Finding Brightness During a Dark Season

How I became a K-pop fan

There was a night recently when I was sitting, pre-gaming with a friend here in Palermo before a night out. We were drinking some prosecco and I was showing them some of my favorite K-pop music videos.

I’ve been obsessed since 2020. The choreography, the visuals, the drama of it all. At some point we started laughing because I realized I was giving a full presentation like I was being paid to indoctrinate people into the cult of joy and Jimin.

Explaining the groups. Explaining the lore. The backstories of all of the members. I stan NCT so there are fiftyleven members to talk about and you start looking like this guy:

Then I started explaining which concerts I had gone to and why certain performances still live rent-free in my brain. And at 44 years old, when I talk about K-pop, I start to sound like I am 13. But it’s so friggin’ fun.

And it hit me. That is the point of this journey called life. You shouldn’t be taking yourself so seriously, even though the problems in the world are existential. I focus on what I can control and I lean hard into the joy.

I also realized that on this page I haven’t ever really told the full story of how I fell down the K-pop rabbit hole in the first place.

Because the truth is that it happened during one of the hardest periods of my life.