I draw a lot of what I write about here from questions I get via ask.fm. It's a really helpful way to find topics to write about ^.^ Anyway this is just a short one, but I wanted to write about comeback rumors a little because I get asked what I know about this comeback date and that rumor and yada yada yada. Anyway so here's the truth: ...
I don't know ^.^;;;
And really I have some good news for English speaking/non-Korean speaking fans:
No one knows
Honestly, all the rumors that get spread on the internet sometimes originate from a Korean source and they also sometimes actually originate from an English speaking source. I've heard a lot of English speaking fans say they have friends that work in the industry who hear things. Also, more often than not someone translates any Korean rumors and information into English and it gets dispersed into the English speaking fandom fairly rapidly anyway. A lot of fans seem to quite innocently assume that Korean fans have this well of knowledge about comeback dates and rumors that English speakers are not privy too and while it's true that information and rumors hit the Korean side first, they're mostly translated and spread into English as well now-a-days. Now I'm not saying that SOME Korean fans don't have their own little pool of information that they don't share with the rest of fandom, but that pool isn't quite as deep as we might think it is.
Take To Heart as an example. I saw the rumor about a Key/Woohyun collaboration popping up in Korean on my twitter feed and not even 10 minutes later someone had translated it into English and it was spreading like wildfire. Honestly a lot of people denied, denied, denied when it came to that rumor though because...well I think a lot of people didn't want...To Heart...to be real. OTL
Now as for the Taemin solo rumor I really can't shed anymore light on that than anyone else can. Everything that's being said is completely based on rumors (and all those non-SM collaboration choreographers who have been spilling the beans and probably driving SM cray cray). A friend told me that whispers of Taemin solo rumors started cropping up a few months ago, but I'm pretty sure similar rumors began swirling in the English speaking fandom not long after. Also I heard some speculation this time last year that Henry's solo release was a trial run for a Jonghyun solo album. I should probably stress that this was pure speculation and rumor and there really wasn't anything concrete to support this idea at all ^.^;;; The Jonghyun rumor always sounded kind of off to me though, since Jonghyun doesn't necessarily strike me as interested in promoting a solo album per se (but what do I know really), but Taemin has said he's completely into the idea of a solo. Now all of this speculation is on the basis that that one little Jonghyun solo rumor has any truth to it at all. Which it probably doesn't OTL See our problem? Also we're all assuming Taemin's solo thing = comeback... which it might not. What's not to say SM's going all out on a SM Town special stage?
There's also the possibility that fans are just really scary fucking smart. If you sit me at a table in a cafe with a fellow SHAWol and give me a cup of coffee, we can talk about SHINee for HOURS. Literally. So given that I do this with a bunch of different SHAWol friends all who hear different rumors and watch different shows and interviews we're like a database of SHINee information and rumors. And using all those facts and rumors we collaborate ideas and come up with theories. It's a perk of having real life SHAWol friends; you don't have to type out whole conversations. We're probably not the only fans that do this by any means. Now what's not to say that these brain storming sessions don't correctly predict SHINee comebacks or the validity of rumors occasionally. I met a friend back at Bonnie and Clyde's last show and she ominously warned me it wouldn't be long before Key would be back with another musical. Sure enough Zorro's been announced and I don't know whether that friend heard from someone that he had Zorro in planning already, or if she just had crazy good intuition.
Anyone who's written an essay for school or University knows that your teachers and professors will pound you to a bloody sidewalk smear if you don't credit your sources. The scary thing is I could get on twitter and write:
Key and Minho were caught kissing in a car outside SM!!!! OMFG I CANT BELIEVE IT.
And while most people would brush me off and call me a liar and ask for photos or sources, there would still be people who would re-tweet and believe me because I live in Korea. I would like to put my hand up and say right now: living in Korea is not a suitable qualification for SHINee fandom legitimacy. Just because someone lives in Korea, does not make them anymore trust-worthy than any other fan. Nor does a fan being Korean necessarily mean that they know what's going down in fandom. There are fandom noobs in Korean fandom, just the same as there are in English speaking fandom~ There are also Korean anti-fans and trolls and crazy ex-SHAWols turned spiteful ex's who want to hurt SHINee or particular members. I think I might sound like a broken record at this point, but please be very careful with what sources of information and fan accounts you trust. Everyone makes mistakes~~
Anyway I guess the TLDR of it all is that while keeping track of all these comeback rumors is certainly fun and keeps twitter entertaining, try not to give yourself a heart attack about it because until SM drops a teaser, no one within the online fandom really knows for sure ^.^
A tiny P.S. because this is just something I want to get off my chest and really warrants very little attention but: I was actually really sad to see SHINee's birthday message to the Sewol Ferry victim leaked online. I feel like it was something intensely private and delicate that should have been left to her family and SHINee. I haven't written too much about Sewol online because I feel like it's not really my place to make comment, but the whole event was honestly the most tragic thing I have ever personally experienced. The feeling of walking into nearly every cafe and restaurant in the area and watching the constant news reports and death tolls was so emotional and horrifying. I went to work and looked at my students faces and just felt like crying, because I couldn't imagine anything more horrifying than losing even one of them. I remember sobbing over the phone to my mum about how terribly unfair the whole thing was. You hear about tragedies happening like Sewol on the news and you're able to feel relatively separated from it because of the distance, as callous as that sounds, but Sewol wasn't like that for me and most of the foreigners I know here. It certainly wasn't for Korea as a whole. I'm so proud that SHINee reached out to that poor girl's family, but I really wish the media hadn't reported on it.
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