Things I took away from Key's The Moment lecture

This is another post I wrote a long time ago and never made public because I didn't finish a conclusion. I wrote it in November the day after Key's The Moment fashion lecture. I'm posting it now because Key is just...I had such a hard time putting into words how humbled and inspired and emotional I felt after hearing him speak at this lecture. It was such a special event and I often think about things he said at this when I'm feeling discouraged or down and need something to keep me going.

So I'll hand it over to past Min:

The point of this post is that I want to get out all my thoughts and feels following Key's big fashion lecture before they all disappear from my brain and I'm left with just the warm, fuzzy recollection of just falling deeper into my Key problem. Well it was more like Key shoved me into another free fall down the rabbit hole, further into the Wonderland of SHINee.

So I had a moment last night during Key's lecture; Key asked us who among us had been his fan since SHINee debuted and I was surrounded on all sides by young Korean girls and hesitantly raised my finger and while there were a lot of people who raised their hands as well, the exercise didn't make me feel like a better fan than anyone else or that kind of rubbish. It just made me realize as the night went on that there are still so many sides to Kim Kibum that I haven't puzzled out even after almost 8 years of being his fan (holy shit 8 years that's ridiculous!!).

I should backtrack and explain. SM Entertainment has started hosting lecture's in their SM Artium theatre titled The Moment. The first lecture was held a few months ago and I believe the topic was music and the lecture was delivered by one of the eks-oh kids and a SM producer perhaps? Not sure on the details, but honestly don't really care all that much because I was just ecstatic that SM seemingly asked Key to deliver a lecture based on fashion. Key delivered the lecture twice yesterday at 4pm and 8pm November 17 and the lecture lasted for about 2 hours. I'd say for the first hour roughly Key just spoke himself and showed a small handful of powerpoints (ppts) and a video or two, but the majority was just Key speaking and his enraptured audience of 20-something females hanging onto his every word. Go Taeyoung, designer of Seoul based fashion brand; BeyondCloset, appeared for the second half of the lecture and Key casually interviewed him about his experiences as a designer. 

The whole experience was really informative and I feel kind of doubly blessed because if I wasn't Key's fan I probably would never attend an event like this and honestly it was the kind of thing you could enjoy and learn from regardless of whether you were Key's fan or not. Having spent almost 8 years in the industry and having such a keen interest in fashion, Key had a lot of really interesting and insightful things to say. I really like fashion and dressing up and street fashion in particular so fashion has always been a way that I relate to Key in a way. I would never say I was fashionable, but I like fashion a lot. So much so that I would like to study fashion when it's time for me to leave teaching behind. So for me getting to hear Key talk about fashion was a dream come true, I was so excited. 

Phew I don't even know where to start. I'm coming to realize there's a lot of traffic on my blog which might not necessarily be coming from my twitter account so maybe it's a good idea to always give context when I write stuff like this. So I'm Australian and I've been studying Korean for a few years, but learning a language is a really long and difficult process, especially when you're doing it as a mature age learner. I'm doing pretty well, but I feel like if I had Kim Kibum's natural ability to learn languages I might have an easier time of it. Having said that I previously believed that Key was so fantastic at English and Japanese because he was just gifted but after listening to his lecture I'm beginning to think that he's actually more amazingly just a very meticulous and determined individual. 

1. Key the Fashion Icon

So one of the things I struggle with as a SHINee fan is that I'm sometimes endlessly frustrated by people's ignorant opinion of Idols. Not just International k-pop fans online or foreigners commenting on k-pop, but also from the general public here in Korea. It's my personal project to brainwash my male coworker into accepting that SHINee are legitimate artists and not k-pop boy band shit like most people seem to assume. Jonghyun's been very helpful in this self appointed mission because he's steadily forging for himself a name as a respected, legitimate vocalist and lyricist and it occurred to me watching Key speak at his lecture that SM are probably consciously pushing for SHINee to be taken seriously as legitimate artists in a slew of different fields. 

I've mentioned in the past on my ask.fm that of all the every day Korean people I ever meet seem to disdain every boy band in k-pop ever, which is stupid on a lot of levels since honestly K-pop is earning Korea a tonne of money so why they sneer at it is beyond me. Of all these boy bands only Big Bang get a free pass. I could go on for days about why I think Big Bang are actually awful, but I think I should keep my mouth shut because in all honesty I have no idea how much of my Big Bang hatred comes from how genuinely untalented they are and how much of it comes from just wanting to rip my hair out every time someone speaks about Big Bang like they're the gods gifts to music. Then in the next breathe they're dissing every k-pop artist ever. 

My point is that SM are doing a lot to change how SHINee are perceived by the general public and slowly I think it's beginning to work. A lot of fans noticed during View that SHINee weren't appearing on any of the normal idol shows. Instead they appeared on late night raunchy talk show like Witch Hunt (where Onew and Taemin very wisely didn't allow the notorious PDs to get their hands on anything juicy to make a scandal out of) and Saturday Night Live. SNL in particular got a lot of attention from the general public because my students, who are actually technically a bit too young to be watching SNL, were singing Onew and Jonghyun's Monkey Magic song left and right and remarking in horrified awe how much prettier than a girl Key is. This coupled with SMs push for Taemin and Jonghyun as solo artists, has been slowly changing how the general public views them. That's not to say everyone has heard the good word about SHINee, but they certainly get less judgement from the average person than other groups. For example, if SJ or Eks-oh comes up in conversation I've met a lot of people who will pull a face or grimace. I haven't gotten this reaction regarding SHINee in a very long time. 

The reason I went off on that long-winded rant was because after listening to Key's lecture I'm sincerely hoping that Key will be taken seriously as a fashion icon in the future. Until now Key's always appeared on best dressed lists and topped polls naming idols as fashionista's and what was revealed at the lecture last night is that Key is involved in SHINee's costuming and fashion on a much deeper level than a lot of us might have suspected. While we've always known that Key has been quietly making friends in the fashion industry for a long time in not only Korea, but America, England and Japan, hearing Key speak really put into perspective how deep in the fashion side of things Key has gotten. 

I've been so distracted by Key the musical actor and Key the jack of all trades idol that can sing, dance and rap to perfection that I feel like an idiot for not connecting as many dots as I should have regarding his fashion interests. Key mentioned that both Calvin Klein and Valentino's main branches reached out to the Korean branch of the label to forward on the gifts he's received from them that he posted photos of on Instagram. Basically he was pretty excited that Calvin Klein and Velentino in America knew who he was. He also mentioned that when designing SHINee's wardrobe for their Tokyo Dome concert they reached out to a lot of foreign brands like Chanel (he named a few but I can't remember which exactly) to see if they'd be interested in collaborating and manufacturing stage outfits for SHINee. None of them were able to colaborate so they contacted domestic brands and, if I heard right, Key said that he met with the designer in a different stylists workroom to ask him if he'd colloborate on the outfits and thus the red outfits with the bus print worn by SHINee at Tokyo Dome were born. Key specified that it didn't really matter whether it was a big name foreign brand or a domestic label that they worked with.

2. Key is meticulous as fuck

I feel like through Key's Know How and Key's episode of My Little TV we got a peak at a new side of him that he's only recently begun to show to the public. I remember going to recordings in the past and commenting that he would always come on stage, greet fans and then pretty much ignore the fans, focus on what he needed to do and then say goodbye to fans at the end again when everything's finished. While on stage he's constantly practicing his vocals, practicing dance moves and seemingly discussing with back up dancers and the rest of SHINee. He does joke around with the dancers and SHINee but otherwise he's always very focused on what he needs to get done. Watching his shows it seems like Key's apartment is very organized, he meal plans and takes care of all aspects of his life diligently. He mentioned that he loves ppts/powerpoints, that he was excited to show ppts to fans and that he frequently uses them going into meetings. He also talked about how he made a ppt that covered several seasons of possible episodes for Key's Know How when he met with the Mnet PDs about the series initially.

Listening to Key talk it was really obvious to me that he was a very meticulous, disciplined person. I don't mean he's very straight laced and boring or anything like that, just that even though he's so creative and open minded, he has control over himself enough to be able to set goals and keep to them. Since I'm not a very meticulous person, I found this side of him so admirable. Just when I though he couldn't get any more attractive.

3. Key's public speaking is improving

Key...I think has a lot to say and a lot of really strong opinions, but he has sort of hung back and let Jonghyun and Minho do most of the talking in interviews in the past. When you get him going, he's really funny and animated. Now that Key's done so many musicals away from SHINee, he has an MC spot with Mnet and he's doing variety show appearances, he's getting a lot of practice with speaking but I think he must have worked really hard and prepared a lot in order to deliver this lecture. I remember when Key finished Chess we had this little impromptu fan meet and it was a really intimidating set up. There were fans piled up on stairs and all around the outside of this little rectangle of space that had been cleared for Key to stand and just talk to us without a microphone or speakers or lighting. He was tired and no doubt flustered and shy at the outpouring of love and adoration from that fans. He spoke really well, but he was thinking very carefully about what he was saying and kind of searching for words to express what he wanted to say. I think it was a really human moment for Key, who is always so polished and practiced and just such a hard worker, that he almost never ever shows a flustered side to us or speaks without preparation.

Flash forward to Key's fashion lecture and he was just so wonderfully casual, but knew exactly what he wanted to say and when. I wish they had recorded this lecture and posted it somewhere in it's entirety because the things he said....I just want to listen and ruminate in his life advice and his passion and his kindness. Again, I felt that despite the rep Key gets for being sassy or ice cold from outsiders, I just felt that he was such a warm, sincere, genuine human being. I just can't even put into words how much I admire and look up to Key, even when I know he's a human and capable of making mistakes. This lecture was just mind-blowing in that it taught me so many knew things about him that I didn't realize before, and it made me want to aspire to greater things for myself. Having someone in your life that pushes you to want to be the best you you can be is so remarkable and breathe-taking and thanks to Key I've had that person for almost 8 years.

So yeah...if there's 1 thing that I can stress to everyone reading who is invested in SHINee and Key, here it is: Key is remarkable as a person. Truly, truly remarkable. I always say that Taemin has this spark of something otherworldly that no one else has. It's just in his nature, something that floats around him that he's completely unaware of. Jonghyun is one in a million in the way he expresses himself and in his thoughts and his morals and beliefs and words. Onew and Minho are both so indescribable and amazing.

But Key is so painfully admirable and I think he doesn't ever give himself enough credit for it because he's surrounded by titans. Key quietly achieves great things and honestly I think he's just fantastic at being a human being. He's just incredibly good at everything he does and does it all with such integrity and dedication. His strength of character and determination is just so so mind-blowingly beyond that of the average person. He's talented in so many ways, but so unique and rare that people glance over his spark because they can't recognize it for the true treasure it is. So yeah, Key's human and he makes mistakes, but he's also one of those rare people you stumble across in life who are just blessed with a glow that most human beings are missing. He just goes about his life with that warm glow about him and other people can see it and feel it and admire it, but I wish Key could too sometimes. I wish he could see his own strength and warmth and feel a fraction of the warmth and love that we feel for him. Because he's just truly, completely amazing.