Damn Idol Episode 181
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Quite a number of people in Korea dislike patriotic hype content.
They say phrases like “America was amazed” or “Spain heaped praise on it” are too childish.
At the same time, people think this must be a uniquely Korean trait, but that isn’t actually true.
Americans have an even stronger sense of pride in their own culture than Koreans do.
The same goes for how, when they interview stars from other countries, they always try to show off the superiority of American culture.
Of course, American citizens are embarrassed by patriotic hype too—by their own standards—
but it’s show business.
They do it because it makes money.
Humans are animals who, from the DNA level, are desperate to prove that the community they built is superior to the community someone else built.
That was how tribes came to be, how alliances came to be, and how nations came to be.
Nevertheless, the reason people felt repulsed by patriotic hype was because it dressed up something vague as pride.
It doesn’t really seem all that amazing, but show business keeps packaging it as amazing, so people push back.
But what if there is content that is objectively high-quality no matter who looks at it?
Then that isn’t patriotic hype. It’s pride.
Han Sion and BOTY’s first directing scene was exactly that.
[Edward was talking nonsense, saying you’re the best guitarist.]
BOTY’s guitarist, Dave Logan, appeared with a crooked attitude.
Han Sion knew Dave Logan’s personality, and he knew those words weren’t meant to pick a fight.
It was just a roundabout way of saying he wanted to hear Han Sion play the guitar.
But to the viewers, it didn’t look that way.
A guitarist from America, the home of bands—though strictly speaking, that would be Britain.
A promising guitarist who hadn’t gained fame yet, but had been chosen by the mega-corporation HR Corporation.
It looked as though someone like that was picking a fight with Han Sion.
And that was where the catharsis hit.
Han Sion began to play, and the drummer, bassist, and keyboardist charged in with ecstatic expressions.
But Dave Logan couldn’t join in.
At that moment, the musical communication between Han Sion and BOTY was already complete, but the viewers didn’t know that.
So an interview conducted later with Chris Edward and Dave Logan was slipped in.
[...There was absolutely no room for me to cut in.]
[Why not?]
[Because that crazy... Korean with an absurd amount of talent had drawn a line.]
[A line? What kind of line?]
[A line that said you couldn’t jump into the ensemble unless you were better than this.]
After the interview, the screen showed Dave Logan watching BOTY’s intro with a flushed face.
At last, Logan could no longer hold back and barged in with a crash.
[Then when you joined the performance, did that mean you crossed the line?]
[No. I just ignored the line.]
[Why?]
[Because I felt like I wouldn’t be able to sleep unless I showed him what my guitar was.]
As Han Sion also knew, Logan at the time had not been pursuing harmony, nor had he been trying to beat Han Sion.
He had simply reached the point where he couldn’t endure it unless he showed his own guitar.
Logan tried to go berserk like that, but Han Sion stepped in and stopped him.
[Sion said he wanted to show him that sprinting and running wild are different things.]
Chris Edward’s interview was inserted, and Han Sion and Logan’s guitar duet exploded.
When Dave Logan poured out a fierce performance, Han Sion layered another melody over it and weakened its force.
It takes two palms meeting to make the sound of a clap.
No matter how powerfully Logan swung his palm, Han Sion merely wrapped around it gently.
He even formed ghost notes to match Dave Logan’s performance.
It wasn’t impossible to form ghost notes with a guitar, but it was absolutely not easy.
After all, the instrument meant for that was the bass.
But Han Sion created a gentle melody behind the intense melody, like ghost notes, and that was...
[It’s unbelievable.]
[Why?]
[Basically, he was playing with it as the base, but Logan’s performance was clearly improvised.]
[In other words, Sion arranged it on the spot in order to put reins on the wild horse named Logan. He listened to Logan’s performance and thought of a progression that would suit it. Can you believe he created a piece at that level in just a few seconds?]
[I was called a genius after making it onto the Billboard Hot 100 at a young age, but...]
[The real genius is Sion.]
[And because I knew that, I appeared on Coming Up Next.]
In truth, there was a slight error in Chris Edward’s thinking.
It was true that Han Sion had improvised a performance capable of putting reins on Dave Logan.
But Han Sion’s improvisation was different from that of ordinary performers.
He wasn’t someone described by an exaggerated epithet; he was truly someone who had been creating melodies for centuries.
In his composition farm, there were an enormous number of melodies, chord progressions, and harmonies.
It wasn’t as though Han Sion remembered all of them.
But the moment he heard Logan’s performance, a list from within his composition farm surfaced, and all he had to do was begin with the appropriate one among them.
From there, Han Sion’s experience and talent guided him.
But in the eyes of Chris Edward and the members of BOTY, who didn’t know that truth, Han Sion was God’s mistake.
[God’s mistake?]
[Einstein said God does not play dice, but maybe He did.]
[And that Korean is someone who rolled all sixes when it comes to music.]
At last, Han Sion and Dave Logan’s performance came to an end.
[Damn it. I lost. You’re a genius.]
Along with Dave Logan’s declaration of surrender.
The scenes where Han Sion gave similar help to the bassist and keyboardist were omitted to the level of insert shots.
They had already created a perfect beginning, development, turn, and conclusion, so adding anything more would have been superfluous.
Besides, this much was enough.
Whether viewers knew music well or not, the direction made it impossible not to recognize Han Sion’s talent.
-Han Sion is seriously insane lol
-Wow, a singer like that came out of Korea lololol
-I thought Chris Edward was hyping Han Sion up way too much, but nope lololol Edward was just the first one to recognize Han Sion’s talent.
-I missed the beginning. Did Han Sion compose Players too?
-Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Apparently Chris Edward happened to hear it while filming Coming Up Next, got hooked, and took the song. He entrusted the recording direction to Han Sion too.
-At first I thought he put him in charge because of the broadcast, but after watching the show, I changed my mind.
-From the start, it makes no sense that Chris Edward would entrust a recording to him just because of M Show lolololol
-Fr lololol Even if Chris Edward came off like an airhead, how many Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs does he have? You think he’d do something that could harm his career?
-No, why is everyone making such a fuss? Wasn’t it over the moment he co-composed with masters on the first full-length album?
-Composing and performing are kind of different, though.
-Kya, I always thought phrases like “America was amazed” and “Billboard praised him” were so childish, but this is just fact lololol
-Right, this isn’t patriotic hype lolololol It’s fact hype lolololol
Naturally, the viewers went wild, and clips began to be exported in real time.
In truth, Han Sion’s share of screen time in Self-Made Season 1 was unexpectedly not that large.
To borrow someone’s words, Han Sion only composed like a dragon inside a nest, while the other members who received his songs handled the outside activities.
Of course, there was the huge blow called Apple at the end, so he swallowed up all the buzz, but that was how the actual broadcast footage was.
But the protagonist of Season 2 was, no matter what anyone said, Han Sion.
There was also a linguistic reason for this.
Among the members of Sedalbaegil, there was no one fluent in English.
Choe Jaeseong was relatively good at listening, but he couldn’t speak well.
The rest of the members were practically blind.
If they had belonged to a major agency, they would have received foreign-language training, but Sedalbaegil had no time for that.
By contrast, Han Sion’s English ability was not something that could merely be described as fluent.
[You’re from the West Coast, but you studied on the East Coast, right?]
[That’s a very specific guess.]
[Your pronunciation is East Coast, but how should I put it? The vibe of where you’re from is totally Cali. Your word choice gives it away too.]
The locals who spoke with Han Sion always became convinced that he was American.
An American who had lived his whole life in America.
In truth, it wasn’t exactly wrong.
Because in the country currently known as the United States, there was probably no one who had used English longer than Han Sion.
Unless there was an old man somewhere around two hundred years old.
As the first episode was nearing its end in terms of airtime, the scene that aired was HR Corporation’s request for them to record it.
-Huh? Sedalbaegil is going to be the singer for that song?
-I think HR Corporation really sees Sedalbaegil in a good light?
-But isn’t that kind of a stretch? They’re practically unknown in America.
Around then, someone’s speculation received an enormous number of recommendations and was shared among people.
-Hey, I figured out what 2+2+1 means.
-What is it?
-Two singles in America, two singles in Korea, and one mini album.
-Oh?
-Then = 2?
-It means these are their second-year activities.
-Four singles and one mini album... Considering Sedalbaegil’s usual workload, it’s not impossible.
-Han Sion or somebody said it, didn’t he? That we’d know what 2+2+1 meant once Self-Made ended.
-Hey, I think this is right.
-It is lololol Then does that mean there’s one more song besides Players aiming for Billboard?
-Probably lololol And it definitely looks like they signed some kind of distribution contract with HR Corporation lololol
-Dumping Lion Ent for HR Corporation lololololololololol
-So damn cool lololololol
-For real, they’re Self-Made itself.
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I lived in America for a very long time, and culturally, I’m familiar with America too.
Ah, except for getting onto a bed with shoes on. I seem to reject that on a genetic level.
I really couldn’t do that.
Anyway, I’m someone familiar with American culture, but that didn’t mean I was completely insensitive to Korean trends.
I also found some cultures fun and accepted them, and I thought some other cultures were useful and made use of them in America too.
One of those was MBTI.
Well, the preface was grand, but it wasn’t anything amazing.
Koreans kept sending me DMs about it, so I tried it a few times, told the GOTM members, and it spread across America from there.
MBTI itself was created in America in the 1940s anyway, so it would be strange for me to say I popularized it.
But it hadn’t reached the level of recognition it had in Korea, where people asked someone they’d just met about their MBTI instead of the weather.
The reason I’m saying this now is...
“This is a revolution.”
“Give it a rest.”
“How did you know about something like this?”
“I just saw it in a book.”
Gu Taehwan was going completely insane.
Gu Taehwan had always been quick-witted and the type of person who tried to understand others.
No, even saying “tried” was funny.
There were people who were just born that way.
People with a personality that naturally dug into what the other person intended, and why they said and did certain things.
Gu Taehwan was exactly like that, and he had once told me that it had caused problems when he was young.
What had he said?
That he could feel a teacher taking out their anger on a friend, so he confronted them?
He had also said he pointed out how friends secretly disliked one another while pretending to be close on the outside.
So I thought he might find it interesting and told him about MBTI, but it ended up suiting his tastes far too well.
If left alone, he looked ready to go around explaining MBTI to everyone in the world.
As of 2018, it was a culture that wasn’t popular in Korea at all, but wouldn’t it probably become popular because of Gu Taehwan?
After all, Gu Taehwan’s individual fans had already been driven by his urging to post theirs all over Twitter and cause an uproar.