Let's Talk - Puer Kim's Manyo Maash

I honestly feel as if this post is long overdue, but even if it is, that won't stop me from making it. So sit down, grab some coffee because this is going to be a long post.

First things first, this is a great song, but that's not the reason I'm making this post or it would be categorized under the 'MV Reviews' section.

The concept of the 'Let's Talk' sections are to talk about deeper issues in K-Pop that some fans refuse to see, as greatly displayed in the music video for this song.

The video features Puer Kim, who is locked in a room and placed in a chair with chains around her feet restricting her movement. Creepy mannequins then proceed to push her into the chair while others in a glass box resembling that of a mixing station (or whatever it's called) in a typical recording studio watch over this while it happens. As they place a black blindfold over her eyes, she continues to say:
"I can see things that others can’t see
Truths that they don’t want to hear come out of my mouth"

Now, all of this can be easily applied to the modern day K-Pop industry, where stars are trained literally hours on end for years after years before they finally debut, only to be bashed on and cast aside, like thousands of rookie groups. Only few become well known and the majority go unnoticed, even though they worked their asses off in training and got constantly screamed at whenever they fucked up by their managers. A good demonstration of this is 9MUSES' documentary on BBC, which I'll put below this.



This documentary exposes what it's really like to be an idol surprisingly well, and seems to have surprised unknowing k-netizens everywhere. The most surprising thing to me is how even if one member messes up, all of the hate and pressure goes toward the leader, who is blamed for whatever the groups seems to do wrong. Now that I think about it, I really can't blame Taeyeon for wanting to leave her position as leader of SNSD back in the day.

Now, what does this have to do with 'Manyo Maash', you may be asking? The whole song reflects what it's really like to be an idol, and not the sugar coated things you see in MVs and possibly even on stage. Sure, it may seem wonderful and great to be an idol, but really, if you watched the documentary, you will see how awful and mind controlling of a job being an idol really is. Basically, if you want to be a famous K-Pop star, you have to sell your soul to Satan whatever company you work for. From the time you sign that seven year contract of Hell and complete and utter misery, your company has complete control over your schedule, what you wear, and how you act. Do you love your bias' personality? Well, chances are, that's a fake face that their company forces them to put on in order to gain popularity.

The mannequins in the video are obviously the heads of the companies/the producers. Need proof? When two of the mannequins turn around, there are visible bar codes with the beginnings 'SM' and 'YG' written on the back of them. In case you happen to not know what SM and YG are, they're basically the biggest companies in Korea for making and selling idol groups to the masses. These mannequins two of the few that sit in the glass box, trying to gain control over Puer, who obviously doesn't buy into their bullshit and does whatever the hell she wants, because that's how she rolls.

Now, the mixing station is not really like a real mixing station, more like a place where the mannequins control the chair that Puer is sitting in. When the mannequins push her into the chair, they also push a microphone in front of her and one of the people in the glass box push a red button that turns on the electric chair while the other pushes and manipulates the dials on the machine to control how bad the torture is.

In a puff of white smoke, the blindfold disappears from Puer's eyes and she is able to see again. She then uses her hands to cover the eyes of one of the mannequin's heads, much like what they did to her. After this, she seems to control the wires in the recording studio and use them to trap the producers, and only now can you see the barcodes on the backs of their necks, and she gets up from the chair and magically disappears from the room.

Here, I'm going to analyze what exactly all this artsy junk really means. First, I'll start off by talking about the part where Puer has the blindfold put around her eyes and she says the shit about "I can see what others can't see." This possibly means that she, as an artist, can see things that the consumers/fans cannot see. What exactly does she see, you may ask? She sees the imperfections and hardships that actually come with being famous, that's what she sees. Even though many other things cover this subject, according to Puer, what she speaks are "Truths that they don’t want to hear come out of my mouth." 'They' can either refer to the public or the producers, but in this case, it seems like it refers more to the public eye. Fans may hear from many sources that their idols' lives are really shit, but they refuse to listen to these people and instead push on believing that they're as happy as they look in the selcas they upload on instagram (unless your name is Ahreum and you've obviously gone fucking insane, a perfect example of how horrible idol life really is). Now I'll move on to the part after this where the mannequins start to forcibly push Puer into the chair, trying to restrain her from saying any more. The song then cuts to an instrumental while the mannequins try to start to torture her to stop her 'nonsense', but while they turn up the electricity on the chair, she continues to say "Tie me up, then will I be trapped?"

Puer appears to be mocking the mannequins, saying that no matter what they do, that won't change her perspective on the real wrongs that they're actually committing, and she won't stop talking simply because they want her to. After they turn up the electricity all the way, the screen cuts to black and returns to a cut of Puer without the blindfold, stating that she is "Hearing things nobody else can hear," and she's "Hearing the news that everyone passes". This relates to above when I talked about how K-Netizens refuse to accept how bad their oppas and unnies really have it. The video then ends with Puer, the witch, taking control of the wires in the studio and tying up the mannequins with it, sort of a taste of their own medicine, eh? The camera then zooms into their necks, where it first shows the mannequin with 'SM' on the barcode and then the one with 'YG'. This is obviously no mere coincidence, because if it was, the producers of the video was realize this immediately and change this to avoid controversy. After she's done with this, she simply disappears from the room, never to be seen again. This possibly be a pointer to the fact that many idols eventually get fed up of being used as marketing tools, and leave, or must I say, 'graduate' from their groups to do 'solo activities', aka, not have to deal with this shit anymore, just as Puer did.

The reaction to the video was fairly mixed. It seemed as if people either loved the video and message it sent, or hated it. However, this video also brought up a lot of controversy along with it, just the reaction that Puer and the people from Mystic wanted from it. Because of this video, it's safe to say that more and more people are starting to notice the shitty working conditions for idols, which I may cover in another blog post later on when I get the time, and have started to see the industry as it really is.

Now, that's enough with my ranting, and for those who weren't able to realize this before, I hope this post opens your eyes a little bit and shows you how the real world works.