It has been a year since Jubiemon and I decided to start The Drama Files! Time has flown by so fast! So much so that it feels like just yesterday we were getting all set up for this blog. We thought about what we wanted to do for a special “One Year Anniversary Post” and we decided to write about our Kdrama blogging journey. It has been quite an experience and some strange things have happened to us in this virtual reality since starting this blog ranging from getting hated on on Twitter for our “unpopular” opinions to discovering that fangirls come in all kind of shapes and sizes and can be found in the unlikeliest of places! So, we decided to answer some questions about what this year of blogging has been like for us.
Why did we start this blog?
RedRosette J: This is such a funny question to me. This blog was born out of Jubiemon and I’s constant bitching and complaining about how awful Scarlet Heart Ryeo was. We found ourselves with so many thoughts and opinions about it that we felt maybe others would share and decided to start a “drama review blog”. We really wanted it to be a unique blog where we didn’t filter our opinions and thoughts to please the masses. We wanted it to be real and uncensored opinions about dramas by real people. We decided on a “law-themed” reviewing system because we are law students and live and breathe these structures everyday. It was definitely more fun to apply these techniques that we were learning in school to reviewing dramas than it was to doing actual school work!
Jubiemon J: I think we were sitting in a boring class as well when we were complaining about Scarlet Heart Ryeo. Then we suddenly went, “Why don’t we blog about this but make it a bit more interesting by taking it through a legal writing point of view?” Obviously, we comforted ourselves by saying that we were practicing our writing. Hahaha. Ironically, I think it did push us to be more concise and to focus on areas where we were lacking. Later, we wanted to point out some issues in legal dramas so people aren’t misinformed. Sadly, there haven’t been any interesting legal dramas going on nowadays. We’re still waiting for the next hit legal drama!
What expectations did we have about blogging?
RedRosette J: I have blogged sporadically before so I wasn’t a complete newbie to blogging but I did have certain expectations of what blogging would be like. I thought it would be quick and take up little time. I mean how hard is it to type stuff up on a page and hit publish right? I also thought that doing screenshots of dramas takes little to no time and that I would have tons of time left. All in all, in my head, blogging seemed like an afterthought rather than an actual thing that you do as a hobby.
Jubiemon J: I had a few blogs here and there; however, I was never committed to any of them. I got bored of them very easily and found that other parts of my life took over. Oddly, this blog has kept going. I think it’s because RedRosette is there too so it’s easier when there’s two of us! Two = better than one!
I don’t think I’ve ever had expectations for any of the projects that I’ve been through. I’ve always been the sort to jump into it and do things!
RedRosette J: I agree with Jubiemon. Doing this blog together really makes a difference!
What was the reality of blogging like?
RedRosette J: The reality of blogging is so different from my expectations of what blogging is actually like. I spent an obscene amount of time take screenshots while watching dramas. Sometimes I’d end up spending about 2 hours on a 45 minute drama! It took even longer to edit the screenshots. I was not expecting that. I was also not expecting to spend so much time writing. Although we have been a bit slow with posts in the past few months, mostly because a) Jubiemon and I had real life commitments and b) the dramas have been such crap and not worth writing about, at the beginning of the blog, getting used to writing all the time took a really long time. I was spending most of my downtime during school writing for The Drama Files. It became my hobby and turned into something totally fun to do when I wasn’t worrying about school!
Jubiemon J: The reality of blogging . . . is a lot more hard work and dedication than I thought like RedRosette mentioned.
It’s funny. I never time my posts, probably because I’d freak out on how long it takes me to complete a post. I think, generally, it takes a good one to three hours to pump out a post; this doesn’t include taking screenshots and watching the clip. If RedRosette is there to help out with the post, then the time gets reduced. If the post has a lot of deep/philosophical concepts, then sometimes I might dedicate at least half a day to three days to the post (i.e. the Boku no Unmei no Hito desu posts and the BTS posts).
I think the toughest posts I’ve made have been related to BTS’s “Blood, Sweat & Tears” Japanese MV because I had to not only read “Demian” and scholarly articles about the concepts within “Demian“, but also think about how all the past BTS MVs relate to “Blood, Sweat & Tears”. I even had a little diagram I made to figure out what each character represented.
What I didn’t expect was how I worked, in terms of blogging. I end up being the sort that would have to sit down and plough through everything in one go without any breaks. If I take a break, then I lose my train of thought and then I get lazy and don’t feel like writing.
Why did we decide to branch out to reviewing Kpop?
RedRosette J: If you guys follow us you will know that the only Kpop we review is related to BTS. I think its because a) we (and by that I mostly mean Jubiemon ;)) are huge fans and b) BTS has content in their music that is most of the time not shallow, pretty philosophical and engages with issues that impact young adults. On an intellectual level, BTS provides excellent blogging fodder!
Jubiemon J: The other backstory was that for the “Spring Day” post (our first BTS review), RedRosette and I both felt that this song was about reminiscing a friend who had disappeared/committed suicide, but then we didn’t see any theories about this. RedRosette suggested that I could start a post, so I did. That post surprisingly . . . led to far more views than I expected and I had a lot of fun analyzing the song and the MV.
Yes, we’re both fans of BTS because of their music, talent, and personalities. I love anything that makes my brain work and like RedRosette mentioned, BTS’ music and MVs intellectually stimulate us.
What impact has Kdrama blogging had on our real lives?
RedRosette J: I think for me, it became an outlet to share my thoughts about the dramas that I was watching and that I really enjoyed. My close friends (with the exception of Jubiemon) and family do not watch dramas, so for me, it was a nice way to talk about what I enjoyed with others who like dramas as well. It is also very nice to have a hobby that is completely unrelated to the things you do in real life in most ways LOL!
Jubiemon J: I grew up in a household where I watched dramas as a hobby. It’d be the reward my mom would let me have after I finished homework. I started off watching mostly J-dramas and Chinese dramas. Later, I started watching K-dramas too. However, we never really talked about the dramas in detail, so blogging became a good outlet!
Has blogging changed our perception of Kdramas?
RedRosette J: I think it has. After starting the blog, I realized that I was looking for themes and content in dramas more than I had before. I was also constantly looking for cute shots that I could capture for screenshots for the blog, even if we weren’t reviewing the drama LOL! In the grand scheme of things, my thoughts about Kdramas haven’t really changed though. I still love makjang dramas even though they are absolute trash and I could rip them to shreds in a blog post. I do however feel often that I don’t want to review a drama that I enjoy watching because I find that if I had to review it, I’d end up taking it apart and nit-picking and end up not liking it as much. So in that sense, dramas changed for me.
Jubiemon J: I think nowadays, Redrosette and I will always think . . . is this new drama going to be something that we’d review? Like Redrosette, I’d always think more about themes and symbols now.
Why did we decide to branch out to J-dramas?
Jubiemon J: I was watching Boku no Unmei no Hito desu and I remembered telling RedRosette how great this drama was and how I’d love to review it. RedRosette encouraged me to do a review and I just went all out. This was also the first time I did a drama series review by myself, so I realized how much dedication and time RedRosette has put into screen shotting. (She usually takes care of screenshots when the two of us review and generally, I’m the one that starts the post and adds the tags.)
What drama did you enjoy reviewing?
Jubiemon J: I really, really enjoyed reviewing Boku Unmei no Hito desu, even when the ending was kind of disappointing. The drama had a lot of interesting symbols and themes, which I loved analyzing.
RedRosette J: I really enjoyed reviewing The K2. Mostly because it was an absolute shit show (ramen dancing, underground super computers and incessant running) and awesomely fun to review. It was also the first drama that I reviewed on my own so it was fun to learn about blogging through this drama.
Sidenote: I also really enjoyed reviewing Shopping King Louie because I loved how every 10 seconds was something super cute. I remember constantly whining to Jubiemon about how I had way too many screenshots for this drama LOL!
What do we hope to do in the future on the Drama Files?
RedRosette J: We want to keep reviewing dramas and BTS Kpop and we hope that people will continue to read out mish-mashed thoughts on it. Although time has become an issue this year, we hope to review as many dramas as we can in our available time. Huge thanks to everyone who has been following us and reading our posts too! ❤
Jubiemon J: I’m hoping to review a few more J-dramas if I find one that really captures my attention. I’ve been thinking about doing movie reviews as well, but not sure when that’ll happen. Of course, I will continue on reviewing the BTS MVs and albums!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DRAMA FILES!
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