was scrolling through my notes and found this, so i decided to do it.
『the process of becoming an akb48 fan』
somewhere in 2011: seeing how kpop has boomed in singapore, i thought, maybe i could try exploring some groups that could possibly be an alternative to kpop - the me 3 years back refused to try mainstream stuff too, haha. as a jeanette fan, i bought iweekly regularly, and one day, i saw akb on the cover of the iweekly supplement. i thought, i could give them a try. i noticed the group, but never researched further.
2 years ago, on 16 feb'12:
This one song, Heavy Rotation, changed my life.
a bored me decided to browse youtube. suddenly, i remembered a group called 'AKB48' and decided to search it up on youtube. the first result, was a performance of Heavy Rotation. i watched that video, and immediately got interested.
i went to google the group up, but seeing how there's so many members, the lazy me gave up. however, their music got me hooked, and i started adding their songs into my music playlist.
2 years ago, on 1 jul'12: ever since then, i've been listening actively to their songs - just never bothered to research deeper, because of the large number of members. i was at scape, and coincidentally, i saw 'AKB48 Cafe and Shop'. seeing how i've been listening to their songs all day, i went to explore.
no new advancement though (i still continued to listen to their songs, only), but it was an eye-opener.
and.. the biggest trigger ever.
a year ago, on 19 jun'13: being in Jeanius, i found out i had free tickets (worth $200+!) to a certain event, Asia Style Collection, which akb happened to attend as well. seeing that i'd be able to meet akb live, i decided to give them a 2nd try, and gave myself a crash course on them, since the event was on the 21st. i decided to follow a fan account on twitter, since i was on twitter all day.
the next day, 20 jun'13: the fan account was tweeting many pics (keyword: many), and this ONE photo out of all the many, contained this wonderful girl, called Watanabe Mayu. she was the only one among all to catch my attention, and i went to google her, and found out about a dedicated akb wiki, wiki48. i learnt a lot through wiki48 that day.
and.. on the big day, 21 jun'13: before Asia Style Collection, the account was tweeting pics again, and i managed to recognise mayu (i could NEVER recognise idols from groups - spent 1 month trying to get into SNSD, but failed)! this reaffirmed something. something small, which eventually grew bigger..
and in the evening, i met akb! this fact just pushed me wayyyy deeper into the fandom, and i soon got hooked on the group, and the first member I knew, Watanabe Mayu.
on 8 jul'13: within these 15 days, i basically dedicated time to researching more about them (and especially Mayu), and on this day, I declared, I was a fan of Mayu!
lastly.. on 9 aug'13: a couple of days earlier, someone tweeted a video of an akbingo segment, which attracted me. i decided to google akbingo, and found out it was a variety show (WITH SUBS!) and went to watch right from the 1st ep, which started in 2009. on 9 aug, i declared, i was an akb fan.
and after that.. as i got deeper and deeper into the fandom, i found a forum for international fans, Stage48, and my love for not only Mayu, but many more members got greater as well.
being an akb fan is something I'll never regret. it changed my life into something better, and gave me motivation through hard times, exam periods, and basically the low parts of my life. thank you akb.
of course, Jeanette still has an important existence in my heart - my love for her will never die, no matter what. Jeanette is the one mediacorp artiste to catch my eye, and probably the only artiste to do so (i don't feel the same excitement for other artistes, lol)
afterall, akb is about music (mainly), and Jeanette focuses on acting. 2 different stuffs. Mayu and Jeanette will both be loved by me equally. :)
and Jeanette speaks english more (yeah, her dramas are in chinese, but there's subs lol), and akb is in japanese! i can avoid the horrible chinese language on one hand, and brush up on my Japanese! gotta admit it, my japanese proficiency really grew a lot thanks to akb. (and my chinese became worse, but no regrets.)
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