Stray Kids World Domination

Stray Kids in their virtual concert “SKZ-X” where they're all dressed as detectives.

To set the scene: it’s December of 2020, my roommate Olivia and I are on vacation, staying at my dad’s beach house. She says, “I found this new band, they’re Korean. They make cool music and you haven’t listened to an American band in years.” All of these things are true. So, that fateful week, I dove into the world of K-Pop through the band Stray Kids (SKZ).

Nobody ever starts liking K-pop because of the music. The first step to understanding the Korean entertainment industry is knowing that there’s no understanding the Korean entertainment industry. Not only do these bands all produce music, but they also all have their own variety shows (think an American game show, but on 4 different types of hard drugs). They also have vlogs, dance practice videos, live performances, and other random content that the band members or company decide to produce. There’s also this website called “V-live” where the stars go live with their own individual shows, or generally when the groups are up to shenanigans. Through this obscene amount of content, fans get to know the members of the band on a more personal level. They learn their interests, personalities, group dynamics, and weirdly specific bits they do.

Stray Kids performing their song "Boxer" in their virtual concert “SKZ-X” where they're all dressed as detectives.

Stray Kids: An Introduction: The Fan Perception (with some facts sprinkled in for good measure)

Chan threatening members with a spoon.

Bang Chan: Christopher Bang, stage name: Bang Chan, is the oldest and the leader of the band. He was born in Korea, lived in Australia for 12 years, and moved back to Korea to become an idol when he was 13 years old. I don’t know why his parents let him do this. I mean, obviously, it worked out, but I would not let a 13-year-old boy move to a new country by himself. Generally known as the “dad” of Stray Kids, Chan typically does the grilling, is the composed one, and is on top of the game. He is also one of the 3 original members and part of the Stray Kids production team, 3RACHA, and is responsible for most of Stray Kids’s composition and arrangements.

Minho being generally done with people,
but specifically Changbin.

Lee Know: Lee Minho, stage name: Lee Know and nobody seems to Lee Know why (I'm sorry). Generally known as the bully of the group and scares most of the members. He often threatens to make members “eat toilet paper” or asks them if they know “why we use two chopsticks and you have two eyes.” He is, however, known for his thriving relationship with member Han Jisung, as the two are often attached at the hip, be it paired together for a game, standing off to the side in a large group, or meeting up together on their days off. He also is the father of 3 cats, Soonie Dooni, and Dori, and you have to say them in that order. Minho is the lead dancer of Stray Kids and does most of their choreography with the help of the other members of the dance team (DanceRACHA).

"Finding SKZ: God Edition" Episode 4. Changbin performing with Han,
doing a cover of "Going to Try" by Hyung Don and G-Dragon

Changbin: Seo Changbin is another one of the original members of Stray Kids. He’s known as the self-proclaimed “dark rapper” of the group, even though he also frequently refers to himself as the baby (he’s the third oldest) and he’s the shortest member, standing at a whopping 5’6. He’s also the most accomplished at aegyo (the cutesy stuff) and generally known as one of the cutest members. That being said, he does have a genuinely unique voice and is known as one of the best rappers in K-pop. Changbin also has written a fair amount of the group’s songs and is part of the production team 3RACHA.

Hyunjin fell asleep in a restaurant.
Seungmin and Felix stayed behind to wake him up.

Hyunjin: Hwang Hyunjin was hired by JYPE almost immediately, being told that he’s pretty enough to not have to be good at anything else. That’s not Hyunjin though. He’s a member of the dance team, DanceRACHA, and is generally known as one of, if not the, most charismatic live performers. Despite being told he didn’t have to try he goes out of his way to be the best he can and goes out of his way to be his best. In addition to being in the band, he also MCs for talk shows and is also a part of a live performance group referred to as the “00s line,” consisting of four members of JYPE groups that do covers of other popular K-pop songs, most notably Red Velvet’s “Psycho.” Hyunjin is also the most dramatic of the group and is the most likely to throw himself onto the floor for any given reason.

Han eats like a squirrel. 

Han: Han Jisung, rounding out the 3 original members and the youngest of 3RACHA. He’s another lead rapper of Stray Kids. He went to school in Malaysia for a period of time and is one of the best English speakers in the band. He also has the puffiest cheeks in K-pop and is known as “squirrel,” “quokka,” or “wallaby” because of said cheeks and also because when he eats he stuffs his cheeks with food and didn’t realize it was weird until the band members pointed it out. Han has also written a fair amount of Stray Kids’s songs, but easily forgets dances and lyrics, sometimes to the songs he’s written, while performing on stage. He’s also afraid of everything and anytime any one of the members is afraid of something, he’s right there with them, but most often he’s left on his own.

SKZoo behind the scenes Instagram photos.
I wish I had a better explanation. 

Felix: The second Australian of the group, Felix Lee, sometimes known as Lee Yongbok is known for being the softest boy with the deepest voice. He’s not the greatest singer, but his rapping is the most distinguishing part of Stray Kids’s sound, his most famous line being “Cookin’ like a chef, I’m a five star Michelin” from the single “God’s Menu” off of their first full-length album “Go Live.” Though he’s best known for his rapping, Felix is in fact a member of DanceRACHA, the Stray Kids dance team, and is known to spontaneously do Fortnite and TikTok dances. Felix is also known for loving skinship and cuddling with every member of the group and he came to Korea knowing little to no Korean and learned as a part of the band.

Seungmin on "Weekly Idol," a variety show.

Seungmin: “Seungmin in the building!” Kim Seungmin is the lead singer of stray kids, the leader of VocalRACHA. Known as the biggest Day6 fan at JYPE (that includes everyone in Day6). He loves the little things in life, winning toys at arcades, speaking in English exclusively to say stupid things, bothering other members (mostly Jeongin and Minho), poking stuffed animals in the eyes, randomly jumping up and down and waving his arms, doing the “reverse woah” and being an underrated savage. What can I say, he’s got the voice of an angel and the tongue of a devil.

Jeongin on a "Puppy Kitten School" V-Live.
Chan was talking about peaches, I.N did not know that he was talking about peaches.

I.N: Stray Kids’s very own Busan boy, Yang Jeongin, stage name: I.N, AKA Agi Bbang (baby bread). The king of the group, even though he’s the youngest. Known for his dolphin screams and being the most loved by the rest of the group. At the beginning of the year, he released the song “Maknae on Top,” Maknae being the Korean term for the youngest in a given group and it was just him bossing around the oldest members of the band and him singing about how he’s better than them. He is one of the two singers of the group, making him a part of VocalRACHA. His go-to insult is calling people ugly and he graduated high school with a 0.5 GPA and almost 295 absences.

Stray Kids on the MAMA (Mnet Asian Music Awards) red carpet.

Now that the basic explanation is out of the way, let’s talk about the fandom. Stray Kids names their fans Stays. They took the "R" out of “Stray” and called it a day. In REACT’s “K-Pop Stars Vs. Google Translate (Ft. Stray Kids)” Seungmin explains that the R in Stray Kids stands for “reason” and Stays are the “R” of Stray Kids, because the fans are the reason they do what they do (4:35). That’s what Seungmin says, but we all know that they came up with that after the fact. The term Stay is found all over Stray Kids. They refer to Stays in their vlogs, it’s seen in their merch, their “lovestay” dance practices, and one of their slogans, “Stray Kids everywhere all around the world, you make Stray Kids stay.”

Stays... What is the essence? How to explain? Stray Kids call their fans Stays, but Stays call themselves Clowns. Agents of chaos waiting for the day they finally get to overthrow the government, but then break their leg slipping in the tub 3 days before it happens. The liberal arts department of K-pop. Chill, edgy, smart, but put all their effort into the dumbest things like making a “squiggly box” or drawing boy bands if they were dinosaurs. Definitely not a thing I did with this band over break...

I think, more than anything, the abundance of content really allows fans to connect with idols on a more personal level. A huge part of K-pop is having a “bias” (a favorite idol) and following them more than any other member. Stays usually have 2 biases: their favorite and Bang Chan. The favorite is up to each individual’s taste, sometimes it’s the one they’re most attracted to, sometimes it’s the one they relate to the most, sometimes it’s just the one they think is the funniest, and then Bang Chan, who’s just a good boy doing his best and not getting enough sleep. More than anything though, fans get to see the large groups of free-spirited men in their 20s who genuinely love their lives and each other and that’s the real draw of K-pop; having the loud chaotic friend group that treads the line of the found family trope.

 

...Definitely not a thing I did with this band over break...

Fandoms are all over the place, and depending on what platform you go on, you’ll get different sides of Stays. Twitter is the toxic side of the fandom (surprise surprise). I don’t do k-pop stuff on Twitter. Instagram is where Stray Kids post the most, so it’s mostly reposting of what their account posts (all 8 members share the band account, they don’t have individual social media accounts) and clips or screenshots from videos with cute text above it and the occasional repost of a good thing from Twitter. Tumblr is where the good cush is: the gifs, the chat posts, the fanart, the memes, oh the memes. Youtube is just an expansion of Instagram. There are a countless number of compilations dedicated to individual members, duos, trios, and overall group dynamics. Then there’s Amino, that’s where the conspiracy theories start. I found a post on Amino about the inner workings of the MV (music video) universe where there’s a full plotline about how Strak Kids overthrew the government that starts with their first music video and ends with their latest single. It’s crazy, but so are Stray Kids, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if on a V-live Jeongin says that it’s all true and that there’s actually an intricate storyline that Chan sat down and plotted out one afternoon in 2018 and we’re all just catching up now.

While we, Stays, love our boys, we must never forget that Stray Kids’s biggest fans are themselves (except Seungmin, who, again, likes Day6 more than the band he's actually in). I.N has every piece of merch ever released, and merch that hasn’t been released yet. Felix makes brownies for the whole band and their staff at least once a week. Chan makes sure everyone else in the band takes care of themselves but then gets, like, four hours of sleep a night because he was working until the sun came up. They literally wrote a song about how much they all love each other. It’s not good, it’s actually quite bad, but that’s what being a fan really means; releasing a really bad song about how much you love them.









Works Cited

10-10. “Changbin + His Cute Dancing.” Guangdong Taco, Tumblr, 27 Feb. 2021, 10-10.tumblr.com/post/644240096292405248/whats-one-thing-you-like-about-your-biaschangbin.

Bang Chanology. “Bang Chan Breathes in Meme.” Facebook, Bang Chanology, 12 Nov. 2020, www.facebook.com/bangchanology1014/posts/2417928125020194.

beckyyy_01. “Minho GIF.” Tenor, 20 Oct. 2020, tenor.com/view/minho-gif-18871629bb.

Freckled_Sunshine. “Theories #15 (Back Door).” Stray Kids | Aminoapps.Com, 20 Sept. 2020, aminoapps.com/c/straykids/page/blog/theories-15-back-door/Ywor_XdTbuegkxJQpBlD4z1pZqGEZbLNdQ.

Han-Jisung. “Han-Jisung.” You Make Me Stay, Tumblr, 23 June 2020, han-jisung.tumblr.com/post/621717521015390208/jisung-nom-nom-nom-jeekies-%D9%A9-%E1%B4%97-%DB%B6.

“K-Pop Stars Vs. Google Translate (Ft. Stray Kids).” YouTube, REACT, 26 Feb. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIO3vDNtI3k.

realstraykids. Photo of Felix SKZoo. Instagram, 20 February 2021, https://www.instagram.com/p/CLgzE5RFOGe/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link.

Stray Kids. “Stray Kids 『FAM』 Lyric Music Video.” YouTube, uploaded by Stray Kids Japan official Youtube, 17 Nov. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ywY7yDhvWM.

“Stray Kids (스트레이 키즈) 1ST #LoveSTAY 'SKZ-X'.” Performance by Stray Kids, V LIVE, JYPE, 19 Feb. 2021, www.vlive.tv/post/1-21428452.

Tweesha. “Hyunjin Meme.” Pinterest, pin.it/7EIr9Im.