Sunday, October 05, 2008

Move over, PopSeoul!

So I randomly stumbled across this on Youtube (I SWEAR I was not searching for Wonder Girls)

Super-Pop-Producer JYP has been taking online auditions for his next manufactured pop band, including this 13-year old kid (meaning 11 or 12 western age), Jo Gwon, who (especially in her first dance audition in the video) shows off a pretty good voice (for a kid) a really fantastically goofy knack for rocking up a crowd with wacky dances. With a little polish (see 5:40 - 6:40), I'm sure she could be the next product off the JYP shelf.

Meanwhile, the dance lesson part of the video (starting at 3:38) is just. plain. weird. at 4:48, you get to watch JYP, a big grown-up male, teaching a bunch of eleven and twelve year-old possible future products, all girls, how to twist their torsos like sexybacks (a skill he successfully imparted to his most successful proteges)...and it's just weird, is all. (Though when Jo Gwon, who's obviously there for her pipes and not her steps, tries to do these kinds of moves. . . it's really really funny in a cute, not-yet-perverted-or-commodified-youth, i-don't-understand-the-suggestions-this-dance-move-makes-so-i'm-just-imitating-my-dance-coach sort of way.)

Youtube is loaded with JYP Audition videos, ranging from pretty impressive to kinda cringeworthy, QUITE cringeworthy, even MORE cringeworthy, to, uh, this. As always, there are a few young girls who seem to have taught themselves to sing by watching The Little Mermaid over and over.

In other I Wanna Be A Star news, there's a new star getting a pretty big buildup these days. . . with one problem.

Her name: 혜나 or "Hye-na" in Korean, is being written on the posters in a way that could cause some, uh, confusion, if she ever goes international.

Does anybody else here spot the problem?


Anyway, here's one of her videos from youtube...this one gets kinda crazy in the middle.


And here's another. This one's pretty hot.


So, uh, good luck, Hyena.
"Thanks, Rob."

(A Very Special Update: Otto, of "I, Foreigner", in linking to this page, said some of the nicest things I've had said about my blog so far: (and he hasn't even read the stuff I deleted, thinking "too bizarre")  From the write-up:
If you are looking for a blog ... that will make you say “WTF!” before you burst out laughing, a blog that will make you wonder if this man even has a job to have time to find stuff like this, then look no further.


Thanks Otto. You just made my day, and possibly my week.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Because I am lazy today, I'm going to post a link from my Blog to your disturbing site, particularly this post.

Roboseyo said...

cool.

ZenKimchi said...

Is it unnecessary for me to say, re: Jo Gwon, do we need anymore androgeny out there?

I'm easily confused, so STOP IT!!

Roboseyo said...

Oh Zenkimchi. She'll stop being androgynous after she hits puberty. JYP just has to start training them before puberty in order for them to be good at moving like skank-hoes before they're finished puberty yet.

Unknown said...

If i'm not mistaken, Jo Kwon is now part of the boy band 2AM. Here he is now, http://www.seoulbeats.com/2008/09/jo-kwon-has-assets/

And then there's 2PM.

Combine them and you get One Day.

http://www.seoulbeats.com/2008/09/2am-and-2pm-as-one-day/

Roboseyo said...

Good god, you're right: Jo Gwon is a BOY!

correction here:
http://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-announcement-hub-of-sparkle.html