Sunday, August 21, 2011

How To Further Distort Reality For Kyaagirls

There is this line between reality and fiction. For many people, (anyone with half a brain, basically), this line is clear. Even if you choose to forget about it for a bit, for the sake of daydreaming, enjoying a movie, a series, a game, it's still there when the immersion period is over.

The problem with kyaagirls/kyaaboys (since this fandom seems female-dominated, I will use kyaagirls here) and fanatics in general is that this line is constantly blurred to bits. Unlike normal fangirls and fans, kyaagirls often can't tell reality from fiction. They believe their object of horniness "affection" is what they project in interviews, or even more absurdly, what the character they are portraying in a given work is.

Now, you'd think that the ones responsible for properly educating these girls would do something to help with this obsession that is bordering on mental illness, often crossing that border. You'd think that if you were naive. Unfortunately, the reality of things is not as nice. And let's focus on S.Korea for a bit. A good place to study this, as kyaagirls there seem to be among the most obsessed and ill fanatics I've heard of and this is a blog mainly on Korean entertainment.

The celebrity industry, because this is an industry, is so greedy that it's no wonder that line has been eradicated. These people run a big fat Delusion Cow they will milk for every drop. They make it their business to perpetuate the illusion of intimacy these girls have, just to make more money out of their psychological, mental and emotional shortcomings.

Not Sure Meme

There is this article out on Hancinema, quite a big portal for english-language information on South Korean movies and series, called "City Hunter" : 7 secrets to charm Lee Min-ho's type to fall in love with You (a la Kim Na-na). This article does not only use the names of the actors to refer to the characters, as if it's the same thing, but it actually gives uneducated life coaching advice based on rules that exist in a fictional work, as if they apply in real life.

By now, you're probably thinking "Ok, so someone wrote an article". Unfortunately, this is not something only random people online do. Every S.Korean article on such issues, from educated and supposedly professional reporters, is like this. At least all those that find their way to translation and sites like Hancinema. Now, I would believe this article to be a joke in a different context, but unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case.

Referring to characters from a show by using the actor's/actress' name is the norm for such articles. It may be a silly way to approach and brainwash people with more maturity and logic, but do it enough times for susceptible people like young fanatic girls and it works like a charm. And using their hopes of being closer to their object of obsession to feed them advice which can seriously harm their lives and further exacerbate their issues is about the most irresponsible thing one can do as a professional reporter. As anyone with the responsibility to bring proper material to people who are so influenced by their surroundings.

Now I do not claim my views to be right here, but I am stating that these are my views. These problematic types of pieces I am talking about try hard to convince people they should be taken seriously and they are aimed at those who are extremely susceptible and easily impressed.

And it's strategies like this which also cause uneducated people to complain about other ridiculous things, like demanding a series featuring a gay couple to be taken off the air before their sons turn gay and get AIDS. Thing is, these people don't realize that brainwashing takes a lot of effort and that it can change ideas, not sexual orientation. Somehow, it feels funny they consider a happy, healthy and well-adjusted gay couple a threat and yet no one minds the fact that the celebrity and idol industry along with the drama one are turning girls into psychopaths and feeding their illness. Hypocrisy at its finest and cruelest.

Children are our future, but like George Carlin said, by the time the future gets here, they won't be children anymore. Countries, governments, media and entertainment should help their kids become better and more capable people, when they know a lot of parents don't give a damn or even try to do that themselves (since this is parent and peer responsibility, not media one). They should promote acceptance, understanding of life and other people. Equip them well to face and handle this life and reality.

It's silly to blame the medium and not the parents in most cases, like the videogame issue. Videogames do not claim what they say and show works in real life and most gamers are competent enough of telling the difference. But a medium that does have a main audience which sometimes can't tell the difference, and which apparently is totally lacking good parenting, should be more responsible.

Corrupting their minds and nitpicking while ignoring the elephant in the room for money and because denial works well for you is abuse. And I sincerely hope someone will REALLY "think of the children" and stop creating future complex-ridden closed-minded and depressed citizens who can't appreciate life and deal with it.


Update (August 2014): Since 'fangirl' is too wide a term and some seem to miss the fact that it is fanatics with an unhealthy lack of distinction between fangirling and obsession I am talking about here, I am replacing the word with the one I use now for the same category of fans. Kyaagirl. Beyond that, I stand by this opinion to this day. It might not be ill-intent that perpetuates this issue, not always and certainly not by bloggers like the author in the example I use, but it is an issue.

I prefer this piece to be short and sweet and think breaking down a single problematic article does not really offer much to my main point when there are so many like it. I thus edited the part where I speak about the potentially harmful advice in this particular article I linked out. I am sure those reading and actually caring about this opinion can spot the problems already.


 
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