sayitditto - Tumblr blog

[sayitditto]

only after making the same dumb mistakes, i barely came to realisation, that you were the reason to my beginning. i will devote my everything and return to you once again. because it's rightfully so that all powers and capabilities are returned to you.

enhypen; 'dark blood' concept trailer (2023, dir. yu kwang goeng).

[sayitditto]

'chaconne' is a song that depicts the boy getting drunk and corrupted by his own dance.

hey guys!! enhypen is back and i’m totally in love with dark blood. both the album’s lyrics and music have fascinated me and it’s now my favorite album. i have a lot of thoughts, so i’m going to share my interpretation of chaconne, which is the most interesting to me so far. please listen to dark blood and show enhypen lots of love. 🤍

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chaconne puts us in a scenario where the protagonist of the narrative is a “monster” who lives in a “shaded castle with no sun”. the situation is very depressing so i immediately visualize this monster living alone in the castle, but it seems like they’re talking to someone else and inviting them to dance because it appears to be a party. this monster has accepted that it is a monster and has also accepted that it lives among “dead flowers” (which can be interpreted as their life being miserable, but they seem to embrace and even enjoy it). the lyrics tell us that this monster likes darkness, so they start a party with 'chaconne' (classical music) playing in the background and begin to dance “drunk” with themselves.

what i find interesting is the mention of “a cracked mirror”, which can symbolize a distorted view of oneself. the monster may not be literally a monster, but it is depicted that way because it carries a lot of darkness within, although it could be just their perception. “match my moves whilst looking through the cracked mirror,” my theory is that this monster doesn’t actually have a dance partner and is dancing alone. the broken mirror, as i mentioned before, represents a false perception of reality. i think the monster is so “drunk” with arrogance that they are unable to see that they are truly alone and in misery. “as if I was drunk,” that “as if” makes me think again that everything is a lie.

i believe this song can be a representation of highly romanticized, arrogant, and pretentious depression. the monster is too arrogant to escape from that misery. dancing with classical music playing in the background while looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking you’re the worst person in the world seems like something a poet would do. i love how they have portrayed a depressed yet arrogant figure.

i’ll leave the lyrics below, credits to @ enhypenupdates on twitter. thanks for reading!!

[sayitditto]

idealized love, escapism, parasocial relationships, fan culture, maladaptive daydreaming through newjeans ditto & omg

it's you, you worry about me it's you, you make me laugh

they keep on asking me, "who is he?" you really are, he's the one that's living in my system, baby

can this be real? (...) i'm going crazy, right?

[sayitditto]

newjeans ditto analysis, theories and thoughts: about parasocial relationships in kpop, loneliness, emotional bonding and the desire to have mutual love with someone.

first of all, i want to clarify that i don’t believe in a “literal” theory and i think they wanted to metaphorically or symbolically represent a feeling or something more abstract (i’ll explain this in detail) so i’ll be analyzing that! (mv elements and what they might symbolize). 

however, tokkis have made so many interesting theories that are worth considering. here’s some of them:

1. newjeans are ghosts

2. newjeans are hallucinations of heesoo

3. newjeans and heesoo are friends but they got into an accident and only heesoo survived (and that’s how her arm broke)

now, my opinion and what i am going to explain in this post, is that ditto is about parasocial relationships in kpop, loneliness, emotional bonding and the desire to have mutual love with someone.

i will be explaining point by point why i do think this.

1. the meaning of “ditto”: 

the word ditto means “the same thing again”, a repeat - as when you agree with something somebody else just said. it means “in the same manner” and it’s used to express mutual feelings.

 ditto = “so am i”, “me too”.

this same thing is expressed through the lyrics:

“do you want somebody like i want somebody? you smiled at me but do you think about me now?”

“i want you so, want you, so say it ditto”

“say it back, oh, say it ditto”

it seems like the narrator of the song desperately looks for feedback from another person and wants to be sure that the feelings are mutual. “do you want somebody like i want somebody?” this narrator (may be heesoo, but again, i don’t believe that it’s literally heesoo but what she represents. i’ll talk about this later) feels lonely and wants someone to finally have a meaningful connection.

2. the deer: 

quoting what minji said about the deer, “you know the deer that appears in the mv? this is something we say in the album too, but with our deer friend we tried to represent that odd distance between someone you want to approach but can’t fully and that can stand for various relationships.”

every time we see the deer, heesoo is watching it from afar. this can represent, as minji said, how it is wanting to reach someone emotionally but not being able to. this scene is so sad since they focus heesoo’s and the deer’s eyes; eye contact creates a heightened sense of emotional intimacy. “the eyes are the window to the soul” is the idea that you can understand a person’s emotions by looking into their eyes.

what i personally think about the deer (theory):

minji said “that can stand for various relationships” and i think it could possibly mean a parasocial relationship between idol and fan. heesoo has a romantic interest which is the boy who always stares at her so it could also mean the distance between them and her fear of wanting to get close to him or her one-sided love.

but what made me think that the deer could represent newjeans as idols and heesoo as the fans is the side b mv. for me, side b is about heesoo becoming independent and distancing herself from newjeans (her friends, or maybe her beloved idols) and starts to live in the real world. i’m going to mention everything i think about side b later, now back to the deer.

side a: heesoo is happy with newjeans, she’s living a dream with them and they’re best friends. the scene with the deer in this mv is calm, even though she’s still watching it from the distance, her eyes doesn’t show any negative emotion.

this scene appears after heesoo was shown sleeping next to newjeans and after the deer appears, she suddenly wakes up alone. the deer was like a reminder that everything was a lie and the truth is that newjeans have always been afar from her and what they had was not real.

side b: heesoo is avoiding newjeans and she tries to live her life without them. the moments they previously shared together are no longer the same as it was in side a; heesoo is alone and apart from newjeans.

the scene with the deer is so important. considering that she’s distancing herself from them, the eye contact with the deer is very sad. it’s like a goodbye because after it the deer leaves and heesoo’s eyes are almost with tears.

the deer leaves right after a scene of heesoo walking with her romantic interest, the boy. which may mean that newjeans left her after she was able to create a real relationship like she always wanted so she no longer needed them.

3. heesoo: 

like i said earlier, i believe heesoo symbolizes newjeans fans: tokkis.

the general producer min hee-jin said, “the music video for the pre-released song ditto (...) contains an unexpected story unfolded by bunnie’s (official fan club name) and newjeans. a surprise cameo appearance (...)”

heesoo can actually represent anyone who is so lost in their loneliness that they seek coping mechanisms like daydreaming. but this thing is very common in parasocial relationships, especially in kpop.

4. the boy: 

the boy can be not necessarily heesoo’s romantic interest, i feel like he symbolizes the real world, real relationships. he always stares at her but she avoids him, although it’s noticeable she also wants to get closer to him, which can symbolize the fear of intimacy and denial of the real world. she knows he’s there (she knows there are possible relationships waiting for her, but she ignores it).

5. the camera: 

heesoo is always recoding newjeans with her camera. she never joins to what the girls are doing, she just watches them through the camera which makes her only a watcher. but she seems happy even if she is not part of it, she keeps the memories in her camera.

6. the pinky red nail: 

i was struggling trying to understand the meaning of this since heesoo’s little finger was still painted red even when newjeans were gone. if it was all her imagination, how did they painted her nail? could she have painted it herself? could be. but is it a coincidence that the color is red?

what i personally think about the nail (theory):

maybe i’m just overthinking but it reminded me of the legend of the red string of japan. according to this myth, everyone’s pinky finger is tied to an invisible red string that will lead them to their soulmate.

even when newjeans aren’t with heesoo, her painted nail symbolizes she’s not alone as she thinks and someone is waiting for her outside, in the future, she only has to go out and find it.

i don’t think the main message is that she have a soulmate waiting for her but the fact that she doesn’t need newjeans to feel loved. she can still find mutual love with someone else.

7. the gray cat: 

gray cats are a symbol of independence and the power of independent people. they help people who are working through co-dependency to find true happiness in themselves.

the gray cat makes its appearance in side a’s mv, when heesoo is still very much dependent on newjeans. i think this means that newjeans also helped heesoo to find her happiness and become independent.

8. side b mv a parallelism:

side b shows us that what heesoo was seeing was not really real but if you pay attention, side b’s is also about heesoo starting to be independent of newjeans. she even breaks the camera, which was important in her relationship with newjeans. we can see a scene where minji calls her and she doesn’t answer the phone, she’s choosing not to get involved with newjeans, and maybe that’s why she doesn’t see them anymore.

and the most important thing: parallel scenes to side a.

if in side a we see how the girls write on his broken arm, in side b her cast is clean.

if in side a she’s walking with them under the rain, in side b she’s walking alone with her umbrella.

(i wanted to put every single parallelism but the post is already long so i will just mention those but there are so many! or details like heesoo seeing newjeans dance from afar and then looking at her clean cast, newjeans hugging heesoo in side a then in side b they are all hugging without heesoo, and more)

it’s everything what her life would be like if she no longer depended on them and started living her life. and she even gets to talk to the boy, like i explained earlier.

8. the present and the past:

i haven’t figured it out this yet but there are transitions between present and past. i don’t know if side a is the past and side b is what happens next, i don’t know if it’s a linear story but time is definitely weird.

something curious: a deer crossing your path is a reminder to check in with yourself to make sure you are not living in the past or in the future, and to realign yourself back to the present moment.

and

side b mv loops back to side a mv, the end of side b is the start of side a.

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thank you for reading my analysis! i’m sorry if there are grammatical errors but english isn’t my first language and i did this in a hurry cause i had so many ideas.

i recommend reading this post which was the one that inspired me to write this.

and this youtube comment too.

the credits for the gif i used:

make sure to give ditto and newjeans lots of love 🤍