meitachi | when did I ever promise you the world?

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when did I ever promise you the world?

Sometimes I have non-incoherent thoughts too, though usually they come out in the form of unpopular fandom opinions:

【一】 What's up with praising people to high heavens for the bare minimum of human decency? It's like thanking someone for not punching you in the face. Shouldn't we have higher standards than that?

What do I mean?

GD does something with basic human decency that all humans should have done in that situation, gets praised as G-sus.

(Summary for those who hate omona as much as I do: a mom takes her fairly young kid to a Big Bang concert and gets separated from him in a crush of fans rushing to surround GD, who is running around the balcony area as part of the show. GD, also trapped in the throng, basically does his best to protect the kid from the rabid fans, tries to signal the bodyguards to help, and blocks a trashcan from falling on the kid.)

It's kind of like saying "Congratulations for not being an asshole!" or "Well done on not being racist today!" It reminds me, actually, of back during Kangin's hit-and-run, all the fans who thought his going back to apologize and own up was such a brave and noble thing to do. No, you fuckers, it is basic human decency considering he HIT AND RUN in the first place.

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad GD was not an asshole. I'm absolutely glad he did help the kid. I think he's probably a pretty good guy. I definitely get the gratitude from the mother. But this excessive praise and misty pride by fans?

I'm so glad your idol is not ~~Mel Gibson~~ a raging prick, I guess, but, um.

【二】 I don't do OT3s. Other people do, that's cool, they're not really my thing. I shout about threesomes and moresomes when it comes to smut because, hey, yeah, the more the merrier, right? But when it comes down to my favorite true love happily ever after fics (yes, I'm actually a twelve-year-old fairy princess inside), I ship OTPs like they're going out of style. I think shipwars are stupid and we should all live and let live (and flail with the stuff that makes us happy in fandom rather than spending time being butthurt), but I'm also a little annoyed with the attitude that OT3s are the best and only answer to any differences in shipping and that if I don't support them, I must be a close-minded tinhatting ship-war-starting OTP fangirl. Really, not all of us are. You can enjoy your contrary ship and your OT3! I don't hate you; I will never attack you or your ship. Can we not have this attitude where only OT3-ers are open-minded and welcoming, and all OTP-ers are batshit and out for blood? Let's be honest, I'm way too busy trying to make my OTP make out at all opportunities.

Points go to people who know the only OT3 I've ever sincerely shipped in my five gazillion years of fandom. (Yes, I am that old.)

【三】 On an unrelated non-fandom note, one thing I've observed about exchange programs is that the majority of people go on them to party and hook up, which is not exactly an earth-shattering revelation (though not a newsletter to which I subscribe). Usually that hooking up is with other exchange students, because that's the crowd they stay in, sort of enclosed in a foreigner-bubble with little interest in seeing what the real country and culture is like beyond the superficial (this is also why I don't hang out with a ton of other exchange students, sadly). Sometimes that hooking up is directed particularly at the women of the foreign country they are visiting and, well. Maybe this is less common in Europe, but it is all over the place in Asia; I have heard so many jokes (all from Western guys) about "wanting a Chinese girlfriend" or "get[ing] myself an Asian wife" that I might actually throw up.

Because, you know, that is fucking skeevy as hell, to say nothing of misogynistic, racist, colonialist, absolutely demeaning, etc. etc. I would like to kick you in the balls. Or is that not sweet and obedient and Asian enough for you?

Asshole.

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sadly it seems to be the norm that celebrities just aren't held to the same standards, as if their "talent" somehow insulates them from everything else (see: other designers saying john galliano is just "eccentric")

also, oh god, colonialism. we have our own version of that here (the sarong party girl phenomenon) which creeps me out just as much.

In some circumstances, I could see some praise like, "Wow, I'm impressed, he hasn't let the fame get to his head," and so on, but in situations like this? Sorry, all that's required is basic human decency, not the second coming of Christ.

What is the sarong party girl phenomenon? Oh hey, it's on Wiki! /hits that up

Hmm. I think:

1. I will always find it skeevier when it's the guy targeting women, particularly in this context of former colonialism and submissive Asian woman stereotype

2. a huge part of why these women target white expats is because (a) the guys are creepily Yellow Feverish and therefore receptive and (b) those guys have all the status and wealth, so, if you're going to gold-dig, they make prime targets

Edited 2011-03-07 12:45 (UTC)

re: 2.: there's also the (sort of) fact that local men aren't exactly the best partners - a very large majority still expect sweet and obedient wives so they'd rather go for mail-order brides, or women from China, etc etc - a great majority of local women is very quickly becoming materialistic and career-minded, and altogether a bit too independent-minded for a lot of men. I guess it's unfair of me to say this since I doubt there are any local boys on your flist who can defend themselves, but I consider a lot of them too immature and mummy's boys :| As a matter of fact my mother thinks I should either 1) date older, or 2) date foreign (implicitly meaning white or Japanese [idek]) because she doesn't think I'll be able to tolerate local guys :|

Well in any case your male exchange friends are clearly looking in the wrong places if they haven't landed local girls yet.

(Sorry for edit!)

ahh, you make an interesting point! My mom tells me to date older too, though "local boys" in the US would obviously be different from the ones here, even if they're Chinese. I think for her it stems from the fact that guys in general mature, um, slower. She wants someone settled and financially secure for me to date - told me to look a far as 10 years older. When I was 16. I was scandalized. Maybe that is also part of it with the guys here?

Ugh, I hesitate to call them exchange "friends" as much as "people I had the dubious and rather unfortunate honor of meeting early on and who now hit on me at every opportunity and expect me to be flattered". :\

also, ugh, i am so sorry, mei. i am rarely (if ever) hit on, because i do not hold up with that sort of nonsense. being distant and intimidating works for me, so maybe you can give that a try =D

haha well at least one of the guys has definitely stopped being interested because I was pretty cold towards him; the other guy is actually incorrigible, I think, because he will undauntingly hit on every female in his presence. I'm actually a little impressed.

sry to butt in, feel free to ignore this comment =X i don't know if that's necessarily true of our generation, though! most of the boys i meet in school grew up in a time where girls were afforded the same sort of opportunities as they were, so i wouldn't agree that they still expect to date girls who are sweet and reserved. i would agree about the date older thing, though, but i have a feeling that would apply just about anywhere, lol

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Oh, no, it's not the G-sus pun that gets me - it's the actual comments of the post, being so amazed at GD being such a great and amazing guy for helping the kid / that they've always known he was fantastic / blah blah blah. Some of it I get is standard exaggeration, but this is just such a recurring thing with celebs/idols, where they do the bare minimum of basic human decency and it's suddenly like they're the nicest person ever omg. Why are our standards so low?

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Honestly, it's really gross to me that we've reached a point where we're like "oh, I expected you to punch me in the face, but cool, you are so awesome for not punching me in the face!" as applied not only to celebs but humanity at large. Particularly on matters of common decency; I would love if people were not so shitty with e.g., homophobic comments but sadly that remains more of a pleasant surprise when they're not. But common decency things like protecting a kid from a mad crush? You'd think wouldn't be so shocking. :(

Ugh, particularly in the legal field here of white expat dudes with their pretty, quiet, well-dressed Asian wives hanging off their arms. To say nothing of this one guy who was dating one Chinese girl and yet flirting with every other one he ran into throughout the course of his life, up to and including his subordinates in the firm. Such a good ol' boys' club, the American law firms here.

I hate omona as much as the next partially-sane fan, but what mainly made me think that "aw, he's a nice guy" was that everyone else (including the security guards, jesus) was preoccupied with GD and were too caught up to notice or even care about the kid. But like you said, I was more shocked by the idiocy and ignorance of everyone else around GD than GD himself. Like, sure, let's reward the guy instead of telling everyone else to actually give a crap next time? It's like rewarding the one kid in class who did his homework instead of telling everyone else off. :\

And as for point #3, I used to know a white guy who had an Asian girlfriend(I think she was Thai, so there was the whole Thai-Bride aspect flaunted very obviously) and when they split up he immediately started angling for my Chinese friend, simply because he thought that she was Asian and would therefore be a 'perfect little housewife'. Ugh.
But I've also seen the reverse aspect of that... I know a lot of my female friends that have been to places like Japan and China (being white-british like myself) have discovered that most local guys hit on them or worse because they're western and therefore 'easy'. In fact, one of said friends actually had to physically beat of this one guy who didn't understand the phrase "Get away from me you asshole", and when the police were called he apparently said that she was 'just playing hard to get, you know what these white girls are like".

/sighs at humanity

I am really glad GD did what he did (and I have always liked GD ♥) and it's not like I don't think he deserves any praise or recognition at all - but not to the point where it's so exaggerated to start sounding like, "Oh my god, what a fantastic human being, what an angel, clearly no one else in the world would've done what he did--"

Ugh, ugh, ick, I hate everything about your second paragraph. D: Way to go, unending misogyny prevalent in all cultures! Because clearly the girls always want it, whether because the guy is Western and rich and ~bringing her to a whole new life~ or because she is easy. Fuck you sometimes, humanity.

GD is a sweetheart ♥ I only really started paying attention to BB this year (what kind of kpop fan am I) but you're right, he doesn't need to be elevated to God level for his kindness. People should learn from his example, rather than putting him on an even higher pedestal.

isn't humanity wonderful \o/

Yeah, I had a guy just about try to force me to kiss him, even after I was like "no, I don't want to date you, I don't like you like that, you should stop, NO," and he still tried. Urg. White girls mean what they say.

I just read your comment below and, ugh, it sounds so much like what my friends went through. I think the problem is in that a lot of societies, like in Korea, there's still that issue with foreigners - where people just don't want to learn that people are people and the stereotypes you want them to be :\

all girls mean what they say, why do people not get this. It all depends on the individual, unfortunately.

*and not the stereotypes you want them to be, ugh this phone is impossible :\

I did not read the comments, but wow are those security guards assholes or what?

also re:OT3s: inorite! sometimes I am like oh I am a bad person I squick at this OT3 then it's like ... why.

As with most of the internet, but particularly ontd spinoffs, one should never read the comments. I should've avoided them! I should also avoid reading YT comments, oh dear god.

The weird analogy in my head upon waking is like: I like raisins, I don't really like oatmeal, and someone else is here telling me if I don't love oatmeal with raisins clearly I am a close-minded raisin-loving person who has it out for all people who like oatmeal.

...I am not fully awake. :(

It could be that people are praising GD in comparison to the fans and security guards? Because they don't seem to have any common decency.

And also yes to the OT3 and OTP thing! When I see fics in the White Collar fandom, I feel bad that I don't ship the OT3.

It's easy to condemn, but I could see how in a situation like that the fans can't do that much (when there's a wave of twenty people behind you pushing you forward because they can't see anything, you sort of get carried along in the momentum until you hit a railing, a wall, or more people in front of you). The security guards, however, were definitely assholes. Ugh, I mean, all said and done, I'm really glad GD did what he did; I just am icked by the recurring theme that celebs get held to different standards of common decency.

Oh man, I don't think I could ever survive White Collar fandom, since the mentality seems to be so much OT3 or bust. I just...don't do that. D:

Ah, that's true; I've never been in a situation like that so I shouldn't have judged. Haha, yeah, celeb drama confuses me so I don't follow it. xD

The show is great and I can definitely see where the OT3 comes from (because every character is so awesome) but I'm a OTP shipper so it makes me sad that even when I see a fic with the pairing I'd like to read, I get afraid of reading it because I feel bad for not shipping the OT3. My mentality is so messed up lol.

I like hearing when people do good things, but yeah, the amount of praise he got for being a decent human being? Have we really sunk that low? (Only slightly off topic? Someone gave TOP their son at the second night's concert, and he brought him up on stage for a minute before giving him back. The kid was so happy, it was adorable.)

Urg, yeah, I see waaaay too many douchy guys here who came here, not to teach and do the work they were hired for, but to just go clubbing and hit on Korean girls. Because waaaaaaaay too many is more than zero. Urg.

I mean, I'm here and I'd like to get a boyfriend, but that's not the reason I'm here, or have stayed here, or want to stay here. The way some people talk about being here JUST to get a girl makes me sick.

I think it's just men in general, as I consistently get thought of as easy JUST because I'm white. I met a Korean guy (a friend of my Canadian friend) who insinuated that any date I had here didn't go further because I had sex with them the first time we went out and was all but shocked and horrified that I'm still a virgin. "But... you're WHITE?!" he all but shouted, like my ethnicity obviously equals utter skank. His reasoning? "But on Jersey Shore..." Yeah. Because everyone in North America is EXACTLY like Jersey Shore. Another friend (who's ethnically Korean, but grew up in Italy and is doing his degree in Canada) told me some of his friends here in Korea asked if he'd "rode some white horses" in Canada when he came back to visit. And all my coworkers wonder why I haven't got a boyfriend. Because boys won't date anyone they've already decided to think of as easy.

Mostly? I just hate the way society raises men to think.

...wow. way to go, misogyny. i've heard things about korea, but i never realised it was that bad =/

It's not horrible, to be honest. These are just a few things that have happened to me. This is also going on the guys I meet at bars, so maybe that's also why? idek. And my male friend just want me to be careful of those douces. It's not always, and there are lots of good guys (which ashdjgahlksd my friend has an adorable boy who owns a cafe who's super sweet on her, and it's actually sickening how cute everything is, like a drama or something) who see movies/tv shows from North America and know that's not how every person is really and expect every person to be permiscious. I've dated 100%-born-and-raised-in-Korea Koreans and they haven't expected anything other than me being who I am.

Yes, definitely agreeing on hearing good things! But this was on the excessive side for praise.

God, that is horrible, the kind of stereotypes you've encountered. I get that not all guys are like that, obviously, but that any of them are just appalls me. D: WHY the horrible misogyny? WHY the horrible xenophobic stereotyping? Ugh. I laugh at anyone who thinks sexism/misogyny is no longer still a pressing problem. It is everywhere. :( I'm so sorry you had to have those experiences.

There's a fantasic video up on my fb with Dame Judy Dench and Daniel Craig for International Women's Day. The statistics are horrid, but the video is brilliant.

...

Right. So. When you decide to kick these boys in the balls, you're not going to want an upward swing kick like in the movies. That gets gravity fighting against you, and you don't have a lot of mass anyway, so if you want it to hurt you're gonna have to get some force in it.

You raise your knee up in front - you don't need to raise too high for it to work - and then just push out. Throw your hip into it if you can; this should work with either leg to generate more force than just the leg itself. Ideally you'd use the rear leg, because it generates more power.

It's not hard. You don't even need perfect technique to make it work. Really, the hip's the most important part.

...

Also, as the token white guy commentator, I want to go on the record and say that even in my worst awkward-crush days, I never thought of you that way. Promise.

I would never paint all guys with the same brush, but ugh sometimes the fact that any of this bullshit exists at all is just horrifically depressing and appalling.

I will keep the balls-kicking techniques in mind, however! I hope they will never have to come into play, but it is helpful information to have in any case. ;)

Let's be honest, I'm way too busy trying to make my OTP make out at all opportunities.

THIS.

I am way too busy to wage a ship war!

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when did I ever promise you the world?

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