On Insecure Jikookers

On “Insecure Jikookers”…

Alright. I might lose followers for this and that’s very okay; curate your timeline and protect your peace babes. But for YEARS, every time the phrase “insecure jikooker” has come up on my feed my eyelid has done a little twitchy twitch 🤨🤨

And I have always ignored it, because I’ve never wanted to be out here policing ppl’s language and we are literally supposed to be having fun and celebrating love, like for me that’s the whole point, but —

I’ve been seeing the phrase popping up again surrounding the release of AYS and I just gotta say it.

You guys the term seems so culty 😬🥲

Like I think I get the origin (maybe)? It probably started when some of the early jikook bloggers (if you are one I salute you, I am not worthy, trust me this is NOT a dig at anyone, jikook bloggers are by and large cool and kind af 🙇‍♀️) would get these sketchy asks that were antis or cultists in disguise just casting aspersions on jikook’s bond or being blatantly homophobic and/or in general being rude little anonymous internet gremlins. Or maybe it was people who did want to believe that jikook was real but kept nagging and begging for reassurance at every turn, which I can totally see becoming annoying as hell and prompting people to start using the term.

But it feels like it’s used now as like a catchall for anyone who expresses any doubt or asks any critical questions? Even like… reasonable ones? And I used to see a lot of “hey believe what you want to believe but this is what I believe” but now it seems like the sentiment around jikooker communities has by and large become “if you don’t believe you’re an idiotic dumb person who has never known love — you’re either a rival shipper in disguise or WORSE (dun dun dunnnnn) an Insecure Jikooker — and we don’t want people like you around.”

And idk it just feels weird for a community that has always seemed to kind of pride itself on being the “rational, fact-based” ship… like we LOVE to be smug about how jikook don’t need edits to be obvious, don’t need slo-mo zooms with red circles and arrows because their chemistry and fondness and affection is just plain to see in basic footage. We’re the levelheaded ones 😌.

But doesn’t that mean that we should always be encouraging critical thinking, and if someone comes to a different conclusion than us, so be it? Like it or not, none of us have foolproof confirmation that jikook are anything more than very close friends. That’s literally all we know. The rest is our best guess based on vibes, anecdotes, dot-connecting, subtext and body language observation, experience, perception (!!This is a big one because confirmation bias is real!!), and suspicion. That’s literally it.

Look maybe I’m just projecting 😅 but when you criticize people for expressing reasonable doubt over something that is literally not confirmed, it’s just a little too religious fundamentalist for me! (This is why I was a bad Christian, because I always raised my hand and asked questions the Sunday school teacher didn’t like.)

Feel free to ignore me. I never want to come across as pushy or trying to stir up anything, it’s just a phrase that grinds my gears and I’m sort of hoping I’m not alone in that… but if I am, so be it! 🤣 would love to hear people’s thoughts because maybe I’m missing something.

(P.S. If you’re a troll who spams jikook blog inboxes this is not me defending you. You’re still annoying and you need a better hobby. Have you tried yoga? Snowboarding? Fly fishing? Filming food vlogs and/or painting? You should try cooking. You should stop being an anonymous internet troll stomping on everyone’s proverbial sandcastles and instead write a poem. K bye ✌️ )

Absolutely love the nuance and fairness you came to this with. I can’t imagine all the annoyance you’ve had to deal with having anons open all this time, you have infinitely more patience than me!!

Really appreciate this take, even though I’m panicking a bit that I might have inadvertently contributed to your thoughts of leaving this space 😫 people will hate me for that, haha.

But really, I think enjoying the fandom is what it comes down to, and that’s sort of what I was getting at with the original post. I always enjoyed the sort of “hmm, maybe, are they?” guesswork and when I step back and look at some of the responses to this, I’m reminded that what a lot of other people enjoy is to be free of the constant questioning (and the baked-in heteronormativity that kind of comes with that questioning) and so the nagging “insecurity” probably does get really exhausting and affect people’s enjoyment of the fandom and this ship specifically.

Now I’ve got more to think about too!

Anyways thank you for this response and for in general being thoughtful and chill. Definitely do what you need to do for peace and happiness, but if/when you do step away, know that you will be very missed!

On “Insecure Jikookers”…

Alright. I might lose followers for this and that’s very okay; curate your timeline and protect your peace babes. But for YEARS, every time the phrase “insecure jikooker” has come up on my feed my eyelid has done a little twitchy twitch 🤨🤨

And I have always ignored it, because I’ve never wanted to be out here policing ppl’s language and we are literally supposed to be having fun and celebrating love, like for me that’s the whole point, but —

I’ve been seeing the phrase popping up again surrounding the release of AYS and I just gotta say it.

You guys the term seems so culty 😬🥲

Like I think I get the origin (maybe)? It probably started when some of the early jikook bloggers (if you are one I salute you, I am not worthy, trust me this is NOT a dig at anyone, jikook bloggers are by and large cool and kind af 🙇‍♀️) would get these sketchy asks that were antis or cultists in disguise just casting aspersions on jikook’s bond or being blatantly homophobic and/or in general being rude little anonymous internet gremlins. Or maybe it was people who did want to believe that jikook was real but kept nagging and begging for reassurance at every turn, which I can totally see becoming annoying as hell and prompting people to start using the term.

But it feels like it’s used now as like a catchall for anyone who expresses any doubt or asks any critical questions? Even like… reasonable ones? And I used to see a lot of “hey believe what you want to believe but this is what I believe” but now it seems like the sentiment around jikooker communities has by and large become “if you don’t believe you’re an idiotic dumb person who has never known love — you’re either a rival shipper in disguise or WORSE (dun dun dunnnnn) an Insecure Jikooker — and we don’t want people like you around.”

And idk it just feels weird for a community that has always seemed to kind of pride itself on being the “rational, fact-based” ship… like we LOVE to be smug about how jikook don’t need edits to be obvious, don’t need slo-mo zooms with red circles and arrows because their chemistry and fondness and affection is just plain to see in basic footage. We’re the levelheaded ones 😌.

But doesn’t that mean that we should always be encouraging critical thinking, and if someone comes to a different conclusion than us, so be it? Like it or not, none of us have foolproof confirmation that jikook are anything more than very close friends. That’s literally all we know. The rest is our best guess based on vibes, anecdotes, dot-connecting, subtext and body language observation, experience, perception (!!This is a big one because confirmation bias is real!!), and suspicion. That’s literally it.

Look maybe I’m just projecting 😅 but when you criticize people for expressing reasonable doubt over something that is literally not confirmed, it’s just a little too religious fundamentalist for me! (This is why I was a bad Christian, because I always raised my hand and asked questions the Sunday school teacher didn’t like.)

Feel free to ignore me. I never want to come across as pushy or trying to stir up anything, it’s just a phrase that grinds my gears and I’m sort of hoping I’m not alone in that… but if I am, so be it! 🤣 would love to hear people’s thoughts because maybe I’m missing something.

(P.S. If you’re a troll who spams jikook blog inboxes this is not me defending you. You’re still annoying and you need a better hobby. Have you tried yoga? Snowboarding? Fly fishing? Filming food vlogs and/or painting? You should try cooking. You should stop being an anonymous internet troll stomping on everyone’s proverbial sandcastles and instead write a poem. K bye ✌️ )

I don’t know exactly why but the more I listen to Who, the more it sounds like something that should be a sung by a Disney Prince in one of those newfangled animated musicals where every song sounds like a pop anthem 😂 there’s just something about the phrasing (“wanna give her the world and so much moooore”), the concept (a lonely rich boy pining for the one true love he’s never met), the cheesy wordplay (I can’t with the 1,2,3,4,5 STOB IT 🤣).

Now I need a new animated fairytale where Jimin voices the romantic but loveless prince who is great at dancing and martial arts but is too softhearted (he’s even sweet to bugs 🥺) to see the treachery happening within his own court! Enter the plucky new heroine hired on as an assassin by his power hungry uncle! Only… she falls for the Prince instead of killing him! And helps him rid his kingdom of the schemers! And, and, and… he also teaches her to ballroom dance!

DISNEY PLUS HIRE ME

I’m not crying you’re crying 😭

@wonsummernight you are so incredibly talented. May your seasonal latte of choice always be perfectly toasty warm (or may the cubes in the iced version never melt). You are so cool.

Even when we're not looking at the same sky

해와 달처럼 함께 있어

We stay together like the sun and the moon

들리지 않아도 마음으로

Without hearing your heart

같은 노래를 함께 불러

We sing the same song together

🙃🙃🙃

Go ahead and believe that they’re just friends if that’s what makes sense to you, but the moment people start in on the “this is forced” “he had no choice” “he would rather have done this with —“

Is the moment you sound like a fucking idiot. “He” will choose Jimin over most people, every damn time. And he’ll especially choose him over YOU.

annoying weirdos: jk was forced to do this show!

jk in the show: im so free. im so happy. i want to do this until we're fifty. i wanted to come back because of our first tokyo trip. during our military service i think i'll recall this moment. 🥰

I don’t usually check notifications on Pinterest but I happened to today and was hit with this gem of a bisexual search term:

🙈🙈🙈 This picture, my thirsty ass was looking for this picture:

Thank you Pinterest for reminding me of my horny impulses 🤣🤣🤣