I have a soft spot for any song that riffs from Pachelbel’s Canon, so I do like this song from the early days of Hello Venus a lot. That’s not why I chose to showcase it today, though.
One of the qualms I have with idol K-Pop sometimes, and why it all starts to feel a bit engineered as I grow older, is its nearly infantile stance on what a healthy relationship should be.
Yes, I know this video is fiction, and yes, it’s not meant to be taken seriously. But these kinds of positive pop culture reinforcements serve no reason other than to subtly normalize this behavior for a cheap storyline. And this video is far from the only example.
This discussion bleeds into K-dramas too, with the numerous “grab her arm from behind as she tries to walk away” scenes and the “I will wait outside your home until you change your mind” scenes... dude, that’s called stalking. But that’s a discussion for another day and another column.