This story always brings smiles to my face. This was the moment I had changed my lifestyle and everything dark inside me.

Now, this story takes place back in 2009-2010; so I was around 15/16 years old.

I was a huge (still am, but not as much) fan for heavy metal/ screamo/ punk/ death metal music. I eventually stumbled upon Insane Clown Posse during my Emo teeny bopper phase. I remember being so thrilled to find these crazy ass ****ers that just didn’t give two ****s about what people thought. They sang about murder and violence and that pleased my little emo dark heart.

I had listened to them for several years and I swore up and down that this whole Juggalo (I guess the correct term would be Juggalette) lifestyle was for me. That I was gonna “WHOOP WHOOP” till the day I died. What a stupid child I was.

This was around the time that all my friends were straight up losers who did nothing but drop out of school, get pregnant at 14, and smoke weed till they couldn’t open their eyes anymore.

I eventually started hanging around the AP student table once I got tired of all the drama that my old group had often occurred within it.

Now, I was not an AP student. This was around the time that I had no ambition to go to college or anything. I only hung around this crowd because a good close friend of mine of 16 years was kind of in that scene and these were her friends.

I figured, “Hey~ If I become close with them, they’ll do my homework”.



Eventually this Vietnamese girl, whom I will name Linh, started gravitating towards me. She was this extremely nerdy and selfless girl who shadowed everyone and made sure they were happy before her own happiness. She was the most caring girl I had ever met. I figured that she was gravitating towards me because I was this crazy ass goth looking girl who wore a backwards ICP hat, big ass jacket, black skinny jeans, lip rings, and a zero **** attitude; someone completely different than her realm of normal.

Somehow she became stuck to me like glue and I was stuck to her.

Eventually her kindness and pure heart started to chip away at my blackened cold heart. I felt like I was becoming a human again.

I started talking to her on a daily/hourly basis. Eventually I started going over to her house on the weekends to spend EVEN MORE time with her.

Now, I had ZERO Asian friends at this time. I had NO idea of Asian culture. The whole “Take off your shoes at the door and bow and greet my parents” totally sent me through a loop.

In my head, the only thing I was thinking about was whether or not my socks were clean/ had a hole in it or not.

At first her parents paid me zero attention, which was normal because well, I looked like I just came out of the grave and was going to cast a demonic curse on their daughter.

Eventually their thoughts changed about me as time went on and her father eventually started considering me part of his family (Not sure if it’s because he genuinely liked me or he felt bad that my father was not in the picture and felt like he had to take on that role for my sake) (Cam on Ba ♥) (Translate to English: Thank you dad)

Now Linh, had all these Asian posters up in her room of these boybands. All I could think was, “God damn, Asian guys are not cute”. #UnculturedSwine

I asked her about the posters which caused her to get all giddy about it and then she brought up Youtube videos of them for me to watch.

My initial reaction to the music was, “What kind of bull**** is this?”. I was not pleased. It was not my cup to tea, they were too poppy and in my eyes because they were wearing makeup and interesting outfits, I deemed them as “GAY” #UncivilizedTwat

I will insert the very first KPOP music video here (I am now spazzing because I saw them live a month ago)

Now, I had already deemed her music as “Not my style” and wanted nothing to do with; I still heard it from time to time because she liked it and listened to nothing but it.

I remember being at my house washing dishes and all of a sudden I heard the beat of the song in my head and the words that came out my mouth was, “Du du du du~ Her whisper is the Lucifer” and I froze.

I knew the song.

I grew to like the song and the boys who sang it.

I suddenly began to look up everything about them and even variety shows they had. I became OBSESSED.

I had to have more. I needed more groups. I needed to know everything about them.

Soon my ICP posters came down and up went groups like: Super Junior, Shinee, F(X), EXO, Big Bang, 2NE1, 4Minute, B2st, 2PM, etc. My CD collection started being filled with them.

Fast foward to 2012 and I had eventually attended my first KPOP concert in LA by a group called “Big Bang” (Who just recently celebrated their 10 yr anniversary ;

2014, I saw 8 more groups at a LA convention called “KCON” which comes to LA and NY every Late July- Early August. I met some of my Kpop youtubers that I watch.

2016, I saw 8 more groups at Kcon. Some old school groups and some extremely new groups. I met up with more really cool Kpop Youtubers that I loved to watch. I had a blast.



2016 and I am still obsessed with Korean pop. I know 99% of the groups, the old groups who started everything, their schedule, their trainee life, their real names and stage names and where they are born, and even crazy things like their drinking habits and ideal types. I even followed Kpop news accounts on Twitter so I could stay updated on scandals, concerts, dating rumors.

Because of Kpop, I learned to be more culturally sensitive. I learned to try new things and not assume anything.

What I mean by assume is assuming that ALL of them are from Korea and speak NO English. Which is not the truth, a good chunk of these Kpop artists are from America and speak fluent English and a good portion of them are Chinese, Thai, and Japanese.



Switching from being an ignorant juggalo to a culturally sensitive/aware KPOP lover has completely changed my life and I am so thankful of it.

Or should I say, Im thankful to Linh for befriending me.



~Andy