Changing times

Answer Me 1997: Hey, look! it’s the good old days.

As of this month, I’ve been watching Korean drama for three years. I was among the first wave of Americans that Netflix streaming exposed to kdrama, and a few months later I was part of a group of English-language drama blogs that were all established at about the same time. Although it’s not that long in the grand scheme of things, it feels like the dramaweb has changed a lot since 2011.

When I first started watching, the go-to sites were Drama Crazy and My Soju, both of which have long since disappeared. They were never quite legal, but their offerings were incredibly encyclopedic—they made it easy to watch older, less popular shows that can be difficult to find today. Of course, you had to wade through never-ending pop-ups and watch slews of incredibly annoying commercials, but that always seemed like a small price to pay.

Legitimate sources of streaming drama have become increasingly available since 2011, although they often lead back to the same source: Dramafever, which struck up deals with both Hulu and Netflix to air programming it had subbed. Viki had been around for several years by the time I found it, but its limited availability in app format made it easier to overlook than the ever-present Dramafever. Another player in the streaming world was Crunchyroll, although it hadn’t updated its library of dramas for years. The fact that Crunchyroll is back today with a whole new service at Kdrama.com seems like proof that Korean drama is still a growth industry.

An unfortunate side-effect of all this professionalization of dramas turned out to be the end of a number of fan-subbing operations. With S2, HaruHaru Subs, and Black Cat have all bowed out over the past year or two, either because of the increasingly fraught legal status of subbing or because professional sources provided subs so much more quickly. Today, Darksmurf and Viki seem to be the only large-scale English-language fan-subbing services that are still active.

Dramabeans and Koala’s Playground—the two most important news sites on the dramaweb—have remained constants since 2011, but many personal blogs have disappeared, either abandoned or taken down altogether. Fewer new Kdrama blogs seem to be appearing now, perhaps partly because there are so many other venues for writing about drama. Once upon a time, you had to create your own blog if you had something to say. Now Dramafever, Mydramalist, and even Dramabeans have been soliciting writing from the general public. This is great, but I really think writing for someone else is different from writing for yourself. On your own blog, it’s easier to be truthful and express your own opinions without worrying about what anyone else will think.

Like everything else, I’ve changed over the past three years, too. When I first started watching Kdrama, I somehow managed to breeze through two or three episodes a day, even while working a full-time job. I wasn’t selective at all and watched practically every new show that was subbed by Dramafever. Although I’m still watching Korean drama almost exclusively in 2014, many days go by when I don’t finish a single episode. And now I’m selective about what I watch—if people I trust didn’t like it, I stay away. It finally sunk in that being a completist is impossible; there are just too many new shows out there to watch them all. Instead, I’d rather watch what I’ll really enjoy and skip the junk.

My obsession with drama lead me to start this blog, where I wrote about all the puzzling and fascinating things I discovered in my voracious viewing. Because I watched everything, I saw trends rise and fall, and was able to make connections between shows that might not have been obvious to more casual viewers. I’ve posted here at least once a week for two and a half years, inspired by my desire to analyze the shows I was watching. The routine of coming up with a post every week has been good for me—in my adult life, I’ve never written more than I have since starting Outside Seoul. Blogging also kept me engaged in drama watching, always looking for new ideas to write about.

But there’s a reason why most blogs out there seem to focus on specific shows rather than Kdrama in general—it’s hard to come up with new things to talk about all the time. In my case, this is especially tricky because I’m watching so many fewer shows these days. I just can’t make the connections that I used to, and I can only come up with so many fun concept ideas, like the boyfriend bot or my field guides. 

I love writing for this blog, and won’t give it up anytime soon. Going forward, though, my plan is to post only when I feel like it, instead of updating every Tuesday come hell or high water. If you want to keep track of what I’m up to, you might want to sign up for e-mail updates (there’s a box for this to the right). Sites like Bloglovin’ are another good way to keep track of unpredictably updated blogs.  I’m also posting all the time on my two Tumblrs, one full of general randomness and one devoted to thoughts about the dramas I’m watching.

So this isn’t farewell, or even see you later. It’s more like I’ll be back.