5 years with EXO

Today, April 7th, marks the 5th anniversary of boy group EXO. So for anyone who's within the fandom would understand how much we've been through over these years. We went through so many ups in downs. We've had three amazing members leave. We've seen our idols suffer and go through unimaginable pain. But there still making music and being the best they can be and now we find no reason not to call them legends.

This post is dedicated to my idols; to people who have inspired me to be happier in life; to people who've gave me a reason to smile everyday and to people to are able to make me feel so many emotions just by existing. This is my EXO anniversary challenge and also my way of inspiring you guys to broaden your scope of music.

EXO debuted in 2012 with their single MAMA. A single which many believed to me a flop. In reality it sucked. EXO-K, pretty much lip sang the entire song, and the album was pretty underrated. at this time, EXO was divided into two sub-groups, EXO - K; which sang songs in Korean and EXO -M which performed in Chinese. When we talk about the songs in the album, I personally will always say the Chinese versions were better. The songs included their popular pre-debut songs, 'What is love' and 'history'. Probably some of the best tracks to be release to hype up people for a debut. the other songs included some very metal-like songs such as machine and the hip-hop song two moons. this also includes the balled angel. 2012 marks the year of EXO's official debut and to be honest, they didn't do that well and no one thought they'll ever become as popular as they are now.

After the terrible debut, they release their songs 'Wolf'' and things started to turn around. They won music show after music show and they're fan-base started to grow. EXO's future started to turn around. The album had sold really well. Then Growl came out and that was a game changer. Growl was a massive hit and no one was able to deny the group's talent. They became the first kpop group in 10 years to sell one million albums. For me this marks my official joining the fandom. It was crazy, coming from being an angel (teen top's fandom) to this. I couldn't believe it but the dance moves and the song itself were amazing. EXO was officially reborn. Growl inspired many changes in the kpop genre. The group reopened up the dying genre and started to repopularize the buying of physical albums.

(This is one of my favorite things because EXO did so many things during this time. They won their first deasong, album of the year and so many other things.)

EXO went through some pretty traumatic things the next year. We were gifted with the perfect mini album 'Overdose" but were also  left the event of two members leaving. One of those members were  my bias and he left. Now these two members have been doing their own solos in China and they've been really popular and we hope as a fandom that they are happy. Now talking about the actual quality of the album. This is one of the best albums EXO has ever release in my opinion. Each song is just great. The balled, the beats, the lyrics, all perfect.  They won so many awards and they were at a point where they gained so many fans but these fans were crushed at the fact that two beloved members had left.

Then the 'EXODUS' was released. the album sold over one million copies, making EXO the only kpop artist to be a double million seller. 'Call me baby' charted for weeks and won 18 show awards. Making EXO the group with the highed music show wins in all of kpop. The album itself was amazing but then another Chinese member left. Leaving the group with 9 members instead of its original 12. As a way to make things better the repackaged album was released and EXO members, Chanyeol, Lay and Chen had wrote a song called promise, as a way to dedicate their love for their fans and promising to continue as a group with their remaining members.

Things were getting better. They released another Christmas album and they were still going strong.

That leads us to their recent album 'EXACT', another million seller and they are legends. The entire album being beautifully put together. The entire album flows so perfectly once listened to in order. EXO are kings, legends even. This album brought them many music awards. They had won 4 daesangs and they are legendary.

When people say EXO is not there yet, they are wrong. They call groups like Big Bang and SNSD legends because they left their mark on the kpop industry selling thousands of albums and gaining fans from all over the world. EXO has made kpop history. They have a total of 88 music wins, the second most wins for a group. More than Big Bang. (SNSD is first and they perfectly deserve that position as legends as well). EXO's album "EXACT' is one of the most sold albums on 2016. Their album placing 14th internationally above Ariana Grande and Ed Sheeran.

EXO has done so much and not only had they did things as a group, they've accomplished their own things as individuals. From staring in dramas, singing solo or within groups. Chanyeol even released a song with Far East Movement and Tinashe. Baekhyun had won various awards for a duet he sang with Suzy.

EXO has been through so much and they deserve the world. They are legends. No one can say they're not. Not when they've done so much to make the world notice kpop much more. Not when they've worked so hard to get to where they are. People need to stop comparing them to groups like Big Bang and Super Junior. EXO are kings. EXO are legends. EXO is one.

Home lives and connection to media

When creating a character, a writer needs to create more than a character's persona. They need to add so much more development to fully create a round characters that an audience will feel a connection towards. How is this development created? Through their interest, their interactions with other characters such as their family, friends or enemies. These are things a writer needs to take into consideration to even be able to formulate a character. However, in reality every person knows there's thousands of people in the world who have completely different lifestyles and relationships with people. So how is it possible that TV shows and movies are able to provide us with these connections to characters who live completely different lives than us? Well that's simple: create characters that have such a basic character outline.

Basic character outlines

Well most people like to believe that their favorite TV show is so unique. That the main characters are so original and different from every other show; in reality they're wrong.  A writer tries so hard to have characters that the audience would relate to and then to use basic stereotypes to make them seem more pleasing even without trying to. These characteristics tend to be overshadowed by the character's personality or they are simple overlooked. But let's break it down and get more specific. What are these factors? They are normally showcased within the character's home situation. A character's home situation tends to be the most influential factor. This factor helps develop our emotions towards a character.

How does a writer decide on a character's home situation? That's simple, think of what character you want. A rebellious one? They could have an abusive home life and are now acting out because they don't know what else to do. Or they are neglected at home so they decide that's the only way for their parents to notice them. A goody-too-shoe character? They have this amazing family, normally middle class and nothing is wrong with their lives. A character that ends up dealing with violence? Normally faces huge disaster in life at one point. They also could come from a really bad area of town where gang violence is a big factor. These are just a few of the big ones, there are others.

Let's get more specific.

These types are showcased within so many Tv shows and movies that they are normalized. Don't believe me? Well let's take a look at a few different TV shows and movies.

Girl Meets World

This is a show that's on Disney channel, that has three seasons. The show revolves around two separate girls: Riley and Maya. These two characters are supposed to be portrayed as exact opposites to each other but are best friends. Let's take a look at Riley's personality. Riley is supposed to be the good girl with a kind heart and never gets into trouble. Throughout the entire show she is shown going home to a full family. That being her mother, father and younger brother. Her mother is well off lawyer and her father is a teacher at her school. On top of that they live in a nice apartment in New York where you can barely hear the street noise. With this information you can automatically assume Riley comes from a great life. She faces no hardships and has no reason to have a spark of rebelliousness within her.

So of course it being a Disney show you need to have a character who's the exact opposite to be her best friend. So they create Maya. Maya being a girl living with her single mother. So that doesn't automatically mean that Maya is a bad person. But when you make her family life filled with negative connections or just plain non-existent is a pretty big factor. What do I mean by that? Well Maya's father walked out on her mother when Maya was pretty young. Maya's mother is a wanna-be actress who is a waitress and is never around. To make their connections worst, Maya's mother pretty much admits she's a terrible mother who doesn't want to take care of her daughter. Then practically shoves her into Riley's parents arms because she thinks that's where Maya is better off. Then add Maya's living situation into the picture. She's living in a mixed area which is also known as a lower district within New York. Maya's room is practically falling apart and there are rodents within her apartment. That is exact opposite of Riley.

I could go on for hours about the difference between these two and how their backgrounds make up who they are. Or how they develop over time with their parents influence. But that's not what this is about. This is about how these basic foundations create these characters, and within this show it creates these two opposite characters from completely different lives.

(Check out some clips to understand more about these characters: http://bit.ly/2iE5vlc, http://bit.ly/2jtqb3L,http://bit.ly/2k1HCcu)

(Moving on....before I go on a rant)

Shameless US

http://bit.ly/2jtrz6E

This is a show that includes lots of mature content but shows a basic meaning to living in the lower class. So the show revolves around a lower class family and their everyday struggles. This show involves drug use; sexual content and violence. How does this apply to basic character outlines? Well whenever I watch any form of media that involves the lower class these three things are always present. But then how does that relate to a character's foundation? So let's start with Fiona. Fiona is the oldest daughter of the family. She pretty much is the one who makes the money to provide for all her younger siblings. She works so many different jobs and not goods ones because she didn't finish High school. Fiona dropped out of school because her mother ran off and her dad is a drunk. (They're quite a few characters so I'm going to make this short and sweet). Frank, is the dead beat father. He lives off of his disability check and by leaching off of his children. He's constantly drinking and engaging in different drugs. All of his kids can't stand him but since he's family they keep him around and attempt to take care of him. Then we have Filip (aka Lip), who's the genius in the family. He's that one kids who ends up being the start fish in the pool who has a chance for something more in life. But what happens? Life. He gives up school so he can help with his family because they can't afford to do anything else. Then there's Ian who has a mental disorder because obviously you need to add something else just to top it off; to make their life even worse. But then they have to add the little cherry on top by having Carl. One of the youngest within the family, but who ends up in a juvenile detention center for selling drugs.

That's not even all the characters but there's so many other who just have it bad because of their situation. So why is this stuff important? Well think about, why would a writer create a show like this? To show a family which has literally no hope of ever advancing in society but still has a strong bond. But at the same time this is so stereotypical. A lower class family, where barely any of them have a achieved a high school diploma; all of them use drugs and drink various types of alcohol. When creating this show the writer knew he wanted to create a dysfunctional family. Best way to do it: make them a lower class family with no way of  getting out of their situation. Give them a alcoholic father, a runaway mother with a drug problem (sorry forgot to mention that) and them a bunch of kids who are all messed up in their own special way. This show is literally the stereotype of what it means to live in the lower class.  
(Check out these other clips to help understand their lives. http://bit.ly/2jVVhhn, http://bit.ly/2jtsowg, http://bit.ly/2k1RaEe)

So let's change to a movie instead.

The Blind side and Orange is the New black

So I'm very aware that this is technically based on true events but let's see how this is similar to other constructions. So remember this movie is about a young black man who gets adopted by a white family and ends up becoming a very famous football player. But let's get a little deeper then that. This black kid doesn't know how to read and he's in his senior year of high school. He comes from the lower class and lives with his drug addict mother. Who I believe doesn't care about her child at all. To top it off you can tell he comes from a high gang violence area. That little piece of information is showcased when at one point in the movie he is approached by other black men in his area. Automatically the entire audience can tell, this is about gang violence. (http://bit.ly/2jtvQa9,, http://bit.ly/2jkYyHI  

How does that connect to other media products. Well let's look at Orange is the new black; a quite popular show on netflix. Tasha Jefferson, one of the black characters on the show. She is shown as one of the really smart kids back in the day but then after some very unfortunate events she turns to helping out with selling drugs. Let's take a look at her character a bit more in depth. So she is raised in the "hood", she attempts to stay away from the gang scene for a long time and focuses on school. But that doesn't work out for her and she ends up selling drugs. Why? Because her class and race force her to be stuck in the lower class. ( check out this scene p.s ship to 1:47

http://bit.ly/2iLzgUr) 

Okay so why?

Let's travel back to the concept of character outlines. Within these completely different shows and movie, there has been a common thread: class. Within each example the character's class affects their family life and their actions. So think back to the first example: Girl Meets World. There's Riley and Maya; Riley being known as the good one because she is raised by two parents and comes from the middle class. While Maya is the bad one because she comes from the lower class and has a single parent. Next Shameless; a lower class family that has a deadbeat father and a runaway mother. Now add that every kid within the family has been involved in an illegal activity. Then the last two examples, both kids comes from the slums and have potential to get out of it. One get's adopted into a rich white family while the other ends up selling drugs. Both of them had terrible home lives and were black.

It's not only within these few examples these types of things are everywhere. Shows like Empire, One tree hill or Degrassi. They're everywhere; we flock to these shows because their interesting and we think they'll be completely different. But in reality they all have these basic character outlines.

RAPE, A WEAPON OF GENOCIDE

[ WARNING. TRIGGERING TOPIC]

Over the course if my school year, my Genocide class has learned various different ways perpetrators try to eliminate their targets. One of the most common things we noticed was the use of rape as a weapon. I believe that rape as a weapon in Genocide is one of the cruelest forms of taking down a target group. Why do I believe this? Simply because unlike where killing someone, the pain of rape is forever left on the victim. Death is peaceful compared to rape. Death happens in one moment. However, rape is something that will effect a victim for the rest of their life. Rape could leave permanent scars on the person mentally and in many cases force the victim to be shunned out of their community.

 
Why is rape such an effective way of destroying a target group? This could be for various reasons. During Genocide, some women were raped to the point where their uterus was destroyed; making them unable to conceive. This stops the creation of further generations of the target group. In other cases, women were raped and impregnated. The reason for this was to force out the targets group blood. In simpler words, it was an attempt to cleanse the next generation by forcing their blood to become more “pure”.

 

For me, I find it this subject rather difficult to talk about. Since rape is already a very harsh topic that makes many people uncomfortable (I am one of those people). As a class, we decided to have a more in depth conversations along this topic. We read an essay about it and it really opened my eyes to how harmful rape as a weapon in Genocide can be. One of the more eye opening thoughts was a question that we all needed to answer before the text and then tried to answer again after. Are women human? Everyone would say yes to this question, but is this truly the case? Women are treated completely differently to men in most cases. There are many injustices that occur because women are regarded differently than men. At the end of the essay, it concluded with the idea that women are believed to be human but are treated completely unfairly.

One thing that I found interesting is how rape was always in the background in every Genocide I have studied (trust me there are quite a few in the 20th century that many don't know about). Only until more recent Genocides, was rape more prominent. Such as the genocide in Bosnia, where rape was such a prominent thing.

I believe that the Genocide in Bosnia is where we see rape as a strongly used weapon. This could be caused by how the genocide was organized. In this Genocide, there was lots of division between the men and the women. While the men were (pretty much) killed first and then the women and children were taken away. Rape was very systematic in the destruction of the target group.  

In many genocides, rape is one of the most common traits. However, it's hard to believe how it's the first time rape was introduced as a weapon in Genocide, was during the trials for the Genocide in Rwanda. I find this very displeasing. As a society we should have lots more awareness about genocides and how to deal with these events better.

Shameless

So recently I have been binging through all of Shameless US. So this show is actually super good. Like it brings me to the brink of happy tears. Warning this show is actually rated mature because of nudity and mature language. I would normally give a spoiler of what happens in the show, b
ut due to the fact that the show has so many different plots going on its hard to separate them. So instead, I'll do a character analysis. I'll just explain the characters and their relationship with each other and how many and which seasons they are in.

Frank Gallagher is the main character in this show. He is the drunk father
of the family which the show is centered around. He is an alcoholic and a drug abuser. He is very irresponsible. I personally wish he died. he is currently married to Monica, a women who walked out of their family, abandoning them.

Fiona Gallagher is anothemain character. She is the main female lead, who is also Frank's oldest daughter (at least we believed so until an episode in season 4).  Fiona pretty much raises all the kids throughout the show. She does have some ups and downs that happen over the series. She does have an on and off boyfriend named Steve/Jimmy.

Jimmy Lishman is Fiona's on and off boyfriend. He steals cars for a living, but we do find out
all that his family is wealthy because they're all doctors.

Fillip Gallagher (Lip), is the oldest son of the Gallagher's family. He so happens to be a genius. He fa
lls in love with this girl named Karen. But due to some issues they stop dating. He then gets together with a girl named Mandy. But he finds her kinda clingy and he still finds himself in love with Karen. Lip ends up the first Gallagher to get hid diploma and go to college.

Ian Gallagher, is my favorite character (him and his ex-boyfriend Mickey). Ian first found out as gay through the discovery of Lip finding out that Ian is fucking his boss Kash. After some events, IAn ends up fucking Mickey Milkovich (he's supposed to be some big thug and stuff). The two of them have relations throughout the entire show. Just saying they only fuck until season 3, where they have their first kiss and they end up falling in love with each other; seriously the best couple in the show, so worth it. They do end up breaking up because of some issues.

Mickey Milkovich is Ian's boyfriend and is also married to some prostitute that he by accident impregnated; happens in season 3. Background; Mickey's dad is ho
mophobic which makes him keep it a secret that he's having sex with Ian. Mickey refuses to admit that he's in love with Ian and that Ian is only someone who "fucks him". After his dad walks in on him and Ian having sex, his dad forces him to have sex with girl and Mickey (because he doesn't want to admit that he's gay and loves Ian) ends up getting her pregnant. More stuff happens. Mickey admits he's gay and tells everyone he's in love with Ian but due to mental disorders more things happen. Later Mickey ends up in jail because he pretty much almost kills someone. By the end of Mickeys's part in the show, him and Ian break up and Mickey goes to jail.

(sorry about the span.  Could not help myself)

There's also this other couple which owns the Alibi (later on the in show but is involved through the series). Along with that there are more younger siblings in the Gallagher family that go through their own issues. These ones just so happen to be the ones with th
e most interesting plot in my opinion.

manga suggestions

I wanted to give some recommendations on manga. So another I have been doing recently is reading a bunch of different types of manga; mainly shounen, shounen ai, and shoujo manga. I am taking it upon myself to give you a total of 5 different manga that I found very amusing to read (some are still updating).

For my first post of this type, I'll only stick to manga that has romance, comedy in it. 

HORIMIYA (Shounen, Comedy, Romance, School Life, Slice of Life)

[On going]

This manga is about a boy and a girl who put on masks to their schoolmates. They unexcitingly end up figuring each other out and become miraculous friends. Their relationship does end up changing into something more later on. This is the perfect manga if you’re into a cute romance that doesn’t have too much sappiness to it. Honestly, this manga is a great one and it’s actually very popular at the moment. There’s not too much fluff in it, but that’s mainly because it’s a shounen not a shoujo.

 LAST GAME (Shoujo, Comedy, Romance, Drama, Slice of Life)

[On going]

This manga is about a boy who used to be always number one. Until one girl came along and
easily took his place. Ever since then, his goal was to beat her. Now years have passed and he still hasn’t been able to beat her even once. He soon then realizes he has been in love with her this entire time. I found this really enjoyable because it’s one of the first mangas I have ever read with the male character’s opinion so prominent. There are a lot of cute moments between the two and it has quite some funny moments.

HIBI CHOUCHOU (Shoujo, Comedy, School Life, Romance, Slice of Life)

[Complete]

This one is about a really pretty popular girl. This girl is very quiet because she is doesn’t know/understand how to talk to boys. This is until she finds herself drawn to this one boy who is on the karate team. She first notices him because he is the only boy her doesn’t try to talk to her and he also doesn’t look into her eyes. He ends up the first person she talks to and they get closer through the entire manga. I found this one really adorable and worth the long wait for them to finally kiss.

HANA TO AKUMA (Shoujo, Comedy, Drama, Historical, Mystery, Romance, Supernatural,Fantasy)

[Complete]

This is about a demon named Vivi who ends up having a human girl. It shows how he treated her as she grew up. It shows how her feelings for him develop and how he simply denies his. This is one of those manga that one can’t really explain what happens because there’s a lot of little details and since this is supposed to be a short post, I’m not going to go into full detail. But its super good. It made me so emotional in a good sense.

GAKUEN ALICE (Shoujo, Comedy, Romance, Supernaturel, School Life, Drama)

[Complete]

This so happens to be my favorite Shoujo manga of all time. It’s about a young girl named Mikan who ends up going to a school for people who possess something called an “alice”. The manga shows her journey to her finding herself. She also does end up falling in love with a terrible (not really) guy name Natsume Hyuuga. Seriously read this if you haven’t yet.  It’s perfection.

Remembering the Holocaust

Today, I think it’ll be best to write about a more serious topic. It’s understandable that many overlook this post due to the topic. However, I feel as if this is a topic that must be discussed amongst everyone. 

To begin we should understand what the Holocaust is and when it took place. The Holocaust is a Genocide which took place in various places in Europe.   

The question I want to answer today is not exactly what the Genocide is, but what/why should we remember this Genocide? To me the things we must understand about this Genocide is how it came to be and its aftermath.  

As a student of Genocide I have come to understand that there’s more to a Genocide then killing (even though that does end up one of the final results). There are a few things that must happen in order for a Genocide to occur.  First of all there must be 4 psychological preconditions, which are narcissism, greed, fear and humiliation.  

NARCISSISM 

Narcissism ties itself with anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism isn't something that started more in the recent years. It is something that has been developing for centuries all over the world. What is Anti-Semitism? It is hostility to or prejudice against Jews. It is something that develop long ago when people believed that the Jewish had killed Jesus. Along with that, the Germans believed they were the better race, this made them have large sense of pride. 

GREED 

In 1923, the entire world went through a depression. Inflation was everywhere; in Germany it was worse. The Germans were experiencing hyper-inflation, it went to the point where they were changing decimal placings on bills and they ended up burning money because it was worthless. On the other many others weren't being as effected, such as some of the Jewish race. This led the Germans to grow their hatred towards the Jewish. I believe this led them to have the thought "Since we [the German] are better than them [the Jewish], they do not deserve to live better than us".  

FEAR  

There is the story that has been going around about the elders of Zion. Which causes fear amongst the Germans. I personally don’t feel much connection with this one as a precondition towards the genocide. However, I do believe that the fear of "something" happening is what helped drive the Germans to separate themselves more from the Jewish population.  

HUMILIATION  

This connects completely with the loss of World War 1. Throughout the war the Germans were fooled into believing they were winning (this made them have a huge loss of self-pride). The German population lost faith in the government. This and hyper-inflation led to desperation and led to the rise of Adolf Hitler.  

I fell as if it’s important for one to know that the genocide was not just the massive amount of killing. There were many things that had to happen in order for one to kill so many people. In total there are a total of 10 stages. However, I'm only going to focus on 6 of these stages.  

SYMBOLIZATION  

To have a Genocide there must be division amongst the two groups. The symbolization represents the start of classification and the division of the "us" and "them" groups. One of the things that Hitler did when he was elected was to make the Jewish population identifiable through paper, then he moved to making it something more noticeable. Even amongst the concentration camps there was still a division due to the different classes represented through the different types of starts that was on their clothes.  

DEHUMANIZATION  

To me I think a good way to represent this is through their speech

that they use. Many of the Nazis called thee Jewish "vermin", "rodents" and other things which represented they weren't human. An accurate representation of this is the book MAUS. The novel presents the Jewish race as rats, and many believe rats are disgusting.   

PREPARATION 

To further separate the two groups the Nazis had put the Jewish population into ghettos. In some ghettos they sealed it off by surrounding in a wall. This made it easier for the Nazis to put them into concentration camp and later on extermination camps.   

PERSECUTION  

This part is something I find interesting. The Nazis has taken barely any time to decide that the entire population of the Jewish people were to be exterminated. They believed that since the rest of the world did not want to deal with the problem of the Jewish they, themselves, were to deal with it. They believed that the only solution to this problem was to get rid of them all.  They believed it was their duty because the rest of the world did not want to deal with them.  

EXTERMINATION  

This part is something many know about. The Germans had to try to figure out a way to kill all these people without chaos. They had experimented various ways to kill them without wasting too much money on bullets and without making an uproar. They first experimented on the people who were deemed not proper to the German race. Then once they discovered the perfect way to kill a massive amount of people they implemented it into the concentration camps, making them also extermination camps. They soon made other camps specifically for the killing of all these people. In the end they killed millions of Jewish people. 

DENIAL 

I believe that the only real sense of the denial of this crime is the act of suicide on Hitler's part. I feel as if this crime has not been fully atoned for because Hitler, himself, has not paid for his crimes. It is easy for all of us to remember this crime however, if the person who administered all of this had yet to atone for this, then this event will never be truly recognized. Due to the fact that Hitler committed suicide, I believe the Genocide has not been fully dealt with. 

WHY SHOULD WE REMEMBER ALL OF THIS? 

I am a full believer in the fact that knowledge is key. Knowledge leads us to understanding and an understanding of something could help improve the future. I feel as if it’s important to understand how this happened so none of us repeat it. But not only that, we must be able to point out these things amongst what is happening today in our society. 

We should also know that there is still this hatred amongst the population against the Jewish population. There is a memorial in Poland that was defaced before.  This is not over, we must do whatever it takes to not repeat ourselves.  

Also, I believe if we do not have a firm understanding of this, we are doomed to repeat ourselves. As a student of Genocide, I already see signs of a genocide that may be able to occur inside of America.  

There's so much more to this and everyone must understand this so we can prevent anything from happening, ever again.