My son, age 9, loves them. They’re his favorite band now. That’s why I’ve heard so many of their songs. As I’ve said, I can take them or leave them. They have some good songs, but many mediocre.
He’s not into girls (or boys, in that way) yet, by way. He just think they look and sound cool.
I like the j-pop girl band Perfume.
Not until this thread. I originally opened this thinking it was about a serial killer in the Midwest.
I’ve heard of them and indeed heard them (on television). They’re just the latest in a long line of generic, overproduced, overstyled, overmarketed heartthrob bands churning out immediately-forgettable music and a metric shit-ton of merch. They’re the NKOTB of a new generation.
This too shall pass.
BTW, as much as I love K-Pop, I’m sure this is just a fad that will be forgotten year from now. As mentioned upthread, while BTS (and Blackpink) are good, there’s nothing that really makes them all that different from any number of other Korean acts, and they’re not the first to attempt to crack the U.S. market. I remember seeing Girl’s Generation appearing on Letterman, and CL on James Cordon, for example. (I don’t count “Gangnam Style”, since that was never really more than a novelty song that went viral.) BTS just happened to be the ones on top at the moment K-Pop finally stuck in the West.
This whole thing is fucking stupid. (The OP, not your post.) They are obviously Asian men. Pretty boys, with some makeup but no worse than countless other popular singers. Prince, David Bowie, and Boy George, to name a few, were far more androgynous.
They are wearing male clothing. They have male haircuts. They look like young Asian adult males. The only thing is a bit of makeup, something that’s been part of popular music only for the last 50 years.
I asked some of my students, middle school and high school age kids, if they looked androgynous. They looked at me like I was crazy. They are males. Period.
Here are a few voice actors from Japan as examples of Asian performers. https://honeysanime.com/top-5-seiyuu-perfect-for-male-protagonists-japan-poll/
I wouldn’t discount casual racism as a factor. By causal racism, I mean that the OP may not think himself as racist and possibly doesn’t intentionally look down on Asians.
However, I first lived in Asia almost 40 years ago so I’ve talked to or read thoughts concerning Asians from thousands and thousands of Westerners over the years, and I see lot of racism. Mostly mild, like this. Sometimes worse.
It’s pretty easy to mock Asians. They’re shorter, usually with smaller physiques. They don’t even have much facial or chest hair. I’m not surprised at all to see them thought of as not human. That’s pretty much the history of the interaction between the West and the “Orient” from the very beginnings of direct contact. At least this time we didn’t get the squinty eyes thing.
Unfortunately, while there has been a lot of progress in getting rid of racism, or at least driving it underground, some people get super defensive about it.
Unconscious bias is something which plagues us all. Hell, I grew up as a very conservative Mormon with the traditional beliefs in the superiority of white males. It takes a lot of work to identify and eliminate bias.
As far as the taste in music. I’m not into k-pop, j-jop or whatever-else-pop. I’m not really into recent pop music from America either. I’m just another middle-age man approaching becoming an old man. I’d tell you to get off my lawn, but we don’t have lawns here.
Jesus Christ. Look, I meant the OP to be in good fun. I had never seen the phenomenon of kpop before and i found it humorous. And I likened them to alien-like sentient beings, not to girls, boys or “androgynous males”. I honestly meant no offense or mockery. If anything I mocked myself for becoming a old, has-been who doesn’t “get-it” and wants these young’uns to turn that racket down! 
Clearly, the solution is for you to stop getting old.
You say that, but…
Look, I’m not going to beat you up about this but they’re clearly boys. Horribly overstyled boys, but boys.
I didn’t mean for that to imply that i thought they were “girly boys” but rather neither girls nor boys, hence my “smooth everywhere” remark. I was trying, and failing, to paint a comedic picture of genderless, sexless sentient advertisements that had evolved from normal ads that couldnt get past things like adblockers, tivo, etc.
If I had intended to make fun of their “girliness”, it would have been an entirely different thread. I was making fun at what i perceived as their “genderlessness”. If this in and of itself is actually the problem, then I apologize and maybe I do have some unconscious bias that I’m not in touch with.
The only meaningful difference is that the Boomers (aka TPTB) have declared their own crappy boyband “special”.
“But, but, this is really awful” is what every generation ever said about the next generations taste in music.
I wish Led Zeppelin would go back on tour (w/Bohnam’s son). THAT would teach these damned fool kids what real music is. :: pulls on grumpy shirt and cranky pants ::
You could substitute Van Halen. Hell, I’d even take a KISS or even the Ramones.
Anything but this “BTS” dischord, cacophany, and din.
Tripler
“Trip, what about an REO Speedwagon?” Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s not get too hasty here. . .
I would love it if you told us all to get off of your lawn to this tune.
I hope this does not come across as ageism 
That’s the perplexing thing to me (a 46 year old man)- these guys not only look young, but they look girly and effeminate. Most Western boy bands just have young, not overly masculine, but not overly feminine looking members, and usually that one older, more masculine looking member.
I mean, look at BTS here, versus NSYNC here.
Neither band is going to be confused with a biker gang or squad of Marines, but there’s just something more fundamentally girly about BTS that baffles me as to how they could be considered sex symbols or heartthrobs.
KISS is touring this year, as are The Who and Queen. The Rollings Stones would have toured except for Mick Jagger’s surgery. You may be getting AC/DC and Def Leppard as well.
I don’t completely understand it myself, but believe me: They are considered huge sex symbols among the teen girl crowd. Times have changed.
Keep in mind, they’re from Korea. It’s a very different culture with a different aesthetic. Now I’m not in their target market, but it seems that part of the appeal of the current K-Pop wave is that they aren’t trying to mold their image to adapt to the U.S. market. And really, I’m not so sure it’s all that different to the glam rock and hair metal styles I grew up listening to.
Of course there is an earlier Asian band that managed a hit in the US. Sadly, they were a one-hit wonder.
Kkonminam seems to be the proper term.
The aesthetics may have changed, but teen heart-throbs have always been less than overtly masculine. There were complaints about Elvis’ big eyes and wavy hair (there’s a reference to that in Moore’s “Watchmen” series), and that continued through the long-haired, tight-jeaned 70s and onward. The K-pop guys have worn some (to me) laugh-out-loud get-ups in their videos (watch “Fantastic Baby”), sure, but so did Prince and Michael Jackson.
I, for one, am shocked that your taste in men differs from that of a teenage Korean girl 
