Lorem Morbus

I have this friend Kelsey, and before I can go into the story, I have to give you some background on this great friend of mine. Every Wednesday I would go over to her house after school because we would go to the youth group together, and after it was over her mom would take me home. School ended around 2:15, but we usually had play practice that lasted until five, so Kelsey and I would troop to her house and we usually had two and a half hours to do whatever we wanted (we didn’t like to work on our homework much). Since I didn’t have the internet at home, this was my only time to watch videos that I wanted to watch on my own. Kelsey had different ideas.

Something you need to understand about my friend Kelsey is that I’m pretty sure she wishes that she was Asian. Whenever our school had an Asian foreign exchange student, she would form a friendship with them right away. I blame the two Pam’s for what they did to her, and what they were unintentionally doing to me every Wednesday night.

Whenever I got onto the internet at Kelsey’s house, I would go watch funny Harry Potter videos. Since she had gotten her own laptop, I was free to watch whatever I wanted on the home computer. Even though I had a computer at my disposal, this did not stop Kelsey from saying after two minutes into my hilarious parody video, “hey look at this, it’s so funny,” while turning my attention to her own computer.

The first time this occurred I was naïve of what I was to be shown, but once I saw it, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. I was shown a thirteen member boy band from Korea. I could not understand a word of what they were saying, and half of them had the ugliest hairstyles I have ever seen. I tried to be nice though, and I sat through the entire video. This was a mistake. I had no idea that what had happened to my friend was indeed a very serious situation. I was innocently being polite and showing a polite lack of interest in what she was showing me, but inside her brain were steaming cogs and wheels turning faster and faster at the thought of me actually liking what I saw. I really am making my friend sound crazy and I assure that she is not. She is merely a victim of what I call Lorem Morbus, otherwise known as the K-Pop disease.

Before I can start informing you of this disease and how it works, I have to tell you of how I became infected myself. Yes, I will admit that K-Pop has somewhat taken over my life and many other girls and guys (they do exist in guy form, but they are very rare, much like a Squib in the wizarding world, they just don’t fit in at all) all over the world. Yes, the world. People love K-Pop, myself included.

A little over two years ago when Kelsey showed me my first K-Pop video, I was far from interested. No, that isn’t accurate. I hated it. I could not get through a Harry Potter puppet pals video without being interrupted by Kelsey. Upon seeing that I wasn’t impressed by the skills of the boys and girls in the various music videos she showed me, she went for a different approach. There is a Canadian couple currently residing in South Korea, and they make videos about the culture there, K-Pop included, and they came up with some very funny interpretations of some of the K-Pop dances that were shown in the music videos of that year. The one Kelsey showed me was the interpretation of Super Junior’s Sorry Sorry. I had never laughed so hard at something so ridiculous because I thought that the couple were making fun of the dance like I was, but I was wrong. They liked the song, and the dance. I was confused, but I kept thinking about how the dance moves were so funny so I kept making Kelsey go back and play it over and over again. Before I knew it, I was doing the dance myself. The next day in school, the song was stuck in my head.

“Sorry sorry sorry sorry, naege naege naege michu michu,” I kept singing quietly to myself. Until Kelsey caught me and smiled. A week passed and the damn song was still an ear worm. Everywhere I kept doing the dance and singing the song. Kelsey had broken through the first wall. She had succeeded and I was obliviously unaware of what was happening to me. What started out as an innocent desire to learn the funny dance was turning into something much worse, and because I did not know, I was unable to put up defenses against it. Because I didn’t have internet at home, I was waiting for the next Wednesday where we could watch more funny K-Pop dance videos, and that was exactly what we did, but that wasn’t enough for Kelsey. I was slowly being taught the names of the thirteen member boy band Super Junior because of my obvious obsession with their song.

And then it happened. The final blow. While watching Super Junior’s U, I saw him. The most beautiful Korean I had ever seen.

“And that’s Hangeng but we call him Hannie,” Kelsey said pointing at a guy who had an odd expression on his face.

 A few seconds go by, and a different guy starts singing.

“GO BACK! GO BACK RIGHT NOW!”

“Okay okay,” Kelsey says excitedly. “To where?”

“2:03!” I shout completely driven insane for a few minutes. “He’s beautiful,” I sigh.

“Who Hannie?”

“No way!” I snatch the computer away and pause on his face. “No this one.”

“Ahhh the fish,” she says nodding her head approvingly.

“What?”

“Donghae, but because his name means East Sea, everyone calls him Fishy,” she said. I wasn’t really listening though. I replayed the part where he sang over and over again.

From that point I was a goner. I watched every music video of Super Junior just to look for him. I was insane. It was thrilling and exciting and I wasn’t quite sure what was happening to me, but before I knew it, I was given a cd with their music and singing Korean, well trying to, wherever I drove. Then Wednesdays at Kelsey’s ended and I lost interest in it.

A year later I was reminded about it, and Super Junior had released three new music videos by that time, and I was hooked once more, but this time it didn’t go away. I was watching Eat Your Kimchi on youtube, and educating myself on other K-Pop bands. Fishy, or Donghae, was my number one. I would gain crushes on other guys in other boy bands, but he was the one I loved first, and I believed I always would. It wasn’t until I was crying because I knew I was so emotionally invested in K-Pop but knew that I would never meet any of them that I realized what had happened to me. I had been infected by Lorem Morubs and was now a full-fledged disease carrier.

Lorem Morbus- (n). 1. disease derived from excessive fangirling over K-Pop.

Signs of syptoms:

1.     Demonstrating outward signs of Korean pop song and dance in public.

2.     Setting time aside from more important tasks for the watching of K-Pop

3.     Dreaming/fantasizing about meeting ANYONE from the Korean Pop world.

4.     Over emotional outbursts concerning K-Pop, for example, fits of rage that you weren’t born Korean, uncontrolled sobbing sprees over male K-Pop number one.

5.     Believing that one day you will meet ANYONE from the K-Pop world. This one is similar to number three, however, this one describes pure and innocent childish belief that one day you will meet anyone from the K-Pop world.

Discerning a diagnogsis:

If you can answer yes to three of these questions, it is safe to say that you are in fact infected with Lorem Morbus.

1.     Can you identify by name seven of the thirteen member boy band Super Junior? Excluding Ryewook. He is too easy to remember.

2.     How members of BigBang have their own solo albums?

3.     Do you have an absolute favorite male K-Pop singer/rapper that you adore more than anyone else in the world?

4.     Do you know the dance for Super Junior’s ‘Sorry Sorry’?

5.     Do you save up money just for K-Pop related purchases?

6.     Is your idea of a good day one where you spend all day watching K-Pop videos?

7.     Has Taeyang ever made you say and think inappropriate things? *cough Kelsey cough*

8.     Do you have a strong desire to learn the Korean language?

Dealing with your disease:

It is a perfectly capable disease to live with, and no one known has ever died from the disease, but girls have been known to do very silly things. As long as a healthy K-Pop diet is enforced along with at least two hours a day set aside for fangirling, the disease will never grow unbearable unless you have a terrible fit of stage four (syptom four) where you cry for hours about not being able to meet your number one. It is advised that no girl ever wavers from this plan to sustain prime health, as it is proven that she will emotionally break down, and a full day, sometimes entire weekend of K-Pop fangirling is required to get her back on her feet again.

Cure:

1.     Marriage of your number one to any girl that is NOT you. I have never seen this happen as I know that no K-pop males have been wed, but when that fateful day comes and the first one gets hitched, I believe the flood gates of Hell will be opened, and all other K-Pop males will follow suit. On that day, girls prepare yourself, or look for a cure so the pain of not being chosen by your number one is never felt.

2.     Being cut off from all sources of media where you can enable your disease. In an apocalyptic world state I believe that we will have other more important worries on our minds than if we are going to meet our number one or not.

Outright knowledgeable infecting of others:

This happens regularly among girl friend groups. When one comes down with the disease, it is most likely that three out of four girls will become infected as well. Recent studies show that four out of four is soon to be the new statistic.