of eyebrow overaction, slowness of thought, apparent conventional attractiveness (idk I find him weird looking but Korea says he's ~*beautiful*~). He also sucks at dancing! Not even his cousin Choiness could bring up the average height of Big Bang though.
Anyway that... is all.goldenmelisande helped with a lot of this, if you couldn't tell by all the pretty parts and the fact that I couldn't stop saying "we". I definitely take full responsibility for the really disgusting parts, though. Like... the math.
I bought the most magnificent notebook at the school bookstore, it looks like this and it is everything I would ever want in a notebook, except that it's... $4.50. WHAT IS THAT, even. I was thinking I'd google and find it cheaply in bulk and live happily ever after but uh. NOT SO MUCH. I think I was posting this in hope that one of you is a secret office supply geek and knew a secret that I do not, but I also doubt anyone can help me. Luckily I often enjoy fruitless whining almost as much as fruitful whining.
Anyway maybe my weird ladyboner for office supplies is a more natural segue than I would've thought into... this. This which is actually the nerdiest thing I have ever posted on livejournal. Hands down. I think most of you can recognize how monumental a thing that is, I..... am pretty dweeby! This... is pretty dweeby.
I don't know that it's really difficult to figure out that every single SM Entertainment band has a commonality: members surnamed Choi who are really tall and really conventionally attractive. It's kind of hilariously coincidental that the members who were clearly valued for their ~*good looks*~ over their talent all have the same family name (especially since that name is not Lee or Park or Kim). But oh god at some point the amount of energy
goldenmelisande and I have spent determining the rules of CHOINESS and how well the Chois fit them (RIGHT NOW WE'RE INVESTIGATING OBSESSIVE LOVE OF FOOD AS A POTENTIAL CHOI TRAIT) just got... really weird. There were sliding scales, pseudo-Chois and anti-Chois, all sorts of criterions that you must fulfill in order to be ~*qualified*~. And then... this post happened. See it kind of goes like this:goldenmelisande: omg sulliis pure choi
elapses: I KNOW OMGshe might actually be the purest specimen
goldenmelisande: yescompletely useless
prettiest girl in the entire world
a budding giantess
adorable eyebrows
dumb as shit
♥__________________________♥
Except sometimes it's about Minho or Siwon or Sooyoung or whoever, IT IS A THING, we revel in their towering talentless beauty. And then our bizarro obsession came to even more of a head a head when we saw one of the dudes from DBSK (the SM band we don't care about) in this video with his name written as "Choi Gang Chang Min". I DON'T THINK HIS NAME IS ACTUALLY CHOI, because apparently he has a lot of names for no reason, and the Choi Gang(/Kang, Korea doesn't like to distinguish between voiced and voiceless plosives, but aspiration and tenseness are contrastive which makes for two totally opposite sound systems which makes for really weird/constantly changing romanizations) part appears to be the least useful of all of them:
Name: 최강창민 / Choi Kang Chang Min
Japanese Name: チャンミン (Changmin)
Also known as: Max
Real name: 심창민 / Shim Chang Min
BUT IN THE END IT DOESN'T MATTER, because whether or not he was born a Choi the advent that he was in some way a Choi could only end in me googling every possible way I could think to phrase "least talented member of DBSK" to see where he fit on the other scales of Choiness. And as soon as I was there I was here, finding ways to express Choiness with scales and diagrams and mathematical algorithms. Why am I this way.
ANYWAY
Part I: ~*BEAUTY*~
THESE ARE OUR SUSPECTS:
Sooyoung is in a really pretty band full of pretty girls, but they all think Sooyoung is the prettiest.
Choi Sulli, f(x)
Sulli's face is actually perfect (with or without makeup), and she knows no awkward phases. Although sometimes she looks exactly like Minho and that's a little awkward.
Choi Minho, SHINee
Choi Siwon, Super Junior
~BLUE STEEL~
Kind of a Choi Changmin, DBSK
BASICALLY THEY ARE ALL PRETTY PEOPLE, full Choi marks for everyone on this one.
Part II: Height
You would think height would be really, really simple. IT IS NOT AMONG KOREAN IDOLS. The heights on their official debut profiles are almost always fictional/exaggerated, so you can never quite tell how much taller everyone really is. Also sometimes they debut really young and keep growing. Not to mention heels for the girls and shoelifts for the dudes are constantly being made use of, it's especially complicated with the dudes because HOW CAN YOU EVEN TELL WHEN SHOELIFTS ARE BEING USED. And then you have photoshop and all of the sudden teeny tiny Ryeowook is BASICALLY THE SAME HEIGHT as Zhou Mi the friendly giant. (Super Junior M is the FUCKING WORST re: height shenanigans, this video still confuses me, WHY IS ZHOU MI SO SHORT AND WHY IS HENRY SO TALL?!?!) ANYWAY IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO VISUALLY SHOW HOW TALL THE CHOIS REALLY ARE, but I have done my best.
I also really like the verb to tower. I apologize in advance for that.
Choi Sooyoung, SNSD
You can fairly well tell, just by looking at Sooyoung, that she is a monstrous creature.
But if you're a doubting Thomas, here is further evidence:
Sooyoung is so tall it's pretty much an ongoing joke.
Choi Sulli, f(x)
In the beginning of f(x) (last September), Sulli was not a towering monster. But, since she is
I love this fancam of Sulli at a Super Junior encore for many reasons, but partly because it compares her height to Suju and she is almost as tall as them (and taller than Ryeowook, but everyone is taller than Ryeowook). Furthermore they could have shoelift shenanigans going on, who knows, but Sulli was definitely not wearing heels during the Nu ABO performance that day.
Sulli is a Choi, towering over her bandmates with or without heels is pretty much her job, you know how it goes. There are legit articles about her "embarrassing" male idols with her height (although lol Korean entertainment reporters' idea of a "legit" article).
Choi Minho, SHINee
Minho's function in SHINee is basically making the others look eight so that they match him and his stupid faces.
According to ~*very reliable sources*~ he has grown over the course of their promotions and is possibly still growing. I uh, have no idea how old these pictures are and whether they're from 2008 or 2009 or 2010. These are pretty recent and he's way taller than Shindong, BUT I'M NOT SURE I CARE ENOUGH TO RESEARCH THIS PROPERLY. Here is a tardface for your time:
In any case he is very tall but not so much taller that his Choiometer is completely full for this.
Choi Siwon, Super Junior
Super Junior is a mass of secret shorties and falsely reported heights and shoelifts and it ends up being legitimately impossible to tell who is really taller than whom, but one thing is set in stone: Siwon is the tallest one.
Although for whatever reason in that picture Kyuhyun looks to be approximately the same height-- this is not the case. Siwon is definitely taller.
In the end though, he loses some points, because although he is taller than all the other twelve members of Super Junior, he is not taller than all the other members of Super Junior M. That honor would go to Zhou Mi:
So in the end,
Kind of a Choi Changmin, DBSK
Google claims Pseudochoi is the tallest member of DBSK. I am inclined to buy this:
He does not totally appear to be towering over anyone but BoA there, but I assure you sometimes he towers.
Pointy Chin is also really tall, but apparently Pseudochoi is still growing/was still growing in the last couple of years, so now Pointy Chin has to wear heels to be up there. I say "up there" because in this (really boring) video he's measured as being 190 cm, which is 6'2.8" for us
Also Donghae is deeeeefinitely wearing shoelifts here because no way he is that close to Minho's height but aw, Minho is jealous of Changmin's towerin' powerin'.
Part III: We Don't Like Talent Here
Choi Sooyoung, SNSD
I............. really don't want to talk about why I am a person who spent actual time coming up with math to determine how talented a person is within their band. I don't really want to think about it, actually. BUT THE FACT IS I DID, SO. This is a sketch of the talent math I did for SNSD, you can see it is based on a ~*scientifically determined*~ ranking of the members abilities to dance and sing that they get points from (the number of members being the number of "points possible", so Hyoyeon got 9 points for dancing, Yuri got 8, Sooyoung got 7, etc). Singing is weighted double because Yuri was way too high when it wasn't, and as much as I am a Yuri stan that... is not right. Also these bands make music! SO SINGING IS IMPORTANT. But then Hyoyeon and Seohyun were way too low, so we created the best bonus (5 extra points if you are the best singer or dancer in bands with 9-13 members, 2 extra in bands with 5-7) and the double threat bonus(2 extra points if you can sing and dance well in the bigger bands, 1 extra in the smaller bands). Then the total number of points is divided by the highest-scoring member's number of points and you have your talent rate! VOILA!
ANYWAY YOU CAN SKIP AHEAD NOW, I am done talking about the basis for my completely ridiculous and still mostly inaccurate mathematical formula. Basically Sooyoung was determined to be 50% talented, which is pretty high for a Choi but she is also fairly talented for a Choi. Girl can dance. And I actually really like her voice, even though she's somewhat weak/inconsistent live.
Choi Sulli, f(x)
Poor Sulli has the misfortune of being in a band with Luna, who is so teeny and talented that she represents anti-Chois on the Choiometer. If talent math was divided by the points possible (disregarding bonuses) rather than the highest points achieved, Luna would actually be more than 100% talented. LUNA IS FLAWLESS. I HEAR HER HAIR'S INSURED FOR $10000.
Anyway point being, in actual land Sulli isn't really any less talented than most of the other Chois, but her score is still the lowest because Luna exists. The other thing is that she actually isn't bad at dancing, it's just that all of f(x) is good at dancing. But sometimes that is the way the cookie crumbles, and my very scientific formula has determined Sulli to be 18% talented.
Choi Minho, SHINee
I am unfamiliar enough with the ways of SHINee that I had to ask
omonatheydidnt to help me with the rankings, and uh... we all know omona can be a little crazy. I FEEL LIKE THEY ARE STILL RIGHT, BUT JUST PUTTING THAT OUT THERE. Anyway Minho is 28% talented.Choi Siwon, Super Junior
I knew, going in, that the Super Junior math would get complicated. I thought we'd probably have to scale it, because Super Junior is kind of the most untalented band. WE WOULD SAY THAT THEY WERE A CHOI IN BAND FORM, except they are not nearly tall or pretty enough. Definitely dumb and untalented enough though! Even the members of Super Junior who are actually talented in either dancing or singing are usually hilariously inadequate at the other thing. IT'S FUNNY HEARING ABOUT THE BANDS THEY MEANT TO CREATE WITH SUPER JUNIOR MEMBERS AND DBSK MEMBERS, because it makes it seem like they scrapped those plans and made a ~*super talented*~ band of double threats and then put all the others in Super Junior. God bless Suju, they are so lame. But anyway because of that I did Suju M math first, where he ended up with a whopping 52% talent rate until Catherine helped me invent the Suju bonus for those that are the opposite of a double threat -- if you are neither particularly good at singing nor particularly good at dancing, MINUS 2 POINTS. This dragged him down to 42%. In regular Suju he was 36% talented. I... don't know. I guess I am okay with that number, Siwon is Mr. Average. It is rare that he sings or dances in a way that you notice him being bad at it, because he is super earnest and tries really really hard. HE'S JUST A LITTLE BIT LAME, YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES.
Also I wanted to note, re: the rankings, not that anyone aside from me cares, that Ryeowook and Kyuhyun are "tied" as best singer in both bands, and both according received full points and bonuses. Kyuhyun's dancing was especially complicated to rank, because he was awful, and then Bonamana happened and he was actually pretty good, but it's like as soon as he had proved that he could be DanceKyu, being good at dancing was way too much effort for him/cut into his gaming time time way too much, because in every performance of No Other you can see him the whole time, in the back, with very little idea of what he's doing. And then this weekend the bad dancing bled into Bonamana, so god who even knows. Maybe he really did sell his soul to the devil for dancing talent and ~*hotness*~ for duration of Bonamana performances and now he has bought it back, the evidence for that theory is mounting. In any case he has never proven himself as anything but a dancing black hole in Super Junior M, and his scores there reflected that. I... barely knew where to put him in regular Suju though.
Kind of a Choi Changmin, DBSK
My familiarity with DBSK is clearly off the charts, most of that information was googled for. And quite possibly biased, we didn't want him to be extremely talented :( The 52% feels a little false, BUT FUCK IT, I'll take it.
Part IV: The Choi Brow Wow Eyebrows-For-Emotion Acting School
Choi Sooyoung, SNSD
I like to think that the problem with Sooyoung is not that she is not achieving her duties as a Choi eyebrow-wise so much as it's that we can never properly see her eyebrows, because of the bangs. She is subtler than some Chois, but her brows can definitely be expressive.
Choi Sulli, f(x)
Our Sulli is a model student.
Choi Minho, SHINee
If Minho can graduate anything, it's the eyebrows for emotion school. He's got this covered, y'all.
Choi Siwon, Super Junior
Siwon's eyebrows are magnificent, ART IN ITS' PUREST FORM. He makes all the other Chois look like eyebrow amateurs. EYEBROW INFANTS, EVEN. Entire advertising campaigns have been based around their beauty. He cannot go two seconds without moving them in some delightful way or another. His eyebrows are more than the Choiometer can handle, tbqh.
Kind of a Choi Changmin, DBSK
I FIND HIM SO ADORABLE, I cannot even. And his eyebrows display surprising mobility!
Part V: Stupid and Earnest
It is pretty much impossible to quantify the intelligence levels of people you don't know, especially in a visible way. SO WE TURNED THIS INTO A STUPID FACE COMPETITION? BECAUSE THAT'S FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY?
Choi Sooyoung, SNSD
The thing about Sooyoung is that she is not dumb. By any stretch. It's hard to qualify calling anyone the "smartest" member of any group, but she is definitely the wittiest member of her group, which you can't do without brains. EGADS SOOYOUNG YOU ARE ALREADY PUSHING THE TALENTLESS THING, work with us a little here, what is wrong with you. Actually she totally does make dumb faces though, I suppose that is something one might consider as working with us.
Sort of.
Choi Sulli, f(x)
The problem with Sulli is that she is so completely pretty that most of her stupid faces faces are cancelled out by her perfect face. LUCKILY SHE IS A CHOI, SOMETIMES NOTHING CAN COMPENSATE.
Choi Minho, SHINee
You really don't have to do more than look at a couple of pictures of Minho to figure out he is a grade A dimwit. Cases in point:
GOD HE IS UNQUESTIONABLY THE BEST PART OF SHINEE, thinking clearly takes so much effort for him.
Choi Siwon, Super Junior
Because Siwon likes to make things easier for us, he keeps a twitter! That is basically entirely made up of stupid faces and hilarious but surprisingly adept attempts at English.
Jesus faces.
:D? :D? :D?
Omg I just, WHAT A DUMPKISS
Kind of a Choi Changmin, DBSK
Honestly, putting this whole thing together has fully convinced me that he is a pretty pure Choi speciment, talent or no talent. Although apparently he is more snarky than actually stupid? BUT HE TOTALLY KNOWS HOW TO TARDFACE LIKE A TRUE CHOI :')
T.O.P. of Big Bang may not be part of the same SM ~*family*~ and therefore could not go through the same extensive testing, but his real name is Choi Seung-hyun, and he is totally their cousin, by way of eyebrow overaction, slowness of thought, apparent conventional attractiveness (idk I find him weird looking but Korea says he's ~*beautiful*~). He also sucks at dancing! Not even his cousin Choiness could bring up the average height of Big Bang though.
Anyway that... is all.
goldenmelisande helped with a lot of this, if you couldn't tell by all the pretty parts and the fact that I couldn't stop saying "we". I definitely take full responsibility for the really disgusting parts, though. Like... the math.
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Date: 2011-10-30 04:30 pm (UTC)YEAH YG ARTISTS lack a bit in variety shows... In general, I think YG makes the best music, JYP has the best choreo and SM has the best image. I feel like YG doesn't feel the need to send them out to do variety as much, don't know why... maybe they have better contracts. But it's obvious there's a lot less of their appearances.. like did you watch King of Idols ... and poor Seungri was there by himself??? I still remember G-Dragon's first interview and I was like, is this kid okay? So I can imagine 2ne1 being super awk, I was watching their reality show (2ne1tv?) and their personalities come out a bit slower which is a shame because they are really cool and weird too hahaha
But it's seriously these shows where fans get to "know" their celebrities a lot more.. my biggest mistake was to watch Shinee's Hello Baby. And EVERYTHING WAS OVER. I can't. even. begin. to. tell. you. how. much. they. have. infiltrated. my. life. Yeah and I guess it's because the fans are in closer proximity to their artists too, esp. in Seoul where they can just follow them around.. and when they visit other cities, the fans are always following them. It's kind of scary but amazing. HAHA. Yeah and when Sooyoung got into the car accident, everyone knew within the hour. OR when jonghyun was sick in London. Oh gosh, we know a lot don't we? And I think the scary thing is that these artists still do everything when they're sick so when they don't show up, you know it's REALLY bad. I remember when Kyuhyun had to go to the hospital during Immortal Song for like a IV hookup. Seriously, that's really scary how that kind of behavior has become normalized. Ooh didn't know Onew was distant.. poor bb. Shinee's schedules are getting really ridiculous but they are young so I guess they can handle it for now. *SHRUG*
HAHAAHA PARADISE RANCH. I really want to watch Yunho's drama now!! Because I really like Yunho. I love his background and his story, he just seems so genuine. And plus he has to deal with Changmin who is like.. IDEK how to explain Changmin because THIS KID GETS AWAY WITH EVERYTHING. Oh DBSK...hahaha I know right. I was watching Dream High with my friend the other day and I found it to be really different than most.. which is a good thing. I think there's a new trend of the female character being much more feisty/emotionless but I agree, most korean drama dynamics are like that.. men being assholes but me still wanting to see the couple end up together. I HAVE SEEN SO MANY. It's awful. But I know winter break is coming up and I'll be back in Asia.. which means it's going to be ohsomuch worse. And i just checked the Skip Beat premiere date and it's 12/18. It's gonna be SOO BAD BUT WE WILL WATCH IT ANYWAY. Siwon's face makes you forget 90% of the time that he's JUST A FOOL. And yeah, he's not great at acting but he's just better than everyone else. I mean it used to be Kibum's thing right? Idek.
How you feel about Yesung is probably how I feel about Sungmin... like indifference... SJ-M just needs to stay in Taiwan forever, have you been watching the ones where they tour and speak chinese and eat? sigh...
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Date: 2011-10-30 08:35 pm (UTC)I agree! I actually don't personally like YG's music that much though, because it sort of walks the line between "shitty pop music" and "real music" and idk... it's just not what I listen to kpop for. I don't know, I really loved 2NE1's first mini album but I haven't liked anything they've put out since, and I've just never been that into a Big Bang song. But I mean I do think it's technically better music, it just doesn't really suit my taste. (I think part of the reason I ended up such a SME stan is that their producers seem to have the exact same taste in crappy pop music as me, it's really rare I don't like a single they put out. LAST.FM SAYS I LISTENED TO BONAMANA 97 TIMES, WHAT IS TASTE). I think 2NE1 is extra sheltered though, Big Bang doesn't do variety as much as other bands but they still definitely do it. Idk, it's weird.
and when they visit other cities, the fans are always following them.
That's part of what's so weird/kind of interesting to me about international kpop fandom, it's like... all this talk about entering Japan and entering europe and entering the US, but their international fans don't actually want them to be japanese/european/american celebrities, they want them to be korean celebrities closer to them. Does that even make sense? It really must be the difference in korean celeb culture that makes kpop appeal to them/us.
But omg I feel like SO MANY of them have had to do the IV thing... way too many. It's insane how busy they are and how little sleep they get and how hard they push themselves (because even though I'm sure the company has a lot to do with it I think a lot of the people who do become idols and make it past the trainee process are just the type to keep going no matter what).
I mean don't get me wrong that drama was like, INSANELY dumb at points but in this way where it was so ridiculous it was fun?! I seriously loved it so much, I wrote this post on it when I was watching it (http://elapses.livejournal.com/150576.html#cutid2) which might help you figure out if it's actually something you'd want to sit through. (It's about football!) But I totally forgot, I have watched Dream High and I did enjoy it!
I LOVE YUNHO TOO THOUGH!! Idk I was so virulently bored by DBSK for... forever, and then Catherine and I started looking into Changmin's... Pseudochoi-ness and I don't know how you could NOT love Yunho and... idk, I just really love two-membered DBSK. Changmin is such a brat (you're so right about him getting away with everything, but also his attitude towards fans CRACKS ME UP) and you can tell he thinks Yunho is really lame but he also really loves him, and Yunho is just so patient and sweet and EARNEST all the time and they're just really funny together. BROSEFS!
Sigh I am totally going to end up watching Skip Beat too, it is inevitable.
I've only seen one of them! It's weird, I'm so like, "eh" about actually sitting down and watching them, but every time someone mentions stuff that happened I'm like WHAT WHERE CAN I FIND THIS MUST FIND THIS. I'm just a lazy bum, I guess. Taiwan really is such a good place for them though! And it works out well for you too if they're there for awhile again, maybe you will get to go to a fanmeet :3
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Date: 2011-12-03 11:45 pm (UTC)re: It's insane how busy they are and how little sleep they get and how hard they push themselves
yeah seriously, and they get criticized so harshly when the exhibit/show any kind of exhaustion :( and I was watching/listening somewhere about how Luna would like run 2 hrs on the treadmill bc it helps her increase her stamina.
re: but their international fans don't actually want them to be japanese/european/american celebrities, they want them to be korean celebrities closer to them. Yes, I totally see that sense of ownership in terms of fandom. I think fan ownership/entitlement weighs a lot stronger in sports but I am starting to see it in kpop as well. Every time they travel, someone inevitably posts on tumblr something like "I wish they were back in Korea" "where is their korean comeback" (well, this is mainly SHINee I'm talking about rn...) And all my korean friends are ALWAYS like, I don't get why other people like kpop so much etc. I think my sister Soyub said was like, it's sad when non-Koreans are more into kpop than we are. And I totally get pissed about this for many reasons and one is the inability to believe that a person's interests can go beyond their nationality/language. The other is there sense of superiority/ownership of something that is essentially constructed by nothing else than nationality (WHICH IS CONSTRUCTED AS WELL..). And three, ok why is American pop music so prevalent in other countries? Attachment to certain mediated images as well as music is "universal" to many cultures. But this is kind of besides the point - the way promotion/celebrity culture is really different. Like the Wonder Girls is the best example for what you're saying - they had a couple of interviews about how the way popularity/trends operate are different and how they work hard to get where they want to be is going to be different too. And ofc every article posted about this is met with a bunch of comments like "OMG COME BACK TO KOREA WUT R U DOING THERE" but it's not xenophobic (like omg get out of this country!) but it's about not wanting to see them fail and the containment of that identification/idealization/image of their idols in the first place. Like you want them to be popular globally but stay the same. It's kind of a weird contradiction (like you know how indie bands get popular and people are like omg bandwagoners/SELL-OUTs hmph!). Fan reactions/opinions are so fun to read tbh.
Yeah DB2K is something I really love (like most SM things).. Changmin is just so endearingly snarky (Also have you listened/read that transcript of the Kyuline sounding incredibly silly/drunk on the radio? And Changmin sings part of Hug and it was so hilarious..http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mH9aJpHx2Fk, unfortunately Minho is incredibly unbratty compared to CuddleWolf lol and Changmin) Him and Yunho is like Key and everyone else. He is pretty sure everyone else in SHINee is so really lame but he can't help it but be a part of that (as Linna tried to explain minho/key's friendship: "key doesn't give a fuck about anyone really because he is a diva and minho is like :c about it because he's a big puppy, so key's like -_- you're an idiot minho and minho is like :c and key's like ugh i like u ok now shut up and minho's like c:" L M A O) And like Sulli's reaction to anything Luna does... it's crazy how distinct their projected personalities are to us. Was talking to my roommate about BSB/NSync and how we don't know what they are like as people. As if that is something inherently private.
Oh Skip Beat is drawing closer! Can't wait for the lols in dubbing and some really bad production value. And srsly Sooyoung's drama needs to cast the other ppl so it can start soonish!!
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Date: 2011-12-04 11:25 pm (UTC)I had no idea fan entitlement was a thing in sports too but now that I think about it that totally makes sense. And lol yeah I do think that happens with every group though! They're just way more accessible in Korea, I guess? You get so used to the 3-4 music show a week format as a kpop fan that it's hard to readjust. (It's actually weird that SHINee hasn't made a comeback though... like obv they've been in Japan this year but so were DBSK/SNSD...) And I totally agree with everything you said about the nationality/possessiveness, because that's exactly it. Kpop really is marketed in different/more accessible way than any other kind of pop music, and the type of people it's going to appeal to is going to include some Koreans but also a lot of non-Koreans. Your indie band comparison is perfect!
LOL I HADN'T SEEN THAT, but lol. For some reason it cracks me up that Changmin and Cuddlewolf (hehehe) hang out with Minho, idk, they're so sarcastic and bratty and Minho is just so... Minho (lol have you seen this fancam (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ix07ap_T0BU)? He's ridiculous, it's beautiful). But it's so cute that they do! Also crying @ that description of Minho and Key's relationship, BEAUTIFUL. It's so true though, it's insane how aware even casual fans are of their personalities.
I SAW A SKIPBEAT PREVIEW THE OTHER DAY, really excited tbh. It's going to be so lolzy. And I know it's ridiculous! The longer it takes to hear news about it the less real it feels.