If You're Not Korean/asian...

[Guest Olive80]

I had a friend who liked K-pop introduce me to some 2NE1 videos, then Super Junior, and I started poking around on my own. But even before that, in high school - I'm almost done with my associate degree, now - I reemember enjoying "Ride on Shooting Star", and I looked around for some J-pop/rock then. I also had other friends later in high school introduce me to more j-rock.

[Guest mininamie]

Actually I got into Kpop through Jpop. BoA and Wonder Girls were the first to Korean singers I became interested with. I started listening to Wonder Girls a lot then 2NE1, then Super Junior, then G-Dragon, After School, etc. I like Kpop because it is different from Jpop , a lot of Korean artist have a really cool style, and the music is upbeat

also on Comcast on demand, there's a music section for all Kpop music~ awesome ^o^

[Guest skipturninrain]

It all began with anime i liked some songs from anime and then i poked around the net which led to jpopasia and found out jrock which i love lots since back before asian music i used to listen to rock such as mcr, three days grace, paparoach etc. even some english pop lolz anyways since they had a kpop section i kind of liked it a bit but then my sister told me to listen bigbang and 2ne1 (in youtube) and i fell in love from there i them checked out and this school yr i met one of my friends who also likes kpop and told me to check out shinee i also started to like asian fashion since my body isnt like the typical american girl with boobs and averagy since im skinny and short-ish in height (5'4) b/c believe me americans some are tall unless you are a minority in which in my case i am:) anyways also i got interested in their hairstyles and everything.

[Guest Wendy CraftQ]

hmm lets see it all started with sailer moon then naruto,bleach..bleach theme songs  youtubed them..more theme songs from other animes,,then just x japan and then i noticed i liked kpop becuz of girls generation and brown eyed girls from my on demand comcast thing i have here at home so ill find out abt more bands by this website becuz i google teentop and here i am..soon to be going to korea xD

[Guest Riele]

I'm not Korean, and even though I'm 1/4 Chinese, I don't think I could describe myself as Asian. My mom is half Chinese, even though she doesn't look mixed, but she kind of had a love hate relationship with her roots. She taught us about Chinese culture superficially, but tried not to focus on it. We never even noticed we were anything until my younger brother came to school and even teachers would go 'hm...' when they saw us because I was black with curly hair, he white as milk with straight hair (family genetics john teshed up on both sides ). It got bad when my brother started getting beat up for being 'a stupid Chinese' and he started being ashamed, so being the protective older sister, I tried to find positive things about Asians (knowing no more than mooncakes and new years dragons). Our dad had already gotten us hooked on anime since he loved comics and cartoons and I liked singing to the theme songs, so I started there (I was 6, what the hell was I supposed to do?). I did a little at home project on history, culture, arts and so on- and looked up music. I already knew Japanese music, but I found traditional Chinese music.

When I was 12 I ended up at a boarding school in Canada and my roommate from HK would make me learn Chinese songs to 'be more Chinese'. This meant watching Edison Chen Concert DVDs, singing 'Superstar' by S.H.E every morning, and so on. Another friend from HK who shared my love of Japanese music tried very hard to get me to like BoA- but I couldn't stand listening to her for some reason. I still have difficulty listening to BoA. Then I found Jeon Hye-Bin's song 2PM. It was LOVE. Since then, I've been a KPOP addict XD.

[Guest shadesofsea]

I'm not Korean nor Asian... It all started when I borrowed one manga from the library when I was about 11.

Manga - Anime openings - j-pop - j-rock

But then I got bored and moved back to the western music.... Then one day I found Royal Pirates' cover of Genie. Well, few months later I was closet k-pop fan. Well not anymore, many of my friends know that I listen k-pop and find it weird.

[Guest paperkamen]

Early Childhood: Sailor Moon > Look at Sailor Moon pics online > find Ranma 1/2 through online galleries> Somehow end up listening to the OSTs > LOVE!

Early Teens: Cruise internet looking for Asian music > introduced to Shibuya-kei > find BoA on a site that hosted aforementioned music style > LOVE

Mid-teens: Find Epik High > first legit experience with Korean music > sjflsfkjs BESTBEST

First Year of College: Go to Asian pop night > hear lots of delicious k-pop > k-pop dance party in friend's room; she introduces me to all of her faves > And now I'm on Soompi a year later, loving it with thousands of other people

[Guest xanthep]

Am Asian, but not Korean. (Have been mistaken 3 times for being Korean - by Koreans)

Um... actually all of my friends were very into K-POP for a long time before I ever got interested. I even had one friend make me watch the whole of SuJu's Exploration of the Human Body series. But I never saw the need to try to get into K-POP until lately. I'm weird because I usually avoid trends and fads but once I choose to get into it, I go all the way because I don't want to be called out on being ignorant about something that I like.

So yeah, I'm several years behind my friends but I guess it was mostly my environment that influenced me to change. It's weird that I didn't get into it when I was still around all of my old friends in Asia (I moved to the States recently) but I guess it's because I was still trying to be white then... @_@

Anyway, my cousins here are super into Asian stuff, and I see so many Koreans on a daily basis in my area (which has a lot of Korean stores and restaurants too), so part of my nature is to try to fit in as much as possible, so yeah. I saw pictures of ulzzangs on Tumblr and got very interested in their style because I see the same things on the street all the time. Eventually I just began listening to K-POP too, and am now slowly exploring more and more groups haha. Also trying to learn Korean through K-dramas too (I love languages so Korean will be the fourth language I've tried to learn in the past 4-5 years).

[Guest swtaznangel]

I use to read fanfics like 6 years ago. The author posted pictures of k-pop artists on the story, and then I thought the guys were cute, so I ended up googling them. Then found soompi from that, then ended up liking k-pop after that. Yeah....It's Totally backwards, since usually ppl like k-pop, then find soompi, then read fanfics. LOL....

[Guest juwiee]

im cambodian, i think i started being very interested in asian music - like everything was bcos of my brother. he had so much songs from anime soundtracks so yeah. since 2000 thats like 11 years matey! wow, thats along time, i accept every type of music and love old music!!

[Guest Cashi]

I remembered Sailor Moon from being on TV as a child, so I looked it up. It came up in Japanese i was like o_o

Watched it, loved it, then began listening to Japanese pop music. I then clicked a link leading to a Korean song a couple of years ago. 

That's how it started, and I have become so passionate about it since. 

[Guest aig0o]

Started with soundtracks from watching Korean Dramas.

Then because of 2NE1, Big Bang & The Queen Lee Hyori!

[Guest NaBie]

A friend sent me BoA's "Listen To Your Heart" & I fell instantly in love with the song. After that I searched for similiar artists. That's when I came to DBSK & Se7en. That must have been about 5 years ago..

[Guest sol-star]

I'm a Latina and although I'm from Chicago, I grew up not being exposed to Asian culture much at all. I knew nothing about it, but I am very open to listening to music in different languages. I kept hearing about people being obsessed with J-Pop on Youtube and I looked it up to see what all the fuss was about. I didn't like it at ALL. One of my favorite YT makeup gurus then posted a vlog saying she wanted to do a dance cover of Wondergirls Tell me. Looked it up and hated it! Another YT guru posted a hair tutorial on SNSD's Oh. Didn't like it either haha

Finally... after checking out a convo on my Facebook newsfeed, I saw an acquaintance asking another acquaintance who was studying in South Korea if they knew who Taeyang was and if they heard the song "Wedding Dress". Of course, had to look it up. It took me a few listens to get used to the language, but I thought to myself "This really isn't that bad". Soon after I googled him and found a fan blog. I would check up on it every once in a while and discovered more of his songs. Soon, I was able to tolerate other songs that had sounded bad to me at first... and now... I haven't turned back! I NEVER thought I'd be listening and fangirling over this music, but now I can't stop! haha K-Pop is very addicting!

[Guest zcanby]

Hmm well it all started when I was in 9th grade. I'm not Asian at all but my best friend at the time was a quarter Japanese and was really into anime. The only anime I ever watched was Pokemon when I was a kid so I didn't know that much about them. Her favorite was Inuyasha and she would tell me all about it and how amazing the story and the characters were, so I decided to watch it one night when it came on Adult Swim. We were over MSN messenger and she was explaining everything to me as it was happening. I loved the show and I bet you all can guess what happened next...BAM. "Every Heart" by BoA was the ending song and I immediately just fell head over heels in love with the song. I started watching the whole series then and fell in love with the other opening and ending songs of the show. Not only did I love the music and the show, but it really made me interested in the country, people, language, and culture of Japan. I didn't watch the show that much for the next two years, but I got back into it again when I was in 11th grade. I fell in love all over again with the show and the songs, "Every Heart" especially. Finally I decided that those few songs weren't enough. So I looked up some of BoA's other songs and discovered "Winter Love", "Key Of Heart", and "Brand New Beat". Fell in love with those songs as well. I kept looking into BoA's other songs and kept loving what I was hearing. This whole time I thought she was Japanese, so it surprised me to find out that she was actually Korean and she had a whole other group of songs sung in Korean. So I decided to check them out. The first song I heard by her in Korean was "Milky Way". I listened to a bunch of her other Korean songs (and loved them of course), then I saw the videos of her in the SM Town MVs and I became curious as to who the other artists in her company were. Then I started to listen to DBSK, The Trax, Zhang Liyin, CSJH The Grace, and Super Junior and loved them. This was when I really got into Kpop and started listening to just about all the groups out there. And here I am today. I'm an avid lover of Kpop and Korea in general. To think it all started out with Inuyasha and an ending theme song by BoA almost 6 years ago blows my mind. She's still my ultimate number one. So I've been a Kpop fan for about 4 and a half years now. That's how a white guy from North Carolina came into loving this whole crazy Kpop scene haven't looked back since.

[Guest monkeyshinobi]

Asian, but not Korean

I got into k-pop sorta through anime and a korean friend.

Animes sometimes have op and ed sung by korean artists and when you look up more songs by the artist you get introduced to more songs XD Like BoA for Inuyasha and Younha for Bleach and DBSK for One Piece, etc, they had songs for animes and naturally I found more songs from them in both japanese and korean. A friend of a friend also introuduced me to Super Junior's U and G-D's This Love back in like 07 or 06 and instantly I was hooked ever since~ Also Korean dramas~

[Guest NinjaRain]

i'm not asian, but a few years ago, i found out about utada hikaru, since i bought the kingdom hearts game. i loved "simple and clean". so i searched that online, and i also found her japanese songs from her DEEP RIVER album. so i really enjoyed it. after that, i bought the final fantasy X-2 game. i liked the english version of "real Emotion", so i then discovered the japanese version, sung by Koda Kumi. then i looked into her music too. i got really into jpop since the fall of 2005, and my main artist bck then was only koda kumi, since i loved her songs the most. but now i have waay too many artists, lol.

Haha, just like me. I'm not Asian, and Kingdom Hearts really got me into Utada Hikaru. I have a friend who isn't Asian also but she's into anime, so she got me liking it more, and so then we both started listening to Japanese music as well. But then I discovered kpop on youtube and got REALLY hooked on Big Bang. They were the first kpop group I ever listened to. I have a few friends who aren't Asian and like the same stuff I do. And now I'm totally in love with Korean & Japanese culture/music/everything haha.

[Guest Muzik_gurl]

I have an Asian friend (not korean) who let me borrow her Korean drama "WInter Sonata" cuz I was bored and she knows I love tragic romaces. Later on I saw her watching another drama (hello, sweetheart) and I got into halfway through, so now Im offically addicted to dramas and I hear shes watch a drama called Boys Before Flowers and shes going on and on about it so I give it a go and LOVED it! I found out that Kim Hyun Joong is actually a singer so I look him up on youtube and find he has a band and look them up, they are pretty good but dont hook me. Later I ask her to show me some Asian music cuz I was bored with American music and she showed me some SNSD, DBSK, and BoA and I like them and listen to the songs she showed me later, but I dont go further than that. Then some chick from my college gives her a Super Junior calendar and I get all curious to as to who these hot guys are and she tells me they are Super Junior. So later that day I look them up and fell in love! From there I went on a Kpop youtube adventure and clicked on any kpop group that was suggested on the side. Now Im addicted! XD

[Guest sunnydani]

Here's my story. I'm a white French-Canadian from a small town, so there was pretty much no Asians around while I was in highschool. However I had this Thai friend in college and we'd go hang out at the anime club once in a while, so I guess that's why one day she lent me a kpop MV video tape (it was in 1999 I think). There's a lot of clips I don't remember but I liked H.O.T.'s Hope, Haengbok, Lineup, as well as S.E.S's Dreams Come True and Park JiYoon's Steal Away. So after listening to that tape several time, of course I had to give it back, so I ordered a couple of H.O.T. cds online and listened to them again and again. Unfortunately by the time they released their 4th album, my computer's audio was all messed up and I kind of lost interest after listening to a distorted version of the 'newer' songs.

So I kind of forgot about all that for a while. When I changed school I met some friends who where really into j-rock so it got me back into asian music. I discovered rock bands like Dir en Grey, Pierrot, and Plastic Tree, as well as jpop artists like Hamasaki Ayumi and Utada Hikaru. I started listening to H.O.T and S.E.S again - even though by then H.O.T had disbanded and S.E.S where pretty much releasing their last songs. By that time I didn't really hang out with kpop fans anymore though, so it was not as fun. Then one day at a party, I realized that this other girl (the younger sister of a girl from college) also liked the song Dreams Come True by S.E.S, even though she didn't know that much about kpop. She got into kpop more after that - I showed her some H.O.T MVs and we became friends over liking kpop. It's was nice to have someone with whom to watch videos and chat about kpop again. And since we both like to sing we started going to korean karaoke and got more confortable with reading hangeul and with the language in general.

Anyway I've kept on listening to kpop ever since that time (so... maybe 10 years), and got to know more people who like kpop - for exemple, another friend from college who I'm pretty sure I introduced to kpop, but who now knows so much more groups and news than me!

[Guest LePaine]

I'm Caucasian with no bloods from Asian (mostly Half dutch & american).

Since 2005. After being goth high school period for a while until I stop for my own safety. I just met Jrocks. D'espair Rays or Dir en Grey are first band to listen. I never seen them so darker than normal metals (even though they are dark, but in my eyes like Dir en grey & D'espair Rays are way pure dark).

And then I met Gackt, Miyavi, Morning Musume, An Cafe (not into that), Alice Nine, etc. So I am really into Japan (anime, culture, language, art, etc).

On 2007 I met DBSK since with the group together as 5 and later I went in Soompi as 'Marialolly'. Later on I met Super Junior (because of Heechul funnyness and after watchin mystery 6 I got into RyeoWook. ) Later I met korean variety show as I never ever laughed so hard (Jiwhaza thnx to Shin Jung Hwan) and start watchin 1N2D later after KimC stops & MCmong happening.

on 2010 I met the guy who was really into Jrock and thanks to him I got return into Jrock and went in 2011 to concert of -OZ-, Miyavi, Gackt - YFC and Dir en Grey.

I'm still liking Kpop because of Super Junior, but became lately attract to Asian clothes style (it's almost same as Westerns, but in my taste they don't have nice wearing like asian style).