K-Pop Meta: Press Your Number- Taemin
Just some guys, a hostage, and squad desertion
TW: kidnapping, guns, police brutality
On this post we will be examining the antics of Shinee member and artistic sad boy Taemin in his video for the hit, Press Your Number which you can watch here or below.
First off, I love Taemin. He broke off from Shinee a bit and turned from sweet teen heart throb to thirst trap Tumblr art hoe. It has been a beautiful metamorphosis. Perhaps what I like the most about Taemin is his eccentricity. He just seems so…extra and this video is a testament to that. The song was actually written by Bruno Mars so of course it’s emotional and catchy. Above everything else there-are-black-people! This is so important as the use of black culture while absent black people is so prevalent in K-Pop and it’s nice to see some representation.
If the presence of black people is a hint, the setting is not Korea but instead the urban sprawl of the States contrasted with the desert landscape of….some desert somewhere in the world. There are also scenes that take place in an extravagant mansion that really make the video come to three points of contrast. That of the opulence of wealth, the freedom of urban youth culture, and the solitary madness of nature. All those come collide with the yearning for someone and how desire can be all consuming, leaving you wondering who or what exactly it is you desire and also how your desire is really a reflection of yourself.
So, let’s begin!
We have the start of the video opening to Taemin all bloody in a crashed car , alone. Next we see Taemin and squad all holed up in the same car outside a convenience store while Taemins looks as emotionally removed as possible. He’s definitely the leader of this operation and from the worried look of the black man in the back of the car, it’s about to go down. Generally in media, black people are good indicator of danger so from the jump I knew this video was probably not going to end well.
Taemin enters the store and goes around gingerly and at first I thought he was going to just steal a stick of gum and call it day,but no, he pulls out a gun and takes the gas attendant hostage. So much has just happened and with seemingly no explanation. They are robbing a gas station, but did you see that car? It’s beautiful, clean, and looks very expensive, but I’m broke so most cars look expensive to me. Also it is an easily identifiable get away car if there ever were one. He also doesn’t wear a mask or anything to shield his bleach blonde hair and green contacts making him easily identifiable. The whole thing just feels reckless, yet at the same time planned. They went to an empty convenience store at night making it the perfect time to rob the place, but why take the woman? It’s almost as if Taemin wanted to get caught.
Robbery is usually depicted as a tense and quick crime, yet Taemin and his soon to be hostage seem to be more stunned then erratic. It is almost as if neither one of them is sure that this is happening or if this is even real. This is especially so because quickly after this we cut back to Taemin at the crash site in the desert tumbling out of the car, gun in hand. It’s almost as if he can’t believe he’s even holding a gun and he seems a bit confused about where he is. Soon we cut scenes again and this time we find ourselves in an opulent mansion as squad gathers at a table to celebrate their bounty.
In the mansion we see the gun, money, empty bottles of Patròn. It’s probably not Patròn, but let’s pretend it is for the sake of aesthetics. They are enjoying the spoils of their heist and they indulge heavily in their new wealth, yet, they are in a mansion. To my knowledge, gas stations aren’t packing enough money to buy a mansion ,but this is the base of their operations. This indicates that in fact, they already have a measure of wealth. Note that it could have been stolen, but judging by that last heist, they are too messy to have not gotten caught. This robbery wasn’t just reckless, it was unnecessary, it was greedy, it was…planned?
Taemin seems very unphased by this robbery, as if he thought this would bring him some peace, but he still seems so emotionally removed from everything. It’s like he keeps wanting these things to elicit a reaction, but they keep falling short. This ties into the idea of there being a type of emptiness or of a lost love. Taemin desperately wants his lover to call him back, yet they never do, which leaves him stuck emotionally idle and listless.
Now back to the hostage and the motif of blue roses. Instead of surmising some meaning behind the roses I turned to the interwebs. Blue roses stand for love and posterity which is really ironic considering Taemin’s crushing loneliness. He takes the rose, the symbol of desire, and drops it in front of his hostage. Yet, by taking someone hostage and trying to force your desire and need to be desired onto them, you cross the ultimate threshold. You lose yourself as you surrender the power over your emotions to someone else. In effect, you take yourself hostage as you pine for something that may never be.
Thus we have Taemin, now a hostage himself, in the trunk of the car that was previously a literal vehicle of his desire. He breaks free of this trunk, but he’s alone and seemingly confused as to why there is no one there. He is alone in his all consuming desire with only the symbols of the love for which he yearns, the blue rose, there to keep him company. Where are his friends? Where is squad? Well we know what happens to them and we are about to witness one of the most unforgivable acts you can commit against your own squad:
Homie desertion
Wthen the group is being chased by the cops Taemin turns a corner, because apparently these cops do not turn corners, and hides while his whole crew is captured by the police. Taemin is visibly upset by this as it is one thing to feel alone, but a completely different thing to actually be alone. His desire has consumed not just him, but other people to which he felt close. Greed is a black hole, but so too is unrequited desire and it can envelop all who touch it. With Taemin alone, the video really spirals into the blue rose motif and even deeper into Taemin’s desire now turned into an obsession.
He spirals so far in that the roses, the symbols of his desire, appear both in his possession and also as something he wishes to possess. The roses aren’t always pristine either. They show wear and they are cut flowers after all and after being cut, roses begin the process of decay as they slowly die. The quest for them is thus futile, they will never be everlasting. In the end you only have your obsession. As stated earlier, the quest for desire consumes everything, even yourself. In the end you must face yourself and your obsession knowing that at both times it fuels you while also keeping you emotionally hostage.
It is a lonely place to be in and I suppose you can say that is resolved in the end. Even when Taemin seems ready to set fire to his car, the one that started all this mess we do not see it go up in flames, and thus we are left feeling a bit unresolved ourselves, just like Taemin. We never get that sense of closure or completion.
When things are unresolved I feel myself often looking for neat way to wrap them up, but conclusions are not always so neat. They are messy. This video can also be an allegory for the relationship of K-Pop fans to K-Pop stars. Idols make their money off of their talent and aesthetic but also off of the desire of the fans. The need of the fans to feel close to them so that the barrier between absolute stranger and fantasy boyfriend become blurred. This desire is dangerous because it too, can turn into obsession. Fans spending exorbitant amounts of money to go to every concert and knowing every single last detail about an idol, about a stranger. We must be careful when treading these waters by reminding ourselves that though these are idols we admire, they are also people who will never know us the way we may want them too. Not to say that liking a K-Pop star is a bad thing, on the contrary, my thirst spans several K-pop bands. However, I am aware that I desire their image rather than who they may be as a person so just remember one thing: thirst responsibly.
With that thought, we come to a close of this installment of K-Pop Meta. Keep in mind that this is my interpretation, so feel free to share your own. That’s what makes this fun after all so please, if you feel differently, feel free to share.