Something momentous happened over the last week. Our college Wi-Fi suddenly decided to let Youtube past its firewalls and the timing couldn’t have been more off, what with our exams happening. Let it be known that I resisted. Every time my eyes grew weary (which was every ten minutes) I would take a break and check what the social media was up to. When in boredom, tumble down Tumblr – isn’t what they say, anyways?
My finger would unconsciously stray over to the Youtube icon. It would take all of my strength, but I would wrench it back and plop myself in front of the books again. This routine played itself out three or four times before I thought, “Well now girl, you deserve yourself a little treat.” Little did I know that I was venturing into a territory, well past the point of no return.
Sometimes Youtube outdoes itself when recommending videos. Of course, it couldn’t have picked a better time than then to suggest this video that would make me watch another one. And then another one that would force me to watch the next one. It would take a TWO HOUR STUDY BREAK worth of videos during exams before I condemned myself to be damned.
So about a month back, I’d watched some EXO music videos (which were mind-blowingly awesome as always) but I’d never exactly considered myself a kpop fan. True, their beats were catchy; granted, their choreography was breath-taking – but STILL, you know? Some part of me thought they were too flashy for their own good.
 |
| WAIT WAIT WAIT - I'M NOT DONE |
This holier-than-thou attitude was brought to a sudden death by a video that Youtube recommended to me. Don’t ask me which life-altering video it was – I have no idea. All I know was that it was some video of EXO goofing about. What do you know – stars really are just like us!
It took me some ten videos before I realized I wanted to know more about them. Thus started my extensive research. That’s when I taught myself to recognize their faces and learn their names. And then I learnt that three of them had quit EXO.
Have you heard of delayed heartbreak? Well, now you know.
Reader, I was heartbroken. They’d quit a year back, and I was shedding tears now. I curled into a ball and moaned into a pillow like a madwoman.
 |
| Sure, why not? Laugh at my misery. |
Then like any other possessed fangirl, (did I mention I’d become an honest-to-god EXO fan by then?) I rolled up my cuffs and proceeded to recruit members into the fandom from the neighbourhood. I shoved EXO music videos into their faces and watched in satisfaction as their expressions slowly morphed from sneering disdain into something close to wonder. I barely held back my grin as the first round of the converted brought other unbelievers into my room for their baptism into the fandom. I viciously lashed out at the sceptics who thought they wore too much makeup to still be called guys (“FYI a guy who embraces the metrosexual aesthetic isn’t feminine – it’s just a sign of how secure he is in his masculinity to not feel threatened by makeup”). All the while Youtube kept recommending more videos wherein I watched Chanyeol and D.O. have their moments (those two will make myself puncture a rib someday, I swear), Kai’s infectious laughter, Baekhyun’s penchant for mimicry, Lay’s broken Hangeul and his many (un)fortunate language mishaps, Tao’s shyness, Kris’ and Chanyeol’s rapping sessions and – GOD I could go on.
Then Tumblr thought it would be funny to mention some web drama of theirs and then Google corroborated to this and then I was truly lost.
This has gotten so much out of control that I found myself wishing that the firewall blocked Youtube again, simply because I yearned peace of mind. It truly is disastrous when you’re a newly minted fangirl and there happens to be simply no dearth of Youtube videos of your idols. And the time put into “research” about your idols falls right in between your exams.
 |
| SOMEONE SEND HAAALP PLEASE |
