In the year 2012, more rookie artists came out in Korea than most previous years combined. NU'EST, B.A.P, Ailee, Lee Hi, AOA, MYNAME, and many more I'm sure I've forgotten because I was too obsessed with Super Junior, all came out within the same year. What can I say? Once an ELF, always an ELF. I liked the rookies' music, and I loaded the songs I liked onto my mp3 player just the same, but I'll be the first to admit that I saw the music world through a sapphire blue-tinted haze. The youngest member of Super Junior, Kyuhyun, was eight years older than me, and yet they mattered more to me than most of the guys at our high school. And most of my friends could speak similarly. 

We finished up the 2011-2012 school year on a good note. We watched drama after drama, and video after video of our respected groups. We even found people we could "infect" with Kpop, as we called it. I've come to realize that most people don't dislike Kpop. They just don't realize that it exists. After all, most people here don't understand Korean, so Kpop songs don't really come on the radio here. At least, until the summer of 2012.

Gangnam Style.

And so my story begins. The July of 2012, when I was watching Kpop music videos inbetween my internet Japanese class and my driving lessons. I was fifteen, ready to turn sixteen in August. A typical day, just me and the music and the language...

"Toukyo-ni sunde imasu ka?" I said to the computer screen. I clicked on the picture to get the answer, smiling to myself when I got it right. I loved learning Japanese. Deciding I was ready for my quiz, I moved the mouse over the "Start test" button when I heard my phone buzz on the desk next to me. It was a text message from Jacklyn. 

"OMJ, are you on the computer right now?" 

"Yeah, why?" I replied.

I went back to my quiz, just finishing up with the last extremely easy question when she texted back, "There's this new music video out by Psy, Gangnam Style. It's HILARIOUS! You have to see it!"

I raised my eyebrows and flipped my phone closed. "Umm... okay. I'm not really a Psy fan, but if Jacklyn says it's good, I guess I'll look it up," I muttered to myself. Going over to the tab that I already had open for Youtube, I went to the search bar and typed in "Gangnam Style." When I got to the video, it had about ten thousand likes. Admittedly, it was a pretty good music video. If by good you mean eccentrically funny. I liked it well enough to learn parts of the dance, and to laugh at the part where he's cuddling in the sauna, but I just wasn't a big fan of Psy. No dislike for the guy, but "Gangnam Style" just wasn't my style.

I went up to my room after a day of my Japanese class and plugged my mp3 player into the speakers next to my bed so I could read "City of Fallen Angels" by Cassandra Clare while listening to a mix of CNBlue, B2ST, Super Junior, Evanescence and All-American Rejects.

I didn't really listen to the radio much anymore. Which was actually a bit of a shame. If I had, I would've noticed that "Like Money" by the Wonder Girls, featuring Akon (the Wonder Girls being another group I liked a little bit, but never took a particular shine to, like BigBang and NU'EST). And I would've noticed that they were playing Gangnam Style on the radio. Gangnam Style. It wasn't just a song by a Korean artist. It was a song by a Korean artistin Korean.

"Oh my gosh, Jacklyn! This video has EXPLODED!" I texted her a few days later. It had. Before I knew it, "Gangnam Style" was EVERYWHERE. Its views on Youtube had skyrocketed, from the ten-thousand it had been on the day I had seen it, to hundreds of millions of views. We were proud. Finally, a Kpop song had gone viral in the US, and we had known it long before anyone else did. We were Kpop fans. This was a victory for us.