ADDICTED TO K-DRAMA

K-drama may be one of the most dangerous addictions that a person can form in a lifetime. It starts innocently enough. You begin with your first taste, perhaps an episode of “Descendants of The Sun”, “The Heirs,” or “Doctors” You curiously sit down for an episode, which turns into two or three. The Internet becomes your friend as you get to know the characters and the actors. Welcome to the world of K-drama Addiction. Here are clear signs that you are an addict. A cure has not yet been found.         

1. MARATHONING AND ALTERNATIVE WATCHING

If you didn’t know what marathoning was, you sure do now. Unlike the serial season formatting of many popular English-language shows, K-drama normally keeps it short and sweet, giving the drama addict enough time to watch an entire show in a week, or even in days. We watch drama while on our sofas, or stream Viki on our phones while lying in bed. But on occasion, we stream via tablet on the free-class. Alternative drama watching is all the rage amongst K-drama addicts.

Marathoning leads to a phenomenon known as sleep loss. This happens when you watch most of a Korean drama in one night and still have to get up for school or work. This phenomenon keeps re-occurring despite the side effects of sleepiness, and the desperate desire to finish out the drama. You make endless promises to yourself that you’ll “only watch until the end of this episode.” In the end, you glance at the clock at 5 A.M. after finishing five episodes because how can you stop when you see your favorite actors have a romantic scene on that drama. Answer: You can’t. And you don’t.

It doesn’t matter how early or late you start. Once you start watching an episode, one episode leads to ten more and before you know it, the sun has risen. The dark circles under your eyes are worth it when you finally finish a good drama with an equally good ending. But when the drama’s a disappointment, you suddenly want to throw away your laptop.

2. NEWS HUNTING (KOREAN CULTURE)

a)      You have an insatiable craving for Korean food

For newbie Korean drama fans, one of the first things you’ll notice is that K-drama characters eat a lot. Like, a lot. An episode won’t be over until someone cooks a pack of ramyun or visit a small pojangmacha or eat chicken. Before you know it, you’re listing samgyupsal as one of your favorite dishes. And if you’ve watched the drama Let’s Eat, there are suddenly 20-episode worth of new Korean dishes you can’t wait to try. There’s sudden desire to try Korean foods instead of traditional foods in Indonesia.

b)      Seeing and hearing Koreans in real life excite you

You think you’re going crazy but ever since you started watching these stuff, there are suddenly more Koreans around. Or maybe you just became hypersensitive over their presence. At the height of your obsession, you start to think that every people you meet on the streets look a bit like Song Joong Ki, or at the very least, Lee Kwang Soo. Even if they actually don’t. And when you hear about Korea even a little, you’ll get very excited.

c)      There’s a sudden desire to learn the language

You can watching dramas in English or Indonesian, but somehow you manage to sneak in a couple hours of Hanguk lessons every week, be it self-study or formal lessons. And it can decrease the desire to learn native language.

d)     You’re willing to break the bank to travel to Korea

You suddenly scrapped off Paris and Tokyo from your travel bucket list because Seoul sounds more awesome. It can be because of jajjangmyun or oppa, you’ll never know. The point is, your labor day and night and save every cent to make sure that you have enough to live the like of a Korean drama actress for a week. Or at least visit filming locations around Seoul and with more budget, even outside Seoul. It can make you wasteful.

e)      Korean cosmetics are suddenly must-haves

For someone who don’t wear makeup, a BB Cream is still a must. I mean, every Kdrama actress wears it. You can list down every brand of cheap Korean cosmetic even if you don’t buy from it. How can you not, the most popular actors, actresses and KPOP idols promote these brands. The brand name reaches foreign stores before the products itself actually arrive. It can increase the obsession to be as pretty as Kdrama actress.

3. A NEW WORLD

Basically the biggest and most horrible side effect of being a Korean drama lover. There are the old drams that you need to marathon and there’s always a new batch of Korean dramas debuting every month. Who has the time for anything else? Watching a completed drama in one go takes a whole weekend, unless you won’t sleep of course. Live watching can be pretty time-consuming as well. Try to watch three currently airing dramas and you won’t even have time to another activity. And you start to ignore your surroundings.

4. SUBTITLE HUNTING

Subtitle hunting is one of the most dangerous K-drama activities. When a drama episode comes out, teams of Viki employees and volunteers gather in order to get the episode subbed not only in English, but in many other languages. There are 200 languages on Viki and needless to say, it’s a lot of work to get all that subbing done! Although we appreciate all of the work, the wait can be tortures. The percentages of completion slowly climb as we refresh our screens, watch the translation teams as they work diligently for our K-drama addiction. If your language isn’t yet available, but you sort of speak English or French, well, you will watch it and then watch it again! This is a dangerous, time-guzzling activity, but it must be done. It’s really a wasting time activity. We should avoid it, and we can do another activity that brings more good side effects.

5. DRAGGED INTO KPOP

Whether you like it or not, you’ll be singing KPOP songs after a couple of dramas. Sometimes, it’s the KPOP idol-turned-actor who’s the second lead or even the main lead of the drama you’re watching and one thing leads to another. Sometimes it’s the amazing soundtrack and you just have to know the artists behind it. All you know is you’re already on Youtube and this is your 23rd KPOP music video for the night and you’re not planning to stop. And you start to drag into kpop. Not only addicted in kdrama but also in kpop.

6. FANGIRL

It’s not something that you instantly tell other people. It’s not something that you proudly proclaim to the world. That’s why many Kdrama fans (and KPOP fans, most definitely) separate their ramblings from their personal Twitter accounts. Real life friends may not be able to handle the cray, unless they’re fanatics, too. And once people learn how much you love these dramas and this culture, they start labeling you as the fangirl. You can either grow up and escape it or grow up and friends from five years ago still can’t separate you from your love of anything Korean.