K-Bops in K-Pop

I really struggled with a topic for today because, for personal reasons, I’ve been really busy. That aside, I finally found something that I think is worth talking about. I’ve mentioned my biases before but I wanted to go more in depth about Taeyong because I think there’s something to be learned there with my story of how I came to change my mind about him.

First Impressions

When I first saw Taeyong, I didn’t really think much of him, but bizarrely, I didn’t trust him. I didn’t know what it was but whenever I looked at him I just got this vibe like he wasn’t quite trustworthy. If you’re familiar with NCT, you know that Taeyong got off to a rocky start. He was accused of a bunch of things, most of which I can’t remember anyhow, but there’s really no point in restating them. The gist is this: they were pretty mean things to accuse someone of doing.

But I didn’t know better so I believed them. And I felt like my suspicions were confirmed. He was a bad person, the internet said so. So even though there was no proof, I wrote Taeyong off.

And when they debuted, Taeyong made a formal apology for “the things he’d done.” But it was too late for me and I didn’t believe his apology. I didn’t even give him the time of day. I loved NCT U, however, so I powered through for them.

NCT 127 Debuts

Taeyong didn’t just disappear, though. He came back as the leader of NCT 127 and I wanted to support my boys so I stuck around for the debut despite my how I felt about Taeyong.

Then Limitless era happened. As incredible a song as Limitless is and as much as I love it now, I had zero interest in it when it dropped. Why? Their hair. It wasn’t even that it was cultural appropriation because let’s be honest–it happens all the time. It was the fact that it was really hideous cultural appropriation. It wasn’t enough for me to just power through and forget it. It was bad and I honestly never intended to return to them after it.

When It Happened

The Cherry Bomb teasers were what brought my attention back to NCT 127. I was taken aback by the color scheme and the graphics and I was genuinely excited to see what they had in store. As shallow as it sounds, when I saw Taeyong with his baby pink hair and his precious little pout in his teaser picture, I realized that I really didn’t know anything about him but I wanted to.

So I went on Peach and asked for advice and one of my friends immediately said that Taeyong would be perfect for me. That shocked me. I was willing to give him a chance but I didn’t think he would be perfect.

My friend suggested I watch NCT Life to get to know him so I set aside a weekend and made the trek through every NCT Life available on Vlive. And damn, was she right.

Taeyong was the perfect man for me. He was kind, caring, selfless. He could cook and liked to clean. He was cute and a little bit of a baby. He had the sweetest laugh. He was a little self-conscious and a little silly and I loved everything about him. Virtually overnight, Taeyong went from the last person I would’ve ever liked to my number two bias.

So Why Does It Matter?

People change. People turn out to be different than you originally expected them to be. Yes, I have a very good read of people and typically my first impressions dictate how I feel about them, but sometimes I’m wrong. Sometimes you will be wrong too. What I want for people to get out of this is that you shouldn’t lock yourself into an opinion about someone–idol or not–just because you had a bad feeling about them once. Listen to your instinct, yes, but don’t just shut someone out for no reason. You may end up missing out on someone perfect.

Have you ever changed your mind about an idol? Or someone in your life? Leave me a comment and let me know!