river

games and other musings

[0218 ᴘʀᴏᴅ. @0218prod]

As our stars part, let's send them our love together. After all, two years isn't that long right?

📅: September 26, 2026
⏰: 10AM - 6PM
📍: Cafe 408, 2F The Rock Lifestyle Hub, Quezon City

Register here: https://t.co/2uMZjxGZVW

#17Starbound

[0218 ᴘʀᴏᴅ. @0218prod]

Carats!! Before we send our boys off, let’s gather one more time and send love and good-luck to DK and Vernon and Join our Come-and-Go CSE.

📅: August 16, 2026
⏰: 11AM - 3PM
📍:Cafe 32nd St., BGC, Taguig City

Register here: https://t.co/NO4c646ld3

[river @sanatide_]

everyone is absolutely NOT close FUCK!!!!!!

[river @sanatide_]

i feel like everyone's so close to realizing late stage capitalism aint it

[river @sanatide_]

1 year ago i still believed in voting

[river @sanatide_]

how it felt finalizing the last few slots of my vote:

[river @sanatide_]

i just want to shout into the void THAT THIS SYSTEM IS SO UNJUST IDK HOW EVERYONE IS JUST OKAY WITH IT

[river @sanatide_]

besides, entertainment will still exist and maybe we'll still have idols but this time without overpriced merch, gacha benefits/shows/fanmeets, and songs that arent hyper optimized for tiktok virality

[river @sanatide_]

ive legitimately been asked "you know kpop the way it is now might not exist in communism/socialism right"

...you know what yeah sure. i wouldnt need the escape if capitalism didnt make me so miserable all of the time anyway

[Michael A. Arouet @MichaelAArouet]

This is probably the most scary chart you will see today. How is it possible that socialist indoctrination at universities and in media is so successful?

Socialism has always brought misery and oppression, why don’t young people understand history?

[river @sanatide_]

not bitter or anything, i just wanna make sure this facade doesn't hold for people seeing these bot replies:

Smart never resolved this. they never replied. i still cant turn off the ads. the horrors persist.

t. ph smart gigalife app ads turn off giga customer support clankers

[SMART @LiveSmart]

@sanatide_ We understand you have a concern, @sanatide_, and we’re here to help. Drop @SmartCares a direct message and let us further assist you there. Thank you.

[river @sanatide_]

we're forever cursed to suffer through 10 months of slavery inexchange 2 months of actual human life, and the elite have successfully turned it into an aesthetic life to yearn for

(i survive the same way, but it angers me)

[winata ウィナタ @mutiahahah]

i really hate my job but THANK YOU for this

[river @sanatide_]

in a world driven by profit incentive, all of these points aren't failures of the industry or kpop heading in the wring direction, it's the system working as designed

[1tokki @juantokki]

251024
Lee Joo-hyuk, Plastic Surgeon

No matter how I think about it, I just don’t feel like K-pop is heading in a good direction.

In art, musicians, the artists who create the work, should always be the center. Yet in K-pop, capital sits at the center and everything else is treated like a secondary asset. The NewJeans situation is a raw, undeniable example. Whether Min Hee-jin is a good person or a bad person was never the real concern. She simply challenged HYBE’s executives, and as a result NewJeans became a “disposable asset.” Watching the members of NewJeans now fade away without a trace, every aspiring artist must be seeing the “example effect” loud and clear: “If you rebel against the company, this is what happens.” Are we supposed to accept this as the true path of art, where you rise if the company spends money on you and you fall if they cut the funds?

In the film Bohemian Rhapsody, there’s that scene where Freddie Mercury and the Queen members flip off the record label president demanding they shorten a song and walk away from the company. A moment like that feels impossible in K-pop. Musicians are just consumables while capital is the owner and the center of everything.

People who saw K-pop Demon Hunters probably didn’t think too deeply about when Huntrix would debut, when she’d peak, and how long she’d stay there. In reality, a four-year lifespan for girl groups in Korea is already considered long. Countless girl groups and boy groups debut once and end their careers without much activity. Once they reach their mid-twenties, they’re treated like washed-up has-beens.

The real issue is that these idols practically dedicate their entire youth to life as “trainees” under big entertainment companies. When they are discarded and treated like failures, they are pushed to the edge of a cliff in their lives, with nowhere to go and nothing they can do. The NewJeans members, thrown away for the crime of displeasing their company, are living that reality now.

Back when HYBE stockholders still held shares, whenever any article about NewJeans appeared, they flooded the comments attacking them. The mindset was “Company, company, company.” As if individuals exist only for the sake of the corporation. The comments parroted the same message: the company decides, and the employees just follow. Why complain?

Did Queen become a legend because Sony Records was amazing? Art begins in deeply personal reflection, in grappling with emotion and thought. It can combine with business, sure. Although claiming that the company must always come first and the artist is just an “employee,” or that commercial acts equal art, feels fundamentally wrong.

Watching commerce dominate and subordinate art is a truly unpleasant sight. Children not even ten years old audition, get evaluated, forced to diet, live in dorms, and so many never even debut before they’re tossed aside like crumpled tissue in this shiny product-and-capital-driven K-pop machine. Even worse, some appear on television a few times, then get abandoned once their market value drops, left to watch their groups disband. There’s no soil or environment for them to continue making music. Giant companies control everything.

I find no satisfaction in that strange national pride people indulge in when celebrating K-pop’s success. This industry is a game where only capital investors become richer. Its economic impact is tiny. How many people does a single agency actually employ? The employment ripple effect is practically nonexistent. If they perform overseas in places like China, the wages go to local Chinese workers anyway.

Others say we shouldn’t devalue K-pop with purely economic logic because it spreads Korean culture. I find that claim hollow. The instruments, the melodies, the harmonies, the lyrics, the outfits, the stage setups used in K-pop… how Korean are they really? Listening to the new debut songs pouring out every week on Mnet, I start to wonder. As a Korean myself, if I can’t relate to these songs, does that mean I’m somehow not Korean? The thought leaves me deflated.

I want to end by stating just one wish. K-pop needs new laws on unfair contracts so companies cannot run wild with their power. Only then can we protect artists and ensure that young people with talent have the space and foundation to make music according to their own emotions and beliefs. Right now, K-pop agencies look less like Huntrix and more like the forces of darkness… demons themselves.

[river @sanatide_]

@SMARTCares already sent one yesterday, no response

[river @sanatide_]

psa+warning: phone is smart locked, @LiveSmart's app notificantions cant be turned off. they send so many push notif ads on top of spamming your texts. pick a different telco or dont download the app and find a diff way to manage your data/bills.

god i hate ads and capitalism sm

[river @sanatide_]

@LiveSmart @SMARTCares They didn't respond.

[river @sanatide_]

@myztery47 yeah nagiging requirement na yung cheating to stand a chance, so mas prone pa to getting taken advantage of yung fans na dapat nakakabili directly.

parang mas trip ko nalang yung parang sa japan na raffle basta patas

[river @sanatide_]

"invest" made me see red man HAHA im gonna word vomit ⚒️

di ko talaga kayang perahan yung kasiyahan ng ibang tao (NA MOSTLY BATA PA NGA), esp in a "business" that benefits no one. the ability to beat bots is sold as an answer to the prob that the bots exist in the first place

[mystery @myztery47]

as someone who knows how these ticket assistance do it, reasonable na yan may ininvest din mga yan for their “tool” to work, tas sa dami na nagbobot/bypass ngayon mahirap pa rin makasecure kaya reasonable na yan lalo na kung premium seat need pa rin ng fast hands 🤣 eh kung mga+

[river @sanatide_]

just reminds me of the pokemon tcg card space also and how bastardized thats gotten

[river @sanatide_]

i guess as a general rule in my forced participation in late stage capitalism (cause we're all trying to earn anyw), i try to go by participating enough to ensure my survival and happiness WITHOUT directly stepping on others' and i guess it just agitates me when other people dont

[river @sanatide_]

maybe ill contain all my radical thoughts in this acct so my kpop one can stay blue pilled 1/2jk