#tw: dec 18

[lee-jinkis-ponytail]

A PSA for non-Shawols

Below the read more break is a nice little list of stuff to say upon meeting Shawols BESIDES "oh, it must be so hard to be a SHINee fan, their story is just so sad, I just could never handle that, you poor thing, RIP Jonghyun" (or anything along those lines that has to do with Dec. 18, 2017).

Because, see, when we talk about SHINee, we want to focus on the joy they bring us and have the same regular conversations other Kpop fans have about their own favorite groups, and we're sick and tired of people instantly bringing up a rather triggering topic the second SHINee's name comes up.

***If a Shawol wants to talk about Dec. 18, LET THEM BE THE ONE TO BRING IT UP.***

There are literally a trillion other things you could talk about with a SHINee fan. So here ya go, here are a few conversational topics:

"Nice, who's your bias?" (And if they tell you it's Jonghyun, for the love of christ, reply with something positive about him, like his songwriting or vocal skills or his sense of humor.)

"What makes SHINee stand out to you?"

"How long have you been a Shawol?"

"What's your favorite era?"

"Do you have a favorite solo album?"

"What do you hope to see from them next?"

"Have you ever seen them in concert?"

"Do you have any of their albums?"

"Do you have a dream collaboration that you'd like to see them do?"

"I don't know much about them, could you recommend some of their songs to me?"

"I don't listen to them too much but I really like [insert member here]'s style!"

"[Insert 3rd or 4th gen group that you love here] really looks up to SHINee, I totally respect how they paved the way."

"They are the origin of so many hilarious memes, let's talk about those."

"Hell yeah, Ring Ding Dong!"

Or simply, "That's rad."

[peppertaemint]

hi, from your blog I learn a lot about shinee and you are doing well. Do not take my following questions the wrong way. I do see you being vocal and critica of bts and their fandom from time to time. It is good to know both sides of the fandom, good and evil, well done on talking about it. My question may seem rude but why are you also not critical of shinee, their fans and their company. I only see you write good things about shinee not a negative review, be it their solo projects to you they are perfect etc. Is it okay for someone like me who is learning about them to just know their good and positive aspects. Does this mean they are perfect idols, who have never said or done anything wrong, and as for their fandom they are not xenophobic, racist and etc as well.

Hi Anon,

I really like your Ask. Thank you for submitting it.

SHINee (and for that matter all groups/artists) are not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, does the wrong thing, has beef with their company etc.

As for me, I don't have a lot of complaints about SM re SHINee. They have a contract that gives them final say on everything, and they put out music and concepts that are satisfying to me and intellectually stimulating as someone who studied art and music.

I have complained about the fandom here before, but I rarely need to because they don't really move like army or blinks or stays apparently (lol). I don't see racism or xenophobia within the fandom on a daily basis. The new, younger Taemin fans are the ones I see it mostly with (once every two months maybe? Lol) but they're mostly busy making Taemin sound like SM's Cinderella when he's legit the favourite.

The thing I think you're forgetting Anon is that this is a fandom that suffered trauma and still experiences grief. There are "bigger fish to fry" in SHINee World than cyber bullying a kid for saying something dumb or attacking journalists. When the New Yorker published that terrible article last month, the vast majority of shawols politely listed the problems with it. Of course there are exceptions but there were a lot of people, including myself, reminding fans of our behaviour standards.

The fandom fundamentally has a different perspective. It's not an easy thing. And the shawol fights you see on occasion are often younger fans not respecting Jonghyun's legacy. Some even say they don't care to know him. I'm sure you can understand how hurtful that is to a lot of the fans. It pains me when I come across it because his music is nothing short of brilliant.

I've said this before in other posts, but people are welcome to send in asks that are critical of ANY group. That includes SHINee and Taemin, especially now that we know Taemin is healthier. When he was unwell, I was not comfortable going down that route but I think that's understandable given well, everything.

Does SHINee have a "bad" aspect? Sure. They've done cultural appropriation like all other kpop groups in some of their styling occasionally. Don't Call Me had some hip hop looks blended with other fashions. I think they're good at creating something new out of different elements; I didn't feel like they were in hip hop cosplay. However, I do think they could be more careful with some elements (the durag, some of the hats chosen).

Do I have criticisms? Only a few. I think my main criticism centers on how unwell Taemin was before he enlisted and how the fans experienced that. But how can I blame anyone? When someone gets sick, they get sick. And he was already sick for a long time. I wish there was a way he could have been helped, and that fans could have felt comforted and less worried. My only choice is to trust SM has learned from its mistakes. SM made horrific, tragic mistakes and I do think some of the ire for Hybe is rooted in how they're inexperienced and seem to not put the health and training of their talent first when they should have learned from other's companies mistakes.

[disguisedcheezed]

[jjxngmoon]

eternally grateful to them for always sharing their memories of jjong, i will cherish the new pics we have always

[neotrances]

[umlewis]

almave | lewis hamilton

[gaykey]

it just hit me that Jonghyun was definitely the glue holding the group together, he was close to every single member, like the youngest three idolized him so much, they literally put him on a pedestal and then Onew was always the one with the same-level understanding with him. It just hit me that he was so young, and it's a wonder that the shared trauma between the members didn't left worse scars (and still we know that at least Taemin and Onew have been having struggles even though they haven't ever shared anything). I wonder how much different things would be if 12/18 never happened

it's a non-issue but i've always wondered why Jinki and Taemin never felt like sharing something, maybe they really were the ones who took it the hardest.

these are two are kinda related, so i'm replying to both.

i wanna address something first in regards to jinki & taemin here, because it gets brought up a lot, and these messages reminded me of it - i'm not saying this is what either of you are saying or not saying, but how much or how little they share isn't an indication of how they grieve, or who took it hardest y'know? like - we don't exactly know what scars were left, (same with kibum, minho, and anyone who know jonghyun) and we have no right to. we can't make any asssumptions on their personal feelings about jjong's passing, other than, it was obviously very tough on them.

again, i'm not saying this is what you are saying, but i've seen so many opinions flying around over the years about this because minkey choose to express themselves in a certain way on jonghyun's anniversaries, whilst ontae don't. i don't think we shpuld pass comment on that tbh.

and first anon, yeah jonghyun was their center, and he was such a vibrant and loving person, that really brought them together.

and of course yeah - i think a lot about what things would be like jf he was still here. i think that's inevitable with every new change shinee goes through.

[vampyretaemin]

literally the first thing i saw this morning had me crying about jjong. i cant articulate in words everything im feeling but things have been so hard the closer its gotten to today and its just. Man. there really is a void without him here.

[suncaptor]

Tw suicidality

how to explain how much doing poorly on a test does in fact make me feel certain that like. without the doubt that's just it like. like when I nearly killed myself when I got a b+ when I was 16 it wasn't actually about getting a fucking b+. it's like if I can have academia I can hold on but now. I can't. I've spent weeks this quarter in agony and every free second I'm not quite literally in intense debilitating distress I cannot escape what's inside my mind. Like sure it's not about academia actually it's about what's happened to me what's happening to me. it's about I can't escape my body. I can't escape my body oh my god I can't escape my body. I can't escape my body.

[ohmuqueen]

Dec 18 tw

Please block @/blueangelnacho if you don’t want to see content of Jjong’s funeral in the tags

[ssvmptoms]

you know what- i’m not sure why those shawols hate newer ones. i think it’s because they most likely talk about… that, and it makes them uncomfortable or they’re anti jonghyun or ot4 in someway idk but this happened to my friend where he was bullied online and it was so bad that he would literally lie and say that he was a shawol of 10 years just to validate his grief. like bruh imagine having to proof that you had been a shawol for a long time just so people would take you seriously. i mean… this is awful and since we’re about the same age many people would assume that i also am a new shawol when i’m very old. fandoms are weird.

//talk of dec 18

this!!! i feel like the only reason some “shawols” will hate on babywols is just because theyre an ot4 in some way or need something to argue about. im so sorry about the way you and your friend were treated, i hope you guys are better now. wishing you the best

but also, why do you have to be an older shawol to grieve? whether you are a new shawol or a shawol since debut, you are very unlikely to have ever knwon jonghyun on a personal level.

all connections to him are through his beautiful music and nice messages via concert, or social media, or blue night. i believe that even if you were a fan of 14 years or a fan of 1 year, you have the right to grieve. admiring his beauty, his talent, everything he did for those around him, his kindess, his advocating towards communities in South Korea, his care, his sense of humor… those are all things you can cherish him for even as a fan who became a shawol after his passing.

though i do think that the rise of non-shawols around december does cause a bad stigma towards babywols — there are so many people who cant name a single song he wrote for shinee or a single solo song besides moon who claim how much they “miss” him… and then its the only shinee post they have on their entire page. those people can go fuck themselves honestly like maybe if you actually gave a fuck about shinee youd know thats not what the members would want…

i actually made an internet war edit and posted it on tiktok and someone told me to “not do jonghyun like that” like he didnt do that performance himself… when will they get a grip

but to end this rant, the first post i ever saw about jonghyun, about 2-3 years ago, was praise for his vocal talent, and not about his death. thats how it should always be

[peppertaemint]

I don't want to share a thousand thoughts. Just this picture. Life is complicated and hard and beautiful. Many things at once. That's the only truth I know.

[sanstropfremir]

tw suicide

pls don't read that stupid article and give the writer any more clicks but she wrote "in 2017, the same year shinee's jonghyun committed suicide, bts had a partnership with unicef" or it was something like that and it's just so fucking crazy and disgusting how a self proclaimed "serious reporter" would mention someone death just to uplift bts...it's beyond fucked up and she also said that bigbang's TOP had a drugs scandal (it was a weed scandal but she tried to make it seem worse) and she gave credit to armys for their political involvement during the philippines elections and some filipinos got rightfully upset because of that because she completely disregarded the protest natives have been doing for days and acted like armys where the only people who cared about the issue. and when she got backlash on twitter she started complaining about kpop fans as if armys weren't sending death threats and racist messages to other kpop journalists weeks ago. it makes me livid how some people have no empathy or morals whatsoever.

(also it's so ironic how she's disrespecting jonghyun in an article praising bts when that man used to be one of the most politically active idols and to this day i haven't seen anyone who is as outspoken as he was he single-handedly had a law changed in korea because he talked about it on twitter and he showed support to palestine and had people make petitions wanting him to get kicked out of his group for being an lgbt ally but sure keep running your mouth and ignoring all his achievements just to feed your false narrative about bts paving the way for everything in this industry)

oh fuck RIGHT off. well that explains all the threads i saw of people bringing up all the topics jonghyun brought attention too. would it kill people to do a modicum of research. like come on, it feels like i do more research for my silly little opinions on this blog alsdkfs. tbh that just sounds like very irresponsible and ill-informed journalism and i can't believe that got published. well i can actually, but i'm disappointed it got published.

[tvxqdbsk]

tw dec 18

article link. this is from the fucking NEW YORK TIMES. using jonghyun as a way to give the boy scouts a pat on the back for ~being better and discussing mental health~ as if jonghyun has ANYTHING to do with that group. im so sick of people using him as an easy way to make them look like the saviors of the evil kpop industry. i also want to make it clear that while this is fucked up, sending death threats to the author is unacceptable.

[jonghyunsfriend]

today and tomorrow are really hard days for me (and some of yall im sure) so take care of yourselves

[feanoriangrindset]

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