RedNote for the K-Drama and Cultural Exchange
plus, INTJ characters I'm obsessed with
a continuous mix of articles, shows, books, things + more worth raving about
this week: RedNote, Gong Yoo, The Trunk on Netflix, Emma Cline’s The Guest. scroll to b2b to watch Doechii on late show and listen to Panda Bear’s guest dj set
RedNote for K-Drama Crushes 🫰
On Tuesday, an app-obsessed friend dm’d me it was time to get on RedNote (people were calling it XHS (short for Xiaohongshu). I 🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️ to the app store. When I opened my feed it already knew what I wanted: Gong Yoo!
It started with Squid Game. Now I’m making my way through his filmography cuz—it’s a cold winter, okay?!
RedNote’s US popularity hit as K-Dramas have become the only shows I’m currently watching. Of course, we hold space for Gong Yoo TikTok edits set to “Mister Lover Lover,” or Saweetie’s “My Type” 😅 but RedNote is filling my feed with cute PR appearances. Here for it.
Everything RedNote has is fascinating x1000:
ethnic minority groups showcasing costumes and headdresses
a rural as fuck farmer with a bandaged nose job (he does so much in his day. Me, American slob)
a motivational Chinese cowboy in western China
a Chinese Trump impersonator eating frog legs.
Cats in space.
Everything is fucking gold.
I captioned a pic with “guess my age” and someone guessed I’m 25-26 so yeah, it’s over. TikTok who? ;)
Fuck Zuck y’all. Get on there so I can finally leave Instagram.
We have all the tools we need. I use ChatGPT to add Chinese subtitles to comments.
I’m astonished and exhilarated that having a shared interest can create a community feeling among people, no matter where we’re located on the planet.
Suck on that, Big Tech.
The Trunk on Netflix, Emma Cline’s The Guest, and the INTJ-ness of it all
Related to the #1 Korean man of my lifetime, The Trunk is a K-Drama for grown folk. A psychological, sexy Netflix thriller series.
K-Drama as a genre is tame as hell. This one has sex scenes and I cannot believe I saw full boobs in a Korean show! So racy! I almost don’t like the intimate scenes, but I eventually changed my mind lol, no spoilers!
In-ji is a “field wife” / wife-for-hire, hired by Jeong-won’s (Gong Yoo’s) wife Seo-yeon because Seo-yeon needs to feel jealous to believe in their marriage again. In-ji has a stalker and Seo-yeon is tormenting Jeong-won with drugs. I’ve never yelled more at a character before Seo-yeon, that awful monster.
Noh In-ji must be an INTJ (the MBTI type I discovered I am). She carries everything out from a distance even though she’s signed into 1-year marriage contracts. Sounds ideal! thankunext type jawn. As far as not developing feelings goes, I would be A1 at this (sadly).
Plus, you get to live in fancy houses like Jeong-won’s Japanese-style house. I wish I had a house with a tree in the middle.
A lot of In-ji’s character can be explained in the kayak line. Jeong-won asks her why she likes kayaking so much and that’s her answer. I’m not saying I’m bout to get in a kayak, but I understand her answer on a somewhat upsetting level.
An Uncertain Person
As I learn more about my emotional self (or lack thereof), I see why I loved the narrator of The Guest while others hated her or called her unlikeable. INTJ candidate?
I functioned similarly to her (sans sex work) when I was living in a post-traumatic haze.
As Sarah Chihaya said, “For a character constantly gauging the desires of others, Alex can seem curiously devoid of desires herself, at least beyond the will to survive.”
Alex has no plan or dreams, no deeper purpose. Rather than leaning into a ravenous hunger for more—more money, more sex, more adventure—she is perpetually turning inward, turtling in the shell of her anxiety. More an uncertain person than a defined type, she sometimes seems like she might be in the wrong kind of book. - Sarah Chihaya, The New Yorker
Years ago, I was living like I was in the wrong book. Maybe we’re all living in the wrong book!
Right after I took the MBTI test I thought of all the teen girl magazines from the ‘99/2000s filled with toxic quizzes, designed to make young women feel low (little did I know at the time - I was obsessed).
Here’s a real mag I had many issues of:
Series Finale: What We Do in the Shadows
Old news: one of my fave shows was WWDITS and I was thrilled they pulled off the perfect series finale (12/16/24), complete with hypnosis and alternate “extra hypnosis” endings. We learn the documentary was one of many attempts at a doc being filmed in their longstanding residence in the Staten Island house. Here’s the Newhart reference so, if you’ve seen it, you get just what genius geeks the writers are. I’ll miss them.
back 2 back music bumps for the soul
I’m not over Doechii’s Colbert performance. It deserves millions more views!!!!
Listening to his NTS guest DJ spot, I found out Panda Bear calls himself PB. I have a musical crush on him so boy, that got me good. Thanks for the tunes, PB <3
Below, the 2nd slide shows his fave albums of 2024. He got me to listen to Spirit of the Beehive which I already knew was gonna be as good as everyone says it is.
