You'll Never Guess the Top Five Things That Happened After K-blogs Got Too Self-Referential

Ouroboros. Source

This might be the worst K-blog list infection since that CNNgo troll article prompted a spat of countdowns (links to others at beginning of post)

Lists are the thing again. And posts about bloggers who make lists. And lists about bloggers who make posts about bloggers who make lists. And this is a post about a list about a post about lists. If others write similar posts, we could make a list of posts about bloggers who write posts about bloggers who make lists. And then the K-blogosphere will crawl up its own butt, die of auto-rhetorical asphyxiation, and probably not be mourned.

Listception!

Image belongs to this guy. Buy one!

However, when even a scholar like Cedarbough, over at her blog Footnotes, has made a top 10 list of how to Korea correctly, I guess my memo must have just been lost in the mail. And so, in obligatory clickbait fashion, lest they take away my K-blogger card, here are the topics we've seen so far. In list form, of course.

1. Perhaps Paul Ajosshi got it started with his "6 Dangers That Await You at the Boryeong Mud Fest" - a cautionary listicle that totally neglects the looming threat of a zombie apocalypse. (By the way, don't you love the word listicle? It sounds just similar enough to the word "Testicle" that it not only conveys that something is an article that is a list, but makes people go "uh... kinda ew." As listicles do.

What I imagine when I hear the word "Listicle"

2. Following Paul, Charles Montgomery wrote "Top 10 Newbie Mistakes in Korea" the most useful of which is #2, that if you're an HBC expat hipster... you're not actually rebelling when you dress the way everybody else in HBC dresses, and hang out in the same dives. On the other hand... Charles is hardly breaking new ground in making fun of hipsters, which even Mike Myers did, way back when he was still really really funny.

(So I Married An Axe Murderer (1993): people have been making fun of hipsters since before the latest batch of hagwon teachers were born.)


I wish they would get off your lawn, too, Charles!


3. William George answered Charles with "Noobs, You're Doing Fine"

I don't think we'd realized listicular circlejerkititis was the thing infecting the K-blogs yet with Mr. George's "Don't listen to the grumpy guy" response. But then, the ball was just getting rolling.

4. Epidemic status was reached when Sweet Pickles and Corn published "10 Things In Korea that I'll Never Ever Do" including things like "I'll never go on a temple stay" (fair enough). Mostly, I think he must be doing well here, if the worst thing he can think of to do here is overpaying shitty foreign food (10th on the list). Somewhere out there, perhaps on one of those blogs that got cancelled, there's a person who could make a much more sordid list with a much better grasp of "How Expats Hit Bottom In Far-Off Lands".

5. Cedarbough weighed in with 10 things to do if you live in Korea -- one of the better lists I've read, and wish I'd written myself. I especially like 4, 5, and 6, and I can only hope she'll follow up #3 - "Read Real Books About Korea" with a second top ten (or 15, or 80) suggestions of places to start.

6. Burndog takes the piss out of everyone who writes a list, or grumbles about those writing lists, with "10 things I'll Never Write a List About in Korea Something Something Noob"

7. Finally, Dom and Hyo have, in cartoon form (squee) "9 Different Types of Expats You Will Come Across in Korea" -- a list I like, because it seems to be written neither to vent unhappy expat rage, nor to ingratiate themselves to an imagined Korean audience. However, they missed the "know-it-all" of whom I am one.

Now that I've done a list about lists, let's include it in a list of your favorite conglomerations of lists, like Cracked cannibalizing itself, until we have a list of the best lists about lists about collections of lists. And put each item of the list on a separate page, to squeeze out extra clicks. Ads in the sidebar, all hail google ads revenue!

Pertinent to all this listification is the fact that every week, I go on TBS radio and present a list myself, in a segment titled (by my predecessor in the spot) "The Lone Ranker" - I do little countdowns about whatever topic I like that week, ranging from heavy stuff like "6 ways Sports Mega Events Helped Create The World We Live In Today" to frippery such as "The Five Most Annoying Things About Spring" (both actual topics I've done). I may start turning more of my topics into posts for ze blog (especially given how sparse posting has been lately.

Stay cool my loyal readers.

And now, here is a video of Kim Jong-un dancing, that went viral in China.

Looking silly is the worst thing possible for North Korea (hence the report that a Seth Rogen movie will be considered an act of war) - no nation has ever screamed louder "Take me seriously" in all its policies and actions, than North Korea. I guess if you can't walk softly and carry a big stick, the next best thing is to wave your wet noodle as threateningly and loudly as you can in everyone's faces.


Put your list in the comments if I forgot yours!