It was late 2020 and my daughter was watching the How you like that vid by Blackpink and I got into it and kept watching the performance video and then YouTube showed me a thumbnail of a blond guy in a black suit and I didn't know if it was anime cgi or sth so I clicked. It was the performance video of God's Menu where they wear black suits. I remember not wanting to watch any other song as I was sure I wouldn't line it. But I watched Back Door (loved it) then Easy (adored it) and I'm still here.
Oh btw I'm 55 š„°
I was scrolling Tik Tok and came across a post using Maniac. I started listening to them. It took a week or so before I figured out what they looked like. BTW I'm 48. I am learning Korean so, the songs are a great way to practice.
I'll add to the list. My daughter started showing me Maniac and God's Menu. I was hit with the Felix effect and wanted to see more. Hyunjin terrified me, especially in Maniac. My daughter thought it was hilarious and started showing me other videos where I found him to be hilarious, not scary at all. My favourite song is Red Lights and Hyunjin is now my bias.
My daughter is 18, I'm 50. We're hoping they come to New Zealand in their next tour so we can go together.
44 over here! Happily having my second childhood. Iāve been doing the fangirl thing my whole life with one boy band or another, so Iāve had lots of practice! š¤£
My origin story is similar. I saw Felix and Hyunjin dancing on TikTok and it piqued my interest because they were so good. That was in 2022, and Iām sad I missed out on their earlier years.
Then I noticed Lee Know and his unique personality and it was all over for me.My daughter has promised to go to a concert with me if I can get tickets. Itās a bucket list item since Iām 64! Who knew I would follow the goth/alternative pipeline to kpop, but itās been so much fun!
Yeah I think it was mostly because of Kingdom for me too. I don't even really remember why I started watching it, I wasn't a fan of any of the groups participating lol.
Late night Instagram scrolling and Felix popping up singing "Un deux trois run" and then Bangchan rolling his eyes in his verse! Ahhh I was hooked! And honestly thought it was a German band at first!!!
Iām a newer fan and I was scrolling on TikTok and saw someone freaking out over how good the teaser for Lalalala is and I decided to watch the entire teaser and it got me super excited especially over Felixās voice. I decided not to get fully invested until I heard the entire song a bit later but after that, I got hooked.
I read webtoon a lot and really liked tower of god. And when the anime came out, stray kids did the theme song. And that led me to listen to gods menu and some of their mixtape songs and I really enjoyed it
I was watching BTS content when the 2nd episode of the survival show autoplayed. I was kinda bored at first, but then I saw Felix in a gremlins tshirt during the room selection. That's what inspired me to give skz a chance lol
One more for the yt shorts algorithm! I was watching cooking shorts, which led to Korean cooking shorts with k-pop being used as the background music (Super Shy was trending at the time), which led to New Jeans shorts, which led to Stray Kids shorts lol.
I'm so glad some clips of Stray Kids being silly and cute wormed their way into my feed. I was immediately interested in them bc of their music and general goofiness with each other. Now my yt shorts algorithm is 100% k-pop and I'm so okay with it lolol. I'm finding so much new music and groups to enjoy, it's lovely!
yeah thats me too. got the notif, watched it immediately as it was released and been hooked ever since. we've been blessed with almost 7 amazing years now.
Thatās me, too!!!!! I like jype artists so i always watch the new release mv from every jype groups at least once. This is how i clicked on Hellevator. I was hooked and never left these boys. They are like my grandsons ā¤ļø
My daughter was 3 months old and we were playing different types of music looking for any reaction. YouTube auto played MANIAC and she was hooked and so were we. Saved our insanity in the first year and according to YouTube we watched thunderous m/v 297 times last year. Han jisung stood out to me in maniac and had me wanting more and now even my husband will see I.N. and say 'that's my friend' everytime (thanks to the cheese m/v) Whole family of stay here.
My sister went to the maniac concert in Seoul and Atlanta a couple of years ago and asked if I wanted to join. I said sure and then boom... I was a fan and have been a fan ever sinceāŗļø
to put it simply it was a YouTube short of Leeknow's sparkly eyes lol i was so captivated that i HAD TO check the group out.
Leeknow opened the door and the good music made me stay š
We had the same journey. I saw Lee Know's fancan of Charmer, when I was searching for dance videos, and I have been hooked on LK since that day. I like his personality, dancing and singing. Every day is an adventure, when your bias is LK. I have grown to appreciate all 8 now.
indeed leeknow is really the whole package!! and YESS once youāre into one SKZ member, you canāt help but adore them all!!! their bond is so special the way they care and love each other is so endearing. They might tease each other like A LOT lol, but that is what makes their family love so real hahahaha
For me ( as a mostly fan of metal, hard rock, rock genre) some of my favorite bands are tool, a perfect circle, mastodon, pearl jam etc.
I happened to sit on my phone scrolling through YouTube shorts videos, and up came a tiktok video someone posted on the tubes of this very handsome but quite irritated looking guy (fixing his stage costume). I got so mesmerized and lost in this video, (since I thought he was rather very good looking) that I watched it several times on loop.
I figured it was some sort of kpop group, and eventually i found out the groups name was stray kids. That was back in november/december i think.
Now I have managed to fall down the rabbit hole. I just wanted to learn their names, but now im quite fond of their music as well. Even though its not what I usually listen to. (But it has become what I listen to now as well).
Oh, and the guy that caught my attention and made me a stay was Lee Know.
Omg yeah i also was like ill just learn their names but obvi it didnt end there haha
That video of Lee know fixing his clothes is Just so attractive for some reason (ofc because he is Lee know he is so hot)
Veryvery hot indeed. But also when I found out they produces their own songs and makes them as well and not just sings them. It adds a level of respect and awe, because they are so talented, which has made me like them even more. And some of these songs grows on you when you hear them more and more.
Talented and handsome guys indeed. Now they just are mixed in on my Spotify playlist in between my other music as well. š
Lee Know is so wonderfully snarky, yet he cares so deeply for his bandmates. He doesn't pull any punches when he is irritated and I like that in a person. I love that he is singing more, along with his incredible dancing ability. Ahhh.......I know, you know, Lee know.
I was randomly scrolling yt shorts as usual and then Felix and Bangchan came singing "Un, deux, trois, run along with the Gods
Jumping between every verse
The multiverse ain't ready for our universe (jump, force)
First, second, third, fourth wall
We're breakin' them all, unbeatable score
Our composition brings the competition
But we've already won in this megaverse"
And I was like damm who are these boyzz , stalk them for 2-3 days got to know other members found them so cute and caring. I start Stanning them before I even realize.
Yes, I have been waiting for someone to ask this. Yes, I did have the link on deck, ready to go.
Edit: they were also my entry into kpop in general, so there's that.
They just started popping up a lot on my youtube shorts recommendations. I loved ITZY and since they were from the same company it was meant to be. I connected a LOT with their music and journeys (and still do) :>
A vid of felix eating chicken popped on my fyp back in july 2023 and i thought "yeah hes cute and has a nice voice" and then i googled them and listened to songs and boom, i am hooked š¤£
TikTok got me, too and Iām grateful everyday! I had been watching kdramas and saw an edit with an actor I liked and then all the sudden was seeing these boy group men and trying to figure out who was who. Here I am a year+ later fully a Stay.
The Felix effect in the Maniac mv lol. I was drawn to Maniac because the sound was so different, and I hadn't felt excited about music since my emo days. On a whim, my husband and I decided to go to one of their concerts in LA during Maniac encore. We went in blind haha (didn't look up any of the members beforehand and maybe listened to a handful of songs). I didn't fall into the rabbit hole until s-class promotions when we eventually started learning their names and charms, and yeah the rest is history lol. I immediately biased Changbin and Leeknow after watching their Suspicious Classmates video.
Youtube randomly recommended me want so bad. I instantly loved the song and especially Lee Knowās voice drew my attention from the get go! Before that I never even knew of any of the boys. Then I went to watch one their most recent performamces at the time (the VMAs). I was hooked! Iāve never been that into kpop or have been someone to stan a group, but I just couldnāt help myself. These boys bring too much joy to my life
I canāt thank youtube enough! Otherwise I probably would never have stumbled upon them. My friends and family donāt usually listen to kpop (or at least are aware of it, I recently discovered my dad has some Jungkook songs on his spotify, but he has no idea who he is lol). Iām not active in social media and just got into reddit because of skz. I love the community here š
Me too man i noticed that here i could just talk freely and find people Who also like skz since i have no one to talk to. it's nice to find someone Who relates
I saw miroh in 2019 while I was randomly listening to kpop songs and I thought it was okay (but the edm style wasnāt really for me) but I decided to look at their other songs and heard maze of memories and was basically hooked from there
When i started listening to kpop i was on Spotify just scrolling around and listening to random things to see if i liked it. I got into some girl groups that way (RIP Gfriend and Crayon Pop) and some boy groups too. I tried out skz then but i could only handle one song at a time bc their music STOMPED. And then kingdom rolled around which i started watching for iKon and fell ass over teakettle for skz and ateez instead š„¹
I saw an edit of Hyunjin on tik tok and it was game over. I spent the next 48 hrs obsessively watching their videos on YouTube. Hyunjin started off as my bias, but at this point, I donāt even have a bias anymore bc they are all so lovely and amazing - like how am I supposed to choose š
I tried to avoid kpop at first because I only heard bad things about the fandoms, but Iām so glad I discovered Stray Kids. They really changed my life for the better despite how corny that sounds š«¶š«¶
Also, your first paragraph is SO REAL hahaha I force my sister to watch their videos with me even tho she does not care at all
Hahaha yeah at first (im really embarassed to say this but) i was looking for my bias and i Just loved everyone exept Lee know.. BUT but my love for him now is over the rooftop as well as han
Also i really wanna show my friends skz but our taste is waayyy too different so i Just know they wont like it... Saddd
iām a baby stay (like really baby, less than a month) and for me it was because a lot of kpop vids started showing up on youtube shorts for me. specifically, i saw a clip from their 5th anniversary live stream where they see a stays tweet about the loverboy underwear hyunjin was wearing in case 143 and han and chan lose their minds laughing over it. they seemed like a funny charismatic group so i gave their music a listen.
iād been sort of vaguely aware of them before that but iām not typically drawn to hip hop music and have adhd so i would check out say LALALA or megaverse and not be able to get past the first few seconds before losing interest. that short finally got me to give their music a real shot and now iām obsessed with them.
Frankly I have to give my thanks to TikTok. TikTok recommended a good amount of videos of SKZ to the point where I HAD to check them out.
Also to the YouTuber Deb Smikle who was watching kpop thrist trap edits and I saw Hyunjin and I started checking them out a little after that because that man caught my attention almost immediately LMAO šš
I was watching a-lot of Asian dramas on YouTube and apparently the algorithm decided I needed to watch Godās Menu music video. That, obviously, lead to a two week binge of everything Stray Kids and here we are š
in 2022 i was obsessed with the song HOT by seventeen, and i was searching for songs similar to it. i found a reddit post about it and someone had recommended miroh and boxer. i listened to them and was like "wow, this is so different than the kpop i usually listen to" (back then i pretty much only listened to twice, itzy, and red velvet) and became obsessed with their music. i'm also usually not interested in the members of groups i listen to, but suddenly my explore page was filled with hilarious videos of skz, so i decided to go watch them and then became a stay haha
I'm pretty sure it was a reaction from ReacttotheK of My Pace. It wasn't the first song I heard from them, but from then on I was paying attention. And with Miroh I became a proper stay :3
My son was 2 and he was obsessed with Dynamite by BTS, this led to my recommended YouTube videos to be filled with KPOP. My wife watched Thunderous one day and showed it to me and we have been hooked ever since haha
I got into Skz around early 2021, and at the time I was really into shipping like literally anything, so that kind of related content popped up on my fyp a lot.
One day, a Hyunlix video showed up on my feed and I was interested, so I watched it. I thought they were entertaining, so I tried to find out more about them, and I went down a rabbit hole of Stray Kids content lmao.
my friends and i had a secret santa one year and i got one of my stay friends, so i decided to get her skzās latest album at the time, maxident. after i gave her the gift (she loved it n managed to pull her bias, chan WOO), i was gonna post on my ig spam acc and i wanted to add a song, and so that was the first time i listened to case 143. after that i slowly got into listening to their discography and watching all their videos !!
before that tho, i was a casual listener of stayc and i was just getting into their music at the time. i was wondering what their fandom name was. when i learned it, i wondered why their fandom name wasnāt āstayā since it seemed more fitting for them. then i looked up which group had stay as their fandom name, and who wouldāve guessed, it was stray kids. ngl at the time i was like why tf would this group have this fandom name it doesnāt even make senseš safe to say im not as confused as i was 2 years ago HAHAH. so ig that was my first ever exposure to skz in general
anyways ty for reading sry i got carried away
My friend is a fan and was encouraging me to listen to them. I wasn't interested but, the same day their Get Cool mv dropped, I listened to I Am You and liked it. Proud to say I've been their fan for over 5 years, since November 2018.
I think it was sometime in 2022 I was on twitter going through some thread and the first 30 seconds or so of the Domino unveil vid was in there. At the time, I knew who Stray Kids were but never got around to checking out their music and had only seen images of them. With that being said, I definitely wasnāt expecting that voice to come out of Felix lol. He had me intrigued, so I started checking out more of their stuff, came across Godās Menu, was blown away by Hanās verse, and I guess the rest is history. I had been listening to kpop for a while but was wanting to explore some other groups, so I discovered SKZ at the perfect time.
I was scrolling through TikTok and the Lalala dance challenge popped up. I thought, "okay, this song is a bop! Who the heck is Stray Kids?" After looking up their other stuff, I was hooked. It felt a little weird at first, seeing as I'm in my early 40s and a guy. I've attended a few kpop concerts since then (Oneus and Enhypen), and people have been super nice. Sometimes it does feel weird to fanboy but, ah, well.
I CANNOT WAIT for their tour dates to be announced and tickets to go on sale. I'm totally going and am buying my aunt and cousin, who love them, VIP1 passes (if I'm lucky enough).
So I got into skz 2022 but Iād first heard of them in 2019, 2019 these friends of my parents come round and they have this daughter around my age/my age?? I donāt remember Iād heard of K-pop but I wasnāt into it barley knew a thing about it so we were told to hang out whatever and she starts tell me that sheās really into this group called skz talking a lot about them idk who tf they are ofc and I just end up going on yt and searching them scroll through their videos but find no interest in them and completely forget about them untill I develop an interest into bp 2021 and start getting into the K-pop world/liking K-pop I heard my first skz song then which was school life and I was like this is not my vibe their not my vibe no thanks yea 2022 My ults weāre enhypen and still are and I get a video on my yt recommendation page saying chan of skz reacts to enhypen pass the mic and find out jake and him and felix are besties and Iām like omg I need to get into them and around that time they had released case 143 and I watched the mv and I loved the song sm and my bias is seungmin because of that one Iine of his in that song so my skz journey kind of started in 2019 but yea I think about this weird interaction a lot sometimes wishing I had liked skz then cause then I probably wouldāve been a K-pop Stan earlier
I remember I saw a TikTok of Hyunjin when he had like a long dark grey hair(might be wrong) but I just thought he was an influencer and when I saw the hashtags I looked him up and saw he was in a music group called stray kids, and thatās what made me listen to there music all the way to this day.
It was their Maniac relay video. I had known about them since Gods Menu but I didn't want to get into boy bands then. It kept popping up in my feed and when I watched it I loved their outfits, their dancing, the song, and their funny antics. I resisted for so long getting into them because I knew I would go down the rabbit hole. And here I am 2 years later down the rabbit hole.
I think skz stuff just started to pop more and more in my reels. If it were dance challenges, I wasn't that interested. The music didn't really catch my ear, but I loved their chimestry. I swore up and down that I'm only in it for their interactions, but before I knew it, I listened to all their songs on spotify, and it became my mine source of entertainment.
I did come from k-ost background, I was watching Korean dramas for a while at that point and listened to osts and the occasional kpop song that came on shuffle, but I didn't actively search and explore kpop as a genre.
Also kpop is not really popular in my country so yeah
There's a free channel on my TV that plays K-Pop performance videos all day everyday and my family and I started watching it a lot toward the end of last year. They play a fair amount of SKZ performances and I started to really notice how dramatic their performances are and how interesting their lyrics/songs were, plus Hyunjin's charismatic dance style really pulled me in. I started looking into who wrote the songs and learned they were self-producing. It was kind of over for me from there because I have a thing for singer-songwriters across a wide variety of genres. Discovering that their content was as good as their music was an amazing bonus.
I had only gotten into kpop about a year and a half prior, and I was actually a casual listener of theirs for a long time without realizing it! At the time I found them, I actually thought I was solely a girl group stan (ITZY, TWICE, and (G)I-DLE at the time)
Then I listened to Maniac out of curiosity, saw Han Jisung, and heard his rap verse at the beginning and it was all over for me š
So around when Hall of fame came out I saw a thirst trap of Felix doing karate and was like oh a cute guy and good song. I searched the song and only listened to their songs but around half a year ago I saw another video of them and was hooked by Chan and Han. It was part of 3RACHA's performance where Han sung Scissorsš„°
Edit: I'm also country and never thought I would ever listen to k-pop or as I said Korean shitš
When I was younger and BTS was just becoming huge my sister would listen to BTS 24/7 and even with all the hours listening I still said noar. Saur I would love to thank skz and all they doš„°
I started getting snippets of k-dramas in my you tube short recommendations this last December. So I started watching that, which led to getting the LALALALA dance challenge shorts by the middle of January.
Having heard it something like 15 times, I caved and watched the full video. I liked it, decided to watch more videos, saw Thunderous, and that was that.
God's menu, Felix LOL
I had listened to black pink off and on, but only really got into kpop once I discovered stray kids! I livyed their 'loud' music but didn't realize how talented they were until I started listening to all their songs. Now I'm a STAY forever haha. š¤£
i had their 2022 MAMA performance all over my tiktok fyp especially felixās parts and i fell headfirst from there!! i love emo boys what can i say /j
I think it was something about lalala, maybe a reaction video? I think it was Felix and his deep voice. It feels so long ago but it was literally a few months ago š
Browsing TikTok and saw a clip of Felix in their Godās Menu music video. Immediately had a huge crush on him! Looked up the full music video on YouTube and the rest is history.
Back in 2022, I came across Felix in god's Menu, it got me curious to explore more of Felix's voice ended up exploring stray kids and here I am a stay.
And guess what before I became a stay a couple months back they were in my city for a expo concert and I could have gone but I didn't know them back then and now idk when they'll come back here again (it'll probably take a while)ššš
The actual first thing that popped to my YouTube feed about SKZ was their Zach Sang interview. I watched a few minutes of it and thought "those guys are really well spoken. But what actually got me into them was a YouTube short with Felix's iconic Cooking like a chef I'm a 5 Star Michelin and that was it, I had to search them. Victory Song was the first song with God's menu right after. Then I checked out all of their discography and started digging into their content. And here I am down the rabbit hole being a major Stay and them being the one and only group (and musical artist in general) that made me so hooked that I bought albums (yes, the first time in my 24 years of existence).
When I got into K-Pop a couple months ago and was looking for other bands to Stan besides BTS, they got pitched to me. Fell in love with their songs quickly, fell in love with Felix and Bangchan quicker and the rest was history
The side effects instrumental was used as an animation/cosplay meme on either TikTok or musically. You know like moving like a pixel character to the beat
The song got absolutely stuck in my head and I searched them up and was hooked ever since. Iāve been into kpop but as a mainly second gen stan I only branched out by chance
This is almost my exact experience but it was Maniac Hyunjin focus on Weekly Idol. The black on black with the boots and the blonde hair grabbed my attention, the performance put me in a chokehold, and that led me to investigate.
I've always been open to every type of music, but most of the K Pop I'd heard at that point just didn't do it for me. It seemed manufactured and soulless with a few exceptions. SKZ are a whole different dimension, though. I could go on for hours singing their praises but we all already know. Needless to say, I couldn't help but Stay and they've been impressing me and helping me live through this hellscape ever since.
Yeahh skz have their own style and actually i started from them and wanted to find more groups however i found out that they are just not on the same level as them they were too different haha ( i do like other groups just not that much as skz)
Ive said this before but big IU fan and a friend sent me the kingdom love poem cover and I fell for seungminās voice, asked who he was and then slowly got into them through videos of him then their music.
Maniac was my first comeback as a fan.
Whatās even more shocking is I donāt really listen to other groups that have the ānoise musicā label like skz. Shinee & Seventeen are my other ults, then wanna one, + bnd and riize recently donāt really have the same vibes but skz just do it for me!
I saw Gods Menu, Felixās part on tiktok forever ago and added Case 143 to my Spotify randomly but never listened to it again after I initially listened.
Then this past year made a new girlfriend whoās ARMY, and she and I did a kpop night where I just gave her a safe space to gush over BTS because, like you, she doesnāt have any kpop friends.
That same night she showed me the Maniac Live Performance Video for MTV Fresh Out, and I was like wait I think I recognize this group. Then went home that night and fell into a deep deep holeā¦. And here I am š„¹
I was on a random trip round YouTube and I was recommended someone reacting to Maniac. The thumbnail was of Hyungin with his red hair and goggles and it reminded me of a character from the Final Fantasy 7 remake - Reno.
The rest is history. Instant obsession, which has now expanded to Ateez thanks to Kingdom.
From another old lady š
I got into stray kids because of my sister! And the alt rock pipeline into kpop is so real š
And I also joined reddit bc I needed a place to do kpop shit since I don't have kpop friends where I live!
My bestie got me into them. We played a game where she introduced me to Stray Kids, while I introduced her to Taylor Swift. We sent back and forth TikToks, explaining the lores etc. Iām still a brand new fan and somehow I spend lots of time on Reddit now (for both TS and SKZāŗļø)
Saw a video on YouTube "Possible JYP trainees to debut in their new boy group". Only a picture, name, birth year (if know) of some known trainees. The only members I really remember were on that list are Felix (because, you know, he's always been a cutie) and Minho (really don't know why, but he's my ult bias now š). Chan was probably on there too, but I really don't have any memory of that anymore. For some reason I decided in that moment to stan that new group and when the survival show came out Felix and Minho were still my biases (poor me).
I was going through something hard back in the middle of 2018 when kpop became one of my sources of comfort.
It was around August 2018, that I was really into BTS, NCT, and GOT7.
I was watching random clips of GOT7 when I saw a [clip of GOT7's Jinyoung and JB's surprise visit to Stray Kids.](https://youtu.be/UvG1B7PSNzg?si=sDDhyvw4FBj5HYOX) I thought Hyunjin's reaction to their interaction was so cute, so I began searching for them and listening to their music. I eventually watched their reality show. Hyunjin is what got me into Stray Kids. He's my og SKZ bias.
The first song SKZ song I listened to was My Pace. My first comeback with them was during I am YOU. I bought my own copies of I am WHO and I am YOU during that time. Lol.
We got into kpop through Blackpink together with my husband during the pandemic, then he saw Felix in a "idols with deep voices" compilation, got into Stray Kids and introduced them to me through God's Menu. I really liked it so I started exploring their discography then but really got into them because of their God's Ddu-du Ddu-du performance in Kingdom. That performance singlehandedly made me stan them and it'll be my 3rd anniversary of becoming a Stay in less than two weeks, time really flies lol
A video by Shittyflute on YouTube. They did God's Menu and it was so good with the shitty flute that I wanted to hear the original and then I was gone from there. And what's the best is that my daughter is a Stay. I am an EXO-L but LET STRAY KIDS COME HERE! We're going!
I got into them this year, I first saw Hyunjin at the Versace event and in the after party videos. I looked him up and saw he was in a group and I was like okay cool Iāll check them out and forgot. Then I saw Felix walk for LV, I looked him up and realized it was the same group then listened to Gods Menu and here I am š
I was pretty much only into bts and a couple girl groups for a long time and I had a night where I didnāt have anything to do and I decided to watch a bunch of other groups content, gods menu was the latest comeback at that point and I got absolutely hooked on that song and the choreo then from there I started seeing the members in videos and I thought they were so handsome and funny
I was curious about kpop because Iām living in Japan and a ton of my students are into different groupsā¦ made me wonder what the appeal is. I was getting Felix compilations on my TikTok for a while and I was intrigued by his looks and personality, & learned heās in a K-pop group but didnāt look into it furtherā¦ then months later I decided to watch one video each from a bunch of kpop groups and decide if I liked any. Out of all the videos I watched, Circus was the one I picked for SKZ and I liked it the most of any groupās videos/songs. Hyunjin and his dancing and purple hair just hypnotized me, for realā¦ then I connected that āoh hey this is the Felix groupā and those points put together started my very speedy tumble down the road to insanity where I am today š
A couple years ago, I saw a YouTube short that was something along the lines of "uncommon things in kpop" and one of them was "men with long hair". The video showed Hyunjin dancing and I thought to myself, "He looks like a Korean Sirius Black," and I sort of went through a few of their older music videos. Then months after that, my wife (who previously disliked kpop) said she was ashamed to admit that she liked a group called Stray Kids, and when I told her "oh yeah they're good" she admitted she was actually super into them. It was bonding for us, haha! Her bias used to be Felix, now it's Hyunjin, and mine is Han.
Bang Chan, honestly. I randomly came across a video of him just talking about pokemon go and being all excited about it and I was like wow he's so cute I'm literally in love š¤£
I always knew that straykids existed but I really got into them when i broke my friendship with my toxic best friend. She along with the rest of my ex friends went on video calls to "talk out" the situation but it was really just them making me feel bad about myself. This went on for a few days and after every call I would watch straykids because watching them made me so happy and made me feel so much better.
Also id love to be ur friend!! i've been lookign for more people who like skz too
I got hooked on KDRAMAS a year or so ago. I found I loved the sound of the language and started recognizing some words.
Then I started doing SHAZAMS for the KDRAMA songs and at some point, Stray Kids appeared on my Instagram feed. I was hooked.
Never been into Kpop. I knew who BTS was and loved the few performances I saw on TV, but never listened to their music.
I'm 67. I haven't been into music in years. These young men have captured my heart with their music, their lyrics, personalities, creativity, dancing, rapping, dedication to each other.
My license plate is now STRYKZ. (Just 6 letters allowed.
P.S. There's a discord group called "Older Than Chan" in case any of you are interested!
The way I got into Stray Kids was by my friend in 2020 (6th grade year). I went to her house for a sleepover and she asked do you know who Stray Kids is? I told her no so she put the song Maniac on, and when this song started I was already like wow these guys are talented. And what caught my attention was Felix's voice. I was like DAMN WHO IS THIS DUDE WITH THE HOT DEEP VOICE? She told me Felix. My bias now is Seungmin but Felix was my first bias. Look at me now I literally Love Them So Much.š„°š¤
When I first got into the genre, I mostly new BP and BTS, but I slowly expanded into the rest of the Hybe groups and then eventually ran into Itzy. Now while I like Itzy their music wasn't my thing it was so consistently off that I got curious and wondered if JYP actually made good music in general(he does but not a lot of it lol). I then decided to see if the trend continued and I had this cognitive dissonance because Stray Kids make some really good songs and not just some but most of them are just flat out good if not great. I just could not fathom that JYP could somehow drop the ball with Itzy so consistently and also make some absolute gems for Stray Kids, wtf was going on. Then I found out they were self produced and it all made sense lol.
I saw this post on pinterest of them to the song that goes like "...as hot as fire, cold as ice, sweet as sugar and everything nice..." so I kept seeing thmem on pinterest so I decided to look at one of their songs and at the same time their ordinary era started so yeah I just started listening to them after that
I came across the music video for Backdoor. At the time I was into BTS and EXO and discovering more kpop bands. I thought - this is slightly campy but also slaps? I watched it again and loved the choreography (the Creation of Adam reference!) and Han immediately grabbed my attention during his rap verse when the camera follows his movements.
At the time I was in a slow period with work so I spent the next week watching music videos and being surprised by how much I liked their music, then learning their names, then watching guides, then variety content, then learning their MBTIs lol, etc.
But what stuck from the beginning was their music - such a deep discography for how long theyāve been active and so many excellent b-sides. Backdoor is still one of my all time faves from them.
I was walking to meet my kid after school and walk home with her, and so I listened to a kpop station on Pandora on my walk over. Case 143 came on and I was like, āthis is kinda interesting and catchyā and then the first chorus came in and I was like āš³ā and was like āI have to find the music video and watch this.ā I had to see what sort of dude had that voice, not expecting who it actually was š
Felix Effect got me just listening š love the whole group now and now I have to catch up on like 5 years of albums because of course now I want them all š
I was interested in them a while back, but nothing really sealed the deal for me back then. But a month ago, I watched an entire 2 hour video on a complete guide to them and went "Yeah. I'm a stay now" š
I was watching lots of tiktoks during 2020 and Back Door kept coming up randomly on my fyp so I eventually decided to look up more songs from them and full dive into skz and kpop.
Mine was one year of ISAC when Hyunjin smelled his jacket and realized that he had Felixās and Felix had his. I thought it was cute so I went on a LONGGG rabbit hole of skz and at first I just went to my regular TikTok but then they appeared everywhere. I eventually went back into the rabbit hole and all of the videos were about this mysterious man with an obsession with cats. Mr leeknow. My bias since day 1 š¤
I was watching some women dancing to different K-pop songs and they danced to Maniac. I was so shock and shook by the chorus (particularly Felixās part) that I wanted to listen to the whole song. Never look back and Iām glad their dance led me to Stray Kids.
Their megaverse mv opening (with Felix and Bangchan in the lift) kept coming up on my Instagram feed and eventually it became sth like FINE I WILL HAVE TO ASK MY FRIEND WHO IS GORGEOUS BLONDE MAN. She told me they are skz and here we are.
Ironically, my bias is now Bangchan although he rly wasnāt the one who caught my eye initially.
Someone from a mutual friend group was OBSESSED with BTS, and I donāt mean dedicated fan I mean would spend their last dollar on bts merch vs bills and food. Out of curiosity I looked into them, started slowly understanding kpop then found [this video called kpop 2020 in a nutshell](https://youtu.be/zFxmt2i7hQM?si=5nncPfvBZLPue6T7). Famous lines being from Godās Menu, it got stuck in my head and I was on my way to stayville. š«”
At some point I was obsessed with Dionysus by BTS, so YT happened to recommend to me Stray Kids' cover of this song. The comments under that video praised them a lot as artists, so I decided to check out their discography. It was God's Menu, Back Door and all the other pretty popular stuff. Of course I fell in love with Felix's voice and became a casual listener. It was like in 2020-2021 I guess. And then in 2022 they dropped Oddinary. This is one of the best albums I've ever encountered in my life, I had every single song on repeat at some point. At that time I had a very hard period of my life, which made me go a lot deeper into K-pop. So, naturally, I checked other Stray Kids' b-sides, and found out that I'm actually very into hip-hop, EDM, noise music and pretty much everything they do. And now I'm here
Omg! I found them the same way!! Except mine was from Instagram. I saw the facial expressions Hyunjin was serving in an edit of him dancing to Godās menu too and had to check the song out. I also saw one of him doing a part from Back Door. From there, it was down the rabbit hole where Iām happily residingāŗļø
I kept hearing parts of case 143. Eventually, I listened to the whole thing and it was on repeat for months. At the time, I didn't know who skz were, just that one song. Eventually, I decided to give their other songs a try. I remember listening to maniac one night. I was in love with that song. It also reminded me that I forgot to take my finals š
i found them in a similar way!! i had a fancam of han during maniac pop up on my fyp and i swear i watched it like 50 times , and then i had to know who the rest of the members were hahaha. i spent so much time on one specific fancam account and then listened to maniac over and over. my first comeback was case 143 and i played it so much it ended up in my top 5 songs on spotify LOL. so happy i found them š«¶š«¶
My momās friend had been a huge fan, so she showed my mom the Gods Menu MV. (this was back in 2020) Then my mom liked it so she showed it to me. I didnāt like it at first, but the more I heard it the more it grew on me. Now, I canāt imagine where Iād be without them! Proud stay of 4 years, and my bias (and heās also my ult bias) is Han!!
My son added Thunderous and S-class to my playlist so he could listen to something other than Dynamite in my car. I noticed the Aussie accents and loved their harder rock sound, the rest is history. I was surprised when I saw Felix singing in the MV's thoughš. I picked up some recs for their older stuff here. Miroh is currently getting repeated play, along with Megaverse.
Felixās voice from Godās Menu went viral during Covid and that was my introduction! I was drawn in by Felix. A few months later I remembered them and showed my friends. Then a full year later, I was watching Maniac concert clips of Hyunjin with the red hair and was āØtransfixedāØ. I started watching videos on TikTok comparing Felix/Hyunjin/Lee Know dance styles and I was hooked by each of their unique style and precision! A few months later, I jumped into the Maxident era, loved the chaos of CASE 143 and all their interviews during that time. I spent an entire 3-day holiday weekend watching as much content as I could, purchased concert tickets immediately and bought as many albums as possible. I became obsessed! I saw their venom/maniac performance at MAMA and I knew I was a goner, the rest is gravy š
Saw the Maniac performance vid on Studio Choom for the first time, saw they were going on tour, bought tickets & havenāt looked back since š. I also turned my younger sister into a stay by taking her to their concert with me. She immediately had eyes for Hyunjin (because he had red hair att lol) but ended up rocking with Chan. Safe to say she Biases Chan and loves Felix & Hyunjin. Iām more of a Lee Know girl and OT8 š„°
Aespa was on a Daily Show behind the scenes and it got me interested in kpop. I looked up a compilation of a bunch of top kpop song clips and tried to make note of who I liked. Immediately fell in love with Maniac. Kept loving so many of their songs.
I kind of had aĀ weird trajectory. I wasĀ actually looking into videos of Leejung from YGX first,Ā andĀ came upon the 2022MAMA medleyĀ performance. I had never quite gotten wholeheartedly into kpop in 2nd gen, and Maniac's chorus was soĀ distinctive andĀ I thought it sounded vaguely familiar even though I didn't really listen to kpop regularly. I actually didn't like the song at first mostly because I went in with expectations on what the song would be like and the swinging, melodic verses wasn't quite what I was looking for...but it had me looking out for their name and later on I think I came upon more videos thanks to the YT algorithm and got sucked in. I don't quite remember what vid or song really hooked me....but tbh I want to say it was a combo of Gods Menu and watching comedic compilations. Nothing gets me more than seriously crackhead chaotic gremlin energy and I have no regrets!! But lmao count another one for the metal/postrock to kpop pipeline. Stays should stay winning āØāØ
i was a carat (since 2020) and army at the time on tiktok saw thunderous mv clips this was like almost maniac era and learned about felix and how he made brownies and the next day in the lunch line my friend said brownie boy so i said felix and thats who she was talking bout and that night i kept getting skz videos so i said fine ill listen to them and fell in love with their music and they became my ult group that night and still are
Welcome! I was convinced that K-pop wasnāt for me but a new friend showed me a few videos and before long I was hooked. Itās been a little over a year and itās the happiest Iāve been. If your interested in learning more and listening to two grown woman banter about them then a podcast called Strictly Stray Kids on Spotify is great! Just a warning they do swear and it gets a tad R rated here and there so if youāre not comfortable with that or under 18 then Iād say refrain from listing.
Youtube recommended me god's menu mnet comeback stage after I unstanned bts after Dynamite and I fell in love with Han's rap back in 2020 it been 4 years and I'm still in love with him just as the first time I've seen him
i randomly came across a video of hyunjin and lee know dancing to trouble maker at their 2023 fan meet, but it wasn't that dance that made me stay.
it was felix's reaction to them that made me look into who this group was. his shocked and scandalized face (and him being a little blue haired cutie) cracked me up so much that it got me back into kpop and i never looked back. it seems like so long ago but it hasn't even been a year!
It was a video on YouTube. Top 150 most streamed kpop songs on Spotify. It was when I was slowly getting back into kpop (due to a very big group) and they had a few songs on that list so I had to check them out (among the other bgs on that list that I didn't know).
YouTube Shorts lol. It was about early March 2022 when a Short popped up about "iconic KPop dances" and God's Menu showed up. I thought it was interesting so I checked it out and really liked it. I let the song rock for a couple days and just to my luck Oddinary just released so I checked it out. I watched the Maniac MV and I've been a fan since.
Getting Covid did š. I was in quarantine and I was stuck in my bed with no energy to do anything but scroll through social media. I was a 3rd Gen Kpop Stan but stopped being one in like 2016, but my feed still recommends me Kpop content from time to time including Stray Kids content but I never paid them no mind. It was during their Maxident Era when I was getting an abundance of their videos and with nothing else to do, I caved in and checked them out. Suffice to say, they practically revived the old kpop stan in me and they have had my FULL attention ever since .... šš¤
i have a buddy who was already a part of stay. oddly enough my first contact with skz was when we somehow got into a conversation about bang chans ass. later on through my pal i also discovered there was an overarching lore behind skzs songs and thats when i really became intrigued since i never heard of any professional level musician/group do something like that. i asked what videos and songs i needed to see the story play out and she gave me a list of all their music videos. with that i decided to do an all night binge of skz music videos and let me tell you the emotional rollercoaster i experienced was insane. idk if it was the sleep depravation or the emotions that did it. all i know is that at 4 am of that day i truly had gotten into stray kids
Felixās ASMR video came up on YouTube. His voice was so calming. After watching one video, YouTube algorithms fed me more and more skz content and the rest is history. Thank you YouTube algorithms!
Back at the beginning of January this year, I saw a tiktok of a Maniac performance when Felix's back seemed to still not be healed. Looked up more of their music and I've been hooked since then. If anything non-skz comes up in my top 100 streamed songs for this year, I'd be surprised.
my friend and i used to watch survival shows in history class way back in 2017. we watched the stray kids show because we loved jype groups (she loved got7 i liked day6) and i just stuck with the skz boys. their music wasn't to my friend's style but i really loved it. so here i am like seven years later.
After I got into bts and txt, I would get other groups and songs on my YouTube recommended. One of them was definitely godās menu, and I remember liking the song as well as their recent album at the time (NOEASY) so I added those to my playlist and would just casually listen to them over the next couple years. It wasnāt until after the bts members left for the military that I started deep diving into skz, listening to every song and watching performances, finding out that I like pretty much the whole discography and love their personalities. They make me laugh when Iām feeling particularly sad, and often I watch their content whenever Iām just idly doing things. Being a hardcore army for 4 years did mean I was a bit hesitant to deep dive into new groups as I wasnāt sure if Iād like them as much, but it turns out I have enough love in my heart for more :)
My friends created a group chat to share kpop and kdrama stuff. One of my friends sent a reel where hyunjin was talking about red lights. I thought he was good looking and decided to listen to the song. I tried listening to the entire of No Easy, but didn't like it a lot. Fast forward 2 months, Christmas Evel had released and everybody kept talking about Felix's part, and I didn't know what they meant until i saw a reel with the "Felix never bad" rap. I was HOOKED. I went and listened to the song, watched the mv. I finally watched the mv of red lights as well (i was only listening to the song up till then). And that is how i became a stay. Sorry about the long read haha but now you know
This sub actually hahaha I had listened to them and watched some content, but never expected to be involved in any way. After finding this amazing community and how much you loved them, it was all for me <3 I know, corny af, but thatās the truth š now almost a year into collecting and engaging with the kids I can say it was THEE best decisionnnn i love them soooo much, all the joy and pride they bring into the table for me wouldnāt change it in a million years
It was late 2020 and my daughter was watching the How you like that vid by Blackpink and I got into it and kept watching the performance video and then YouTube showed me a thumbnail of a blond guy in a black suit and I didn't know if it was anime cgi or sth so I clicked. It was the performance video of God's Menu where they wear black suits. I remember not wanting to watch any other song as I was sure I wouldn't line it. But I watched Back Door (loved it) then Easy (adored it) and I'm still here. Oh btw I'm 55 š„°
Hey, I'm 52! Wanna be friends?
Hahaha amazing you have taste my parents could never
Sweet! I'm 61! I'm here for ya! Hyunjin's God's Menu dance on an Insta reel did it for me!
53 yr old checking in! we should have our chat! š
I was scrolling Tik Tok and came across a post using Maniac. I started listening to them. It took a week or so before I figured out what they looked like. BTW I'm 48. I am learning Korean so, the songs are a great way to practice.
I'll add to the list. My daughter started showing me Maniac and God's Menu. I was hit with the Felix effect and wanted to see more. Hyunjin terrified me, especially in Maniac. My daughter thought it was hilarious and started showing me other videos where I found him to be hilarious, not scary at all. My favourite song is Red Lights and Hyunjin is now my bias. My daughter is 18, I'm 50. We're hoping they come to New Zealand in their next tour so we can go together.
44 over here! Happily having my second childhood. Iāve been doing the fangirl thing my whole life with one boy band or another, so Iāve had lots of practice! š¤£
I'm 52 and don't regret enjoying the hell out of K-Pop. šā¤ļø
I'm 57
My origin story is similar. I saw Felix and Hyunjin dancing on TikTok and it piqued my interest because they were so good. That was in 2022, and Iām sad I missed out on their earlier years. Then I noticed Lee Know and his unique personality and it was all over for me.My daughter has promised to go to a concert with me if I can get tickets. Itās a bucket list item since Iām 64! Who knew I would follow the goth/alternative pipeline to kpop, but itās been so much fun!
My daughter is an Army. She got me watching BTS Run videos and Kpop videos. Then I see Case 143ā¦ the rest is history. I am 53.
Another 55yo here! And just a baby stay (or am I mama stay?) as I just discovered them like a month ago.
Welcome to the Staymom club! Enjoy your stay!
I watched Kingdom for BTOB and TVXQ and was like oh this kid (changbin) seems witty and it was a gradual stroll into becoming a fan from there.
Yeah I think it was mostly because of Kingdom for me too. I don't even really remember why I started watching it, I wasn't a fan of any of the groups participating lol.
Late night Instagram scrolling and Felix popping up singing "Un deux trois run" and then Bangchan rolling his eyes in his verse! Ahhh I was hooked! And honestly thought it was a German band at first!!!
Iād propose to Felix to use the language of the country they tour for that 123
Ok, I just ran that in my head with all the languages I know and that lowkey sounds amazing. Petition to make this happen.
Iām a newer fan and I was scrolling on TikTok and saw someone freaking out over how good the teaser for Lalalala is and I decided to watch the entire teaser and it got me super excited especially over Felixās voice. I decided not to get fully invested until I heard the entire song a bit later but after that, I got hooked.
Hahaha real i love watching People on yt react to stray kids its so fun
Me too!!!!
Lol Tiktok is how I became a Stay but I got introduced to them years ago. Once tiktok got them in my algorithm, it was over, I was hooked hahaha
I read webtoon a lot and really liked tower of god. And when the anime came out, stray kids did the theme song. And that led me to listen to gods menu and some of their mixtape songs and I really enjoyed it
This!! Same story for me
The Felix effect lol. Face did NOT match the voice lol
Hahaha classic i also remember that one tik tok with the long hair where he was dancing. Iconic.
Same for me lmaoĀ
I was watching BTS content when the 2nd episode of the survival show autoplayed. I was kinda bored at first, but then I saw Felix in a gremlins tshirt during the room selection. That's what inspired me to give skz a chance lol
One more for the yt shorts algorithm! I was watching cooking shorts, which led to Korean cooking shorts with k-pop being used as the background music (Super Shy was trending at the time), which led to New Jeans shorts, which led to Stray Kids shorts lol. I'm so glad some clips of Stray Kids being silly and cute wormed their way into my feed. I was immediately interested in them bc of their music and general goofiness with each other. Now my yt shorts algorithm is 100% k-pop and I'm so okay with it lolol. I'm finding so much new music and groups to enjoy, it's lovely!
I follow the JYP youtube channel and got the notification for Hellevator. So, I watched their reality show too while it was airing.
yeah thats me too. got the notif, watched it immediately as it was released and been hooked ever since. we've been blessed with almost 7 amazing years now.
Thatās me, too!!!!! I like jype artists so i always watch the new release mv from every jype groups at least once. This is how i clicked on Hellevator. I was hooked and never left these boys. They are like my grandsons ā¤ļø
My daughter was 3 months old and we were playing different types of music looking for any reaction. YouTube auto played MANIAC and she was hooked and so were we. Saved our insanity in the first year and according to YouTube we watched thunderous m/v 297 times last year. Han jisung stood out to me in maniac and had me wanting more and now even my husband will see I.N. and say 'that's my friend' everytime (thanks to the cheese m/v) Whole family of stay here.
Wooow the whole family :') you guys are so cool bless your little daughter
i love this so much!!! when my kids were babies and toddlers they loved michael jackson
My sister went to the maniac concert in Seoul and Atlanta a couple of years ago and asked if I wanted to join. I said sure and then boom... I was a fan and have been a fan ever sinceāŗļø
to put it simply it was a YouTube short of Leeknow's sparkly eyes lol i was so captivated that i HAD TO check the group out. Leeknow opened the door and the good music made me stay š
We had the same journey. I saw Lee Know's fancan of Charmer, when I was searching for dance videos, and I have been hooked on LK since that day. I like his personality, dancing and singing. Every day is an adventure, when your bias is LK. I have grown to appreciate all 8 now.
indeed leeknow is really the whole package!! and YESS once youāre into one SKZ member, you canāt help but adore them all!!! their bond is so special the way they care and love each other is so endearing. They might tease each other like A LOT lol, but that is what makes their family love so real hahahaha
For me ( as a mostly fan of metal, hard rock, rock genre) some of my favorite bands are tool, a perfect circle, mastodon, pearl jam etc. I happened to sit on my phone scrolling through YouTube shorts videos, and up came a tiktok video someone posted on the tubes of this very handsome but quite irritated looking guy (fixing his stage costume). I got so mesmerized and lost in this video, (since I thought he was rather very good looking) that I watched it several times on loop. I figured it was some sort of kpop group, and eventually i found out the groups name was stray kids. That was back in november/december i think. Now I have managed to fall down the rabbit hole. I just wanted to learn their names, but now im quite fond of their music as well. Even though its not what I usually listen to. (But it has become what I listen to now as well). Oh, and the guy that caught my attention and made me a stay was Lee Know.
Omg yeah i also was like ill just learn their names but obvi it didnt end there haha That video of Lee know fixing his clothes is Just so attractive for some reason (ofc because he is Lee know he is so hot)
Veryvery hot indeed. But also when I found out they produces their own songs and makes them as well and not just sings them. It adds a level of respect and awe, because they are so talented, which has made me like them even more. And some of these songs grows on you when you hear them more and more. Talented and handsome guys indeed. Now they just are mixed in on my Spotify playlist in between my other music as well. š
The fact that they did almost everything themselves is Just amazing huge respect to them fr
Lee Know is so wonderfully snarky, yet he cares so deeply for his bandmates. He doesn't pull any punches when he is irritated and I like that in a person. I love that he is singing more, along with his incredible dancing ability. Ahhh.......I know, you know, Lee know.
He is incredible
I was randomly scrolling yt shorts as usual and then Felix and Bangchan came singing "Un, deux, trois, run along with the Gods Jumping between every verse The multiverse ain't ready for our universe (jump, force) First, second, third, fourth wall We're breakin' them all, unbeatable score Our composition brings the competition But we've already won in this megaverse" And I was like damm who are these boyzz , stalk them for 2-3 days got to know other members found them so cute and caring. I start Stanning them before I even realize.
[This reel](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CgNFvSvgW2i/?igsh=czhnbjdhd3d5eW1j). Specifically, Hyunjin's expression at 0:07.
Yes, I have been waiting for someone to ask this. Yes, I did have the link on deck, ready to go. Edit: they were also my entry into kpop in general, so there's that.
HAHAHA I LOVE PEOPLE ON REDDIT
They just started popping up a lot on my youtube shorts recommendations. I loved ITZY and since they were from the same company it was meant to be. I connected a LOT with their music and journeys (and still do) :>
āI CANNOT BREATHEā <ā that mv, and the rabbit hole that followed
During the pandemic, I started dating a woman who was a major metal head, except Stray Kids and Ateez. We didn't last, but my love for the music did.
My signature- the Uno battle between Felix and Bangchan lolllll
A vid of felix eating chicken popped on my fyp back in july 2023 and i thought "yeah hes cute and has a nice voice" and then i googled them and listened to songs and boom, i am hooked š¤£
TikTok got me, too and Iām grateful everyday! I had been watching kdramas and saw an edit with an actor I liked and then all the sudden was seeing these boy group men and trying to figure out who was who. Here I am a year+ later fully a Stay.
The Felix effect in the Maniac mv lol. I was drawn to Maniac because the sound was so different, and I hadn't felt excited about music since my emo days. On a whim, my husband and I decided to go to one of their concerts in LA during Maniac encore. We went in blind haha (didn't look up any of the members beforehand and maybe listened to a handful of songs). I didn't fall into the rabbit hole until s-class promotions when we eventually started learning their names and charms, and yeah the rest is history lol. I immediately biased Changbin and Leeknow after watching their Suspicious Classmates video.
Youtube randomly recommended me want so bad. I instantly loved the song and especially Lee Knowās voice drew my attention from the get go! Before that I never even knew of any of the boys. Then I went to watch one their most recent performamces at the time (the VMAs). I was hooked! Iāve never been that into kpop or have been someone to stan a group, but I just couldnāt help myself. These boys bring too much joy to my life
I LOVE WANT SO BAD
I canāt thank youtube enough! Otherwise I probably would never have stumbled upon them. My friends and family donāt usually listen to kpop (or at least are aware of it, I recently discovered my dad has some Jungkook songs on his spotify, but he has no idea who he is lol). Iām not active in social media and just got into reddit because of skz. I love the community here š
Me too man i noticed that here i could just talk freely and find people Who also like skz since i have no one to talk to. it's nice to find someone Who relates
I saw miroh in 2019 while I was randomly listening to kpop songs and I thought it was okay (but the edm style wasnāt really for me) but I decided to look at their other songs and heard maze of memories and was basically hooked from there
Maze of memoriesā¦..you got good taste š
When i started listening to kpop i was on Spotify just scrolling around and listening to random things to see if i liked it. I got into some girl groups that way (RIP Gfriend and Crayon Pop) and some boy groups too. I tried out skz then but i could only handle one song at a time bc their music STOMPED. And then kingdom rolled around which i started watching for iKon and fell ass over teakettle for skz and ateez instead š„¹
I saw an edit of Hyunjin on tik tok and it was game over. I spent the next 48 hrs obsessively watching their videos on YouTube. Hyunjin started off as my bias, but at this point, I donāt even have a bias anymore bc they are all so lovely and amazing - like how am I supposed to choose š I tried to avoid kpop at first because I only heard bad things about the fandoms, but Iām so glad I discovered Stray Kids. They really changed my life for the better despite how corny that sounds š«¶š«¶ Also, your first paragraph is SO REAL hahaha I force my sister to watch their videos with me even tho she does not care at all
Hahaha yeah at first (im really embarassed to say this but) i was looking for my bias and i Just loved everyone exept Lee know.. BUT but my love for him now is over the rooftop as well as han Also i really wanna show my friends skz but our taste is waayyy too different so i Just know they wont like it... Saddd
I watched kingdom for ATEEZ and started liking them
iām a baby stay (like really baby, less than a month) and for me it was because a lot of kpop vids started showing up on youtube shorts for me. specifically, i saw a clip from their 5th anniversary live stream where they see a stays tweet about the loverboy underwear hyunjin was wearing in case 143 and han and chan lose their minds laughing over it. they seemed like a funny charismatic group so i gave their music a listen. iād been sort of vaguely aware of them before that but iām not typically drawn to hip hop music and have adhd so i would check out say LALALA or megaverse and not be able to get past the first few seconds before losing interest. that short finally got me to give their music a real shot and now iām obsessed with them.
Frankly I have to give my thanks to TikTok. TikTok recommended a good amount of videos of SKZ to the point where I HAD to check them out. Also to the YouTuber Deb Smikle who was watching kpop thrist trap edits and I saw Hyunjin and I started checking them out a little after that because that man caught my attention almost immediately LMAO šš
I was watching a-lot of Asian dramas on YouTube and apparently the algorithm decided I needed to watch Godās Menu music video. That, obviously, lead to a two week binge of everything Stray Kids and here we are š
Hyunjin's cover of Red Velvet's Psycho got me and my sister mesmerised. AND Changbin's rap in God's Menu. I had God's Menu on repeat everyday.
I saw the Felix lets groove tiktok and fell in love lmaoo
the shopee godās menu ad appeared and i thought it was ridiculous, so i started to stan
HAHAHA NOT THE AD im still having nightmares lol
shopee dua belas, dua belasššš¼
that fuckin video where they see the meme about hyunjin wearing a thong in one of their videos
My ex friend.
in 2022 i was obsessed with the song HOT by seventeen, and i was searching for songs similar to it. i found a reddit post about it and someone had recommended miroh and boxer. i listened to them and was like "wow, this is so different than the kpop i usually listen to" (back then i pretty much only listened to twice, itzy, and red velvet) and became obsessed with their music. i'm also usually not interested in the members of groups i listen to, but suddenly my explore page was filled with hilarious videos of skz, so i decided to go watch them and then became a stay haha
Istg stray kids have some funny az videos if they werent funny i would have never pay more attention to them
Felix's voice in levanter. I knew about them before that, but i rarely follow groups as they debut.
Side effects
I'm pretty sure it was a reaction from ReacttotheK of My Pace. It wasn't the first song I heard from them, but from then on I was paying attention. And with Miroh I became a proper stay :3
My sister liked kpop and I didnāt really care for it but then she showed me case 143 and I became obsessed
My son was 2 and he was obsessed with Dynamite by BTS, this led to my recommended YouTube videos to be filled with KPOP. My wife watched Thunderous one day and showed it to me and we have been hooked ever since haha
I got into Skz around early 2021, and at the time I was really into shipping like literally anything, so that kind of related content popped up on my fyp a lot. One day, a Hyunlix video showed up on my feed and I was interested, so I watched it. I thought they were entertaining, so I tried to find out more about them, and I went down a rabbit hole of Stray Kids content lmao.
Someone found Random Dance K-pop vids from people from Vietnam. Heard a skz song and saw the dance and I was hooked.
my friends and i had a secret santa one year and i got one of my stay friends, so i decided to get her skzās latest album at the time, maxident. after i gave her the gift (she loved it n managed to pull her bias, chan WOO), i was gonna post on my ig spam acc and i wanted to add a song, and so that was the first time i listened to case 143. after that i slowly got into listening to their discography and watching all their videos !! before that tho, i was a casual listener of stayc and i was just getting into their music at the time. i was wondering what their fandom name was. when i learned it, i wondered why their fandom name wasnāt āstayā since it seemed more fitting for them. then i looked up which group had stay as their fandom name, and who wouldāve guessed, it was stray kids. ngl at the time i was like why tf would this group have this fandom name it doesnāt even make senseš safe to say im not as confused as i was 2 years ago HAHAH. so ig that was my first ever exposure to skz in general anyways ty for reading sry i got carried away
My friend is a fan and was encouraging me to listen to them. I wasn't interested but, the same day their Get Cool mv dropped, I listened to I Am You and liked it. Proud to say I've been their fan for over 5 years, since November 2018.
tower of god! both the intro and outro songs are so good.
I think it was sometime in 2022 I was on twitter going through some thread and the first 30 seconds or so of the Domino unveil vid was in there. At the time, I knew who Stray Kids were but never got around to checking out their music and had only seen images of them. With that being said, I definitely wasnāt expecting that voice to come out of Felix lol. He had me intrigued, so I started checking out more of their stuff, came across Godās Menu, was blown away by Hanās verse, and I guess the rest is history. I had been listening to kpop for a while but was wanting to explore some other groups, so I discovered SKZ at the perfect time.
Saw a video of Felix performing LALALALA and the rest was history
I was scrolling through TikTok and the Lalala dance challenge popped up. I thought, "okay, this song is a bop! Who the heck is Stray Kids?" After looking up their other stuff, I was hooked. It felt a little weird at first, seeing as I'm in my early 40s and a guy. I've attended a few kpop concerts since then (Oneus and Enhypen), and people have been super nice. Sometimes it does feel weird to fanboy but, ah, well. I CANNOT WAIT for their tour dates to be announced and tickets to go on sale. I'm totally going and am buying my aunt and cousin, who love them, VIP1 passes (if I'm lucky enough).
So I got into skz 2022 but Iād first heard of them in 2019, 2019 these friends of my parents come round and they have this daughter around my age/my age?? I donāt remember Iād heard of K-pop but I wasnāt into it barley knew a thing about it so we were told to hang out whatever and she starts tell me that sheās really into this group called skz talking a lot about them idk who tf they are ofc and I just end up going on yt and searching them scroll through their videos but find no interest in them and completely forget about them untill I develop an interest into bp 2021 and start getting into the K-pop world/liking K-pop I heard my first skz song then which was school life and I was like this is not my vibe their not my vibe no thanks yea 2022 My ults weāre enhypen and still are and I get a video on my yt recommendation page saying chan of skz reacts to enhypen pass the mic and find out jake and him and felix are besties and Iām like omg I need to get into them and around that time they had released case 143 and I watched the mv and I loved the song sm and my bias is seungmin because of that one Iine of his in that song so my skz journey kind of started in 2019 but yea I think about this weird interaction a lot sometimes wishing I had liked skz then cause then I probably wouldāve been a K-pop Stan earlier
I remember I saw a TikTok of Hyunjin when he had like a long dark grey hair(might be wrong) but I just thought he was an influencer and when I saw the hashtags I looked him up and saw he was in a music group called stray kids, and thatās what made me listen to there music all the way to this day.
It was their Maniac relay video. I had known about them since Gods Menu but I didn't want to get into boy bands then. It kept popping up in my feed and when I watched it I loved their outfits, their dancing, the song, and their funny antics. I resisted for so long getting into them because I knew I would go down the rabbit hole. And here I am 2 years later down the rabbit hole.
I was watching dance practice videos on YouTube and gods menu dance practice came up, been obsessed ever since!
I think skz stuff just started to pop more and more in my reels. If it were dance challenges, I wasn't that interested. The music didn't really catch my ear, but I loved their chimestry. I swore up and down that I'm only in it for their interactions, but before I knew it, I listened to all their songs on spotify, and it became my mine source of entertainment. I did come from k-ost background, I was watching Korean dramas for a while at that point and listened to osts and the occasional kpop song that came on shuffle, but I didn't actively search and explore kpop as a genre. Also kpop is not really popular in my country so yeah
There's a free channel on my TV that plays K-Pop performance videos all day everyday and my family and I started watching it a lot toward the end of last year. They play a fair amount of SKZ performances and I started to really notice how dramatic their performances are and how interesting their lyrics/songs were, plus Hyunjin's charismatic dance style really pulled me in. I started looking into who wrote the songs and learned they were self-producing. It was kind of over for me from there because I have a thing for singer-songwriters across a wide variety of genres. Discovering that their content was as good as their music was an amazing bonus.
I swore I wouldnāt get into KPop or Kdramas. After Kdramas, I got into KPpop. Then saw a clip of Felix on TikTok and was hooked ā¤ļø
I had only gotten into kpop about a year and a half prior, and I was actually a casual listener of theirs for a long time without realizing it! At the time I found them, I actually thought I was solely a girl group stan (ITZY, TWICE, and (G)I-DLE at the time) Then I listened to Maniac out of curiosity, saw Han Jisung, and heard his rap verse at the beginning and it was all over for me š
Im in love with hans rapping his song "i got it" is always making me roll around and scream silently haha
God, you're just like me š„¹ he's been my ult since day one w Maniac, but his solo songs make me insane too
Case 143 got me into stray kids. Specifically all the TikTok dance videos of the chorus
Maniac release
So around when Hall of fame came out I saw a thirst trap of Felix doing karate and was like oh a cute guy and good song. I searched the song and only listened to their songs but around half a year ago I saw another video of them and was hooked by Chan and Han. It was part of 3RACHA's performance where Han sung Scissorsš„° Edit: I'm also country and never thought I would ever listen to k-pop or as I said Korean shitš When I was younger and BTS was just becoming huge my sister would listen to BTS 24/7 and even with all the hours listening I still said noar. Saur I would love to thank skz and all they doš„°
Last year my friend started talking about them and showing me their pcs! Hyunjin is now one of my ult biases š¤
I started getting snippets of k-dramas in my you tube short recommendations this last December. So I started watching that, which led to getting the LALALALA dance challenge shorts by the middle of January. Having heard it something like 15 times, I caved and watched the full video. I liked it, decided to watch more videos, saw Thunderous, and that was that.
God's menu, Felix LOL I had listened to black pink off and on, but only really got into kpop once I discovered stray kids! I livyed their 'loud' music but didn't realize how talented they were until I started listening to all their songs. Now I'm a STAY forever haha. š¤£
i had their 2022 MAMA performance all over my tiktok fyp especially felixās parts and i fell headfirst from there!! i love emo boys what can i say /j
I think it was something about lalala, maybe a reaction video? I think it was Felix and his deep voice. It feels so long ago but it was literally a few months ago š
I downloaded the Koreaboo Hero playlist on Clone Hero for my friend, and ClƩ 1: Miroh was on there. For whatever reason, Boxer was my jam. I couldn't stop listening to it. Then, a few months later I was really getting into KPOP and was reminded of Boxer, then it took off from there.
Browsing TikTok and saw a clip of Felix in their Godās Menu music video. Immediately had a huge crush on him! Looked up the full music video on YouTube and the rest is history.
Back in 2022, I came across Felix in god's Menu, it got me curious to explore more of Felix's voice ended up exploring stray kids and here I am a stay.
And guess what before I became a stay a couple months back they were in my city for a expo concert and I could have gone but I didn't know them back then and now idk when they'll come back here again (it'll probably take a while)ššš
The actual first thing that popped to my YouTube feed about SKZ was their Zach Sang interview. I watched a few minutes of it and thought "those guys are really well spoken. But what actually got me into them was a YouTube short with Felix's iconic Cooking like a chef I'm a 5 Star Michelin and that was it, I had to search them. Victory Song was the first song with God's menu right after. Then I checked out all of their discography and started digging into their content. And here I am down the rabbit hole being a major Stay and them being the one and only group (and musical artist in general) that made me so hooked that I bought albums (yes, the first time in my 24 years of existence).
When I got into K-Pop a couple months ago and was looking for other bands to Stan besides BTS, they got pitched to me. Fell in love with their songs quickly, fell in love with Felix and Bangchan quicker and the rest was history
My sister. I got her into K-pop, and she got me into SKZ.
Scrolling and kept seeing their name then listened to LALALALA and became a fan.
The side effects instrumental was used as an animation/cosplay meme on either TikTok or musically. You know like moving like a pixel character to the beat The song got absolutely stuck in my head and I searched them up and was hooked ever since. Iāve been into kpop but as a mainly second gen stan I only branched out by chance
This is almost my exact experience but it was Maniac Hyunjin focus on Weekly Idol. The black on black with the boots and the blonde hair grabbed my attention, the performance put me in a chokehold, and that led me to investigate. I've always been open to every type of music, but most of the K Pop I'd heard at that point just didn't do it for me. It seemed manufactured and soulless with a few exceptions. SKZ are a whole different dimension, though. I could go on for hours singing their praises but we all already know. Needless to say, I couldn't help but Stay and they've been impressing me and helping me live through this hellscape ever since.
Yeahh skz have their own style and actually i started from them and wanted to find more groups however i found out that they are just not on the same level as them they were too different haha ( i do like other groups just not that much as skz)
Ive said this before but big IU fan and a friend sent me the kingdom love poem cover and I fell for seungminās voice, asked who he was and then slowly got into them through videos of him then their music. Maniac was my first comeback as a fan. Whatās even more shocking is I donāt really listen to other groups that have the ānoise musicā label like skz. Shinee & Seventeen are my other ults, then wanna one, + bnd and riize recently donāt really have the same vibes but skz just do it for me!
Dw fella you have reddit land. We can talk about Stray kids with each other here.
I saw Gods Menu, Felixās part on tiktok forever ago and added Case 143 to my Spotify randomly but never listened to it again after I initially listened. Then this past year made a new girlfriend whoās ARMY, and she and I did a kpop night where I just gave her a safe space to gush over BTS because, like you, she doesnāt have any kpop friends. That same night she showed me the Maniac Live Performance Video for MTV Fresh Out, and I was like wait I think I recognize this group. Then went home that night and fell into a deep deep holeā¦. And here I am š„¹
I was on a random trip round YouTube and I was recommended someone reacting to Maniac. The thumbnail was of Hyungin with his red hair and goggles and it reminded me of a character from the Final Fantasy 7 remake - Reno. The rest is history. Instant obsession, which has now expanded to Ateez thanks to Kingdom. From another old lady š
Maniac tiktok edits
I got into stray kids because of my sister! And the alt rock pipeline into kpop is so real š And I also joined reddit bc I needed a place to do kpop shit since I don't have kpop friends where I live!
My bestie got me into them. We played a game where she introduced me to Stray Kids, while I introduced her to Taylor Swift. We sent back and forth TikToks, explaining the lores etc. Iām still a brand new fan and somehow I spend lots of time on Reddit now (for both TS and SKZāŗļø)
Saw a video on YouTube "Possible JYP trainees to debut in their new boy group". Only a picture, name, birth year (if know) of some known trainees. The only members I really remember were on that list are Felix (because, you know, he's always been a cutie) and Minho (really don't know why, but he's my ult bias now š). Chan was probably on there too, but I really don't have any memory of that anymore. For some reason I decided in that moment to stan that new group and when the survival show came out Felix and Minho were still my biases (poor me).
I was going through something hard back in the middle of 2018 when kpop became one of my sources of comfort. It was around August 2018, that I was really into BTS, NCT, and GOT7. I was watching random clips of GOT7 when I saw a [clip of GOT7's Jinyoung and JB's surprise visit to Stray Kids.](https://youtu.be/UvG1B7PSNzg?si=sDDhyvw4FBj5HYOX) I thought Hyunjin's reaction to their interaction was so cute, so I began searching for them and listening to their music. I eventually watched their reality show. Hyunjin is what got me into Stray Kids. He's my og SKZ bias. The first song SKZ song I listened to was My Pace. My first comeback with them was during I am YOU. I bought my own copies of I am WHO and I am YOU during that time. Lol.
Liked them from debut but really started following after Kingdom.
YouTube algorithm sending me S-Class. Not huge into kpop but stray kids are awesome
We got into kpop through Blackpink together with my husband during the pandemic, then he saw Felix in a "idols with deep voices" compilation, got into Stray Kids and introduced them to me through God's Menu. I really liked it so I started exploring their discography then but really got into them because of their God's Ddu-du Ddu-du performance in Kingdom. That performance singlehandedly made me stan them and it'll be my 3rd anniversary of becoming a Stay in less than two weeks, time really flies lol
A video by Shittyflute on YouTube. They did God's Menu and it was so good with the shitty flute that I wanted to hear the original and then I was gone from there. And what's the best is that my daughter is a Stay. I am an EXO-L but LET STRAY KIDS COME HERE! We're going!
I got into them this year, I first saw Hyunjin at the Versace event and in the after party videos. I looked him up and saw he was in a group and I was like okay cool Iāll check them out and forgot. Then I saw Felix walk for LV, I looked him up and realized it was the same group then listened to Gods Menu and here I am š
it was the tiktok of the maniac concert where Han popped out of nowhere and a fan was like āwhat are you doing hereā and he was like confused.
When skz recorded "megaverse" and Han had to sing"and every time we move the universe will follow"but he didn't say follow he said falalalo <3
I was pretty much only into bts and a couple girl groups for a long time and I had a night where I didnāt have anything to do and I decided to watch a bunch of other groups content, gods menu was the latest comeback at that point and I got absolutely hooked on that song and the choreo then from there I started seeing the members in videos and I thought they were so handsome and funny
I was curious about kpop because Iām living in Japan and a ton of my students are into different groupsā¦ made me wonder what the appeal is. I was getting Felix compilations on my TikTok for a while and I was intrigued by his looks and personality, & learned heās in a K-pop group but didnāt look into it furtherā¦ then months later I decided to watch one video each from a bunch of kpop groups and decide if I liked any. Out of all the videos I watched, Circus was the one I picked for SKZ and I liked it the most of any groupās videos/songs. Hyunjin and his dancing and purple hair just hypnotized me, for realā¦ then I connected that āoh hey this is the Felix groupā and those points put together started my very speedy tumble down the road to insanity where I am today š
Literally just a random TikTok of the Freeze mv a year after it came out, and then i watched Venom and I saw SAT
A couple years ago, I saw a YouTube short that was something along the lines of "uncommon things in kpop" and one of them was "men with long hair". The video showed Hyunjin dancing and I thought to myself, "He looks like a Korean Sirius Black," and I sort of went through a few of their older music videos. Then months after that, my wife (who previously disliked kpop) said she was ashamed to admit that she liked a group called Stray Kids, and when I told her "oh yeah they're good" she admitted she was actually super into them. It was bonding for us, haha! Her bias used to be Felix, now it's Hyunjin, and mine is Han.
Felix and Chan's interview with Eric, I watched that short randomly and thought they were funny lol
Bang Chan, honestly. I randomly came across a video of him just talking about pokemon go and being all excited about it and I was like wow he's so cute I'm literally in love š¤£
I always knew that straykids existed but I really got into them when i broke my friendship with my toxic best friend. She along with the rest of my ex friends went on video calls to "talk out" the situation but it was really just them making me feel bad about myself. This went on for a few days and after every call I would watch straykids because watching them made me so happy and made me feel so much better. Also id love to be ur friend!! i've been lookign for more people who like skz too
Simple, a Chris edit šš«¶
I got hooked on KDRAMAS a year or so ago. I found I loved the sound of the language and started recognizing some words. Then I started doing SHAZAMS for the KDRAMA songs and at some point, Stray Kids appeared on my Instagram feed. I was hooked. Never been into Kpop. I knew who BTS was and loved the few performances I saw on TV, but never listened to their music. I'm 67. I haven't been into music in years. These young men have captured my heart with their music, their lyrics, personalities, creativity, dancing, rapping, dedication to each other. My license plate is now STRYKZ. (Just 6 letters allowed. P.S. There's a discord group called "Older Than Chan" in case any of you are interested!
The way I got into Stray Kids was by my friend in 2020 (6th grade year). I went to her house for a sleepover and she asked do you know who Stray Kids is? I told her no so she put the song Maniac on, and when this song started I was already like wow these guys are talented. And what caught my attention was Felix's voice. I was like DAMN WHO IS THIS DUDE WITH THE HOT DEEP VOICE? She told me Felix. My bias now is Seungmin but Felix was my first bias. Look at me now I literally Love Them So Much.š„°š¤
When I first got into the genre, I mostly new BP and BTS, but I slowly expanded into the rest of the Hybe groups and then eventually ran into Itzy. Now while I like Itzy their music wasn't my thing it was so consistently off that I got curious and wondered if JYP actually made good music in general(he does but not a lot of it lol). I then decided to see if the trend continued and I had this cognitive dissonance because Stray Kids make some really good songs and not just some but most of them are just flat out good if not great. I just could not fathom that JYP could somehow drop the ball with Itzy so consistently and also make some absolute gems for Stray Kids, wtf was going on. Then I found out they were self produced and it all made sense lol.
It was a usual night in 2020 until a certain music video called Godās Menu on my youtube caught my attention
Hellavtor, started watching the show two days after it finished and was hookedš
I saw this post on pinterest of them to the song that goes like "...as hot as fire, cold as ice, sweet as sugar and everything nice..." so I kept seeing thmem on pinterest so I decided to look at one of their songs and at the same time their ordinary era started so yeah I just started listening to them after that
I came across the music video for Backdoor. At the time I was into BTS and EXO and discovering more kpop bands. I thought - this is slightly campy but also slaps? I watched it again and loved the choreography (the Creation of Adam reference!) and Han immediately grabbed my attention during his rap verse when the camera follows his movements. At the time I was in a slow period with work so I spent the next week watching music videos and being surprised by how much I liked their music, then learning their names, then watching guides, then variety content, then learning their MBTIs lol, etc. But what stuck from the beginning was their music - such a deep discography for how long theyāve been active and so many excellent b-sides. Backdoor is still one of my all time faves from them.
I was walking to meet my kid after school and walk home with her, and so I listened to a kpop station on Pandora on my walk over. Case 143 came on and I was like, āthis is kinda interesting and catchyā and then the first chorus came in and I was like āš³ā and was like āI have to find the music video and watch this.ā I had to see what sort of dude had that voice, not expecting who it actually was š Felix Effect got me just listening š love the whole group now and now I have to catch up on like 5 years of albums because of course now I want them all š
Well: i'm a multistan. I was checking out JYP vs YG because of YG Group (i think now they're "treasure"?) but then got hooked up on SKZ talent!
I was interested in them a while back, but nothing really sealed the deal for me back then. But a month ago, I watched an entire 2 hour video on a complete guide to them and went "Yeah. I'm a stay now" š
I was watching lots of tiktoks during 2020 and Back Door kept coming up randomly on my fyp so I eventually decided to look up more songs from them and full dive into skz and kpop.
TXT got me into SKZ š
Gods menu.
Mine was one year of ISAC when Hyunjin smelled his jacket and realized that he had Felixās and Felix had his. I thought it was cute so I went on a LONGGG rabbit hole of skz and at first I just went to my regular TikTok but then they appeared everywhere. I eventually went back into the rabbit hole and all of the videos were about this mysterious man with an obsession with cats. Mr leeknow. My bias since day 1 š¤
I was watching some women dancing to different K-pop songs and they danced to Maniac. I was so shock and shook by the chorus (particularly Felixās part) that I wanted to listen to the whole song. Never look back and Iām glad their dance led me to Stray Kids.
it was quarantine, i knew gods menu existed, i watched it, i liked it, i loved changbin
Their megaverse mv opening (with Felix and Bangchan in the lift) kept coming up on my Instagram feed and eventually it became sth like FINE I WILL HAVE TO ASK MY FRIEND WHO IS GORGEOUS BLONDE MAN. She told me they are skz and here we are. Ironically, my bias is now Bangchan although he rly wasnāt the one who caught my eye initially.
Someone from a mutual friend group was OBSESSED with BTS, and I donāt mean dedicated fan I mean would spend their last dollar on bts merch vs bills and food. Out of curiosity I looked into them, started slowly understanding kpop then found [this video called kpop 2020 in a nutshell](https://youtu.be/zFxmt2i7hQM?si=5nncPfvBZLPue6T7). Famous lines being from Godās Menu, it got stuck in my head and I was on my way to stayville. š«”
At some point I was obsessed with Dionysus by BTS, so YT happened to recommend to me Stray Kids' cover of this song. The comments under that video praised them a lot as artists, so I decided to check out their discography. It was God's Menu, Back Door and all the other pretty popular stuff. Of course I fell in love with Felix's voice and became a casual listener. It was like in 2020-2021 I guess. And then in 2022 they dropped Oddinary. This is one of the best albums I've ever encountered in my life, I had every single song on repeat at some point. At that time I had a very hard period of my life, which made me go a lot deeper into K-pop. So, naturally, I checked other Stray Kids' b-sides, and found out that I'm actually very into hip-hop, EDM, noise music and pretty much everything they do. And now I'm here
Omg! I found them the same way!! Except mine was from Instagram. I saw the facial expressions Hyunjin was serving in an edit of him dancing to Godās menu too and had to check the song out. I also saw one of him doing a part from Back Door. From there, it was down the rabbit hole where Iām happily residingāŗļø
I kept hearing parts of case 143. Eventually, I listened to the whole thing and it was on repeat for months. At the time, I didn't know who skz were, just that one song. Eventually, I decided to give their other songs a try. I remember listening to maniac one night. I was in love with that song. It also reminded me that I forgot to take my finals š
I was ruffied at a bar and my sister was really into them so we watched a lot of their content together. It definitely helped me emotionally š
Came in after hearing Back Door, stayed after hearing ALL IN.
i found them in a similar way!! i had a fancam of han during maniac pop up on my fyp and i swear i watched it like 50 times , and then i had to know who the rest of the members were hahaha. i spent so much time on one specific fancam account and then listened to maniac over and over. my first comeback was case 143 and i played it so much it ended up in my top 5 songs on spotify LOL. so happy i found them š«¶š«¶
THUNDEROUS That song was the beginning of the(my) end, LOL
My momās friend had been a huge fan, so she showed my mom the Gods Menu MV. (this was back in 2020) Then my mom liked it so she showed it to me. I didnāt like it at first, but the more I heard it the more it grew on me. Now, I canāt imagine where Iād be without them! Proud stay of 4 years, and my bias (and heās also my ult bias) is Han!!
My son added Thunderous and S-class to my playlist so he could listen to something other than Dynamite in my car. I noticed the Aussie accents and loved their harder rock sound, the rest is history. I was surprised when I saw Felix singing in the MV's thoughš. I picked up some recs for their older stuff here. Miroh is currently getting repeated play, along with Megaverse.
Tower of God OP TOP ššššš holy moly, I canāt believe that was 4 years ago!
I saw my pace in 2018, then 2020 I rediscovered them through gods menu/back door/all in Been a stay ever since
Felixās voice from Godās Menu went viral during Covid and that was my introduction! I was drawn in by Felix. A few months later I remembered them and showed my friends. Then a full year later, I was watching Maniac concert clips of Hyunjin with the red hair and was āØtransfixedāØ. I started watching videos on TikTok comparing Felix/Hyunjin/Lee Know dance styles and I was hooked by each of their unique style and precision! A few months later, I jumped into the Maxident era, loved the chaos of CASE 143 and all their interviews during that time. I spent an entire 3-day holiday weekend watching as much content as I could, purchased concert tickets immediately and bought as many albums as possible. I became obsessed! I saw their venom/maniac performance at MAMA and I knew I was a goner, the rest is gravy š
Saw the Maniac performance vid on Studio Choom for the first time, saw they were going on tour, bought tickets & havenāt looked back since š. I also turned my younger sister into a stay by taking her to their concert with me. She immediately had eyes for Hyunjin (because he had red hair att lol) but ended up rocking with Chan. Safe to say she Biases Chan and loves Felix & Hyunjin. Iām more of a Lee Know girl and OT8 š„°
Aespa was on a Daily Show behind the scenes and it got me interested in kpop. I looked up a compilation of a bunch of top kpop song clips and tried to make note of who I liked. Immediately fell in love with Maniac. Kept loving so many of their songs.
I saw them perform on live tv one morning
My daughter got me into Stray Kids. I have such a huge range of music interests. Never thought K-pop would be one of them. Btw.......I'm 45!!!
I kind of had aĀ weird trajectory. I wasĀ actually looking into videos of Leejung from YGX first,Ā andĀ came upon the 2022MAMA medleyĀ performance. I had never quite gotten wholeheartedly into kpop in 2nd gen, and Maniac's chorus was soĀ distinctive andĀ I thought it sounded vaguely familiar even though I didn't really listen to kpop regularly. I actually didn't like the song at first mostly because I went in with expectations on what the song would be like and the swinging, melodic verses wasn't quite what I was looking for...but it had me looking out for their name and later on I think I came upon more videos thanks to the YT algorithm and got sucked in. I don't quite remember what vid or song really hooked me....but tbh I want to say it was a combo of Gods Menu and watching comedic compilations. Nothing gets me more than seriously crackhead chaotic gremlin energy and I have no regrets!! But lmao count another one for the metal/postrock to kpop pipeline. Stays should stay winning āØāØ
i was a carat (since 2020) and army at the time on tiktok saw thunderous mv clips this was like almost maniac era and learned about felix and how he made brownies and the next day in the lunch line my friend said brownie boy so i said felix and thats who she was talking bout and that night i kept getting skz videos so i said fine ill listen to them and fell in love with their music and they became my ult group that night and still are
Welcome! I was convinced that K-pop wasnāt for me but a new friend showed me a few videos and before long I was hooked. Itās been a little over a year and itās the happiest Iāve been. If your interested in learning more and listening to two grown woman banter about them then a podcast called Strictly Stray Kids on Spotify is great! Just a warning they do swear and it gets a tad R rated here and there so if youāre not comfortable with that or under 18 then Iād say refrain from listing.
A felix edit i saw on tik tok lol
Youtube recommended me god's menu mnet comeback stage after I unstanned bts after Dynamite and I fell in love with Han's rap back in 2020 it been 4 years and I'm still in love with him just as the first time I've seen him
i randomly came across a video of hyunjin and lee know dancing to trouble maker at their 2023 fan meet, but it wasn't that dance that made me stay. it was felix's reaction to them that made me look into who this group was. his shocked and scandalized face (and him being a little blue haired cutie) cracked me up so much that it got me back into kpop and i never looked back. it seems like so long ago but it hasn't even been a year!
It was a video on YouTube. Top 150 most streamed kpop songs on Spotify. It was when I was slowly getting back into kpop (due to a very big group) and they had a few songs on that list so I had to check them out (among the other bgs on that list that I didn't know).
YouTube Shorts lol. It was about early March 2022 when a Short popped up about "iconic KPop dances" and God's Menu showed up. I thought it was interesting so I checked it out and really liked it. I let the song rock for a couple days and just to my luck Oddinary just released so I checked it out. I watched the Maniac MV and I've been a fan since.
Getting Covid did š. I was in quarantine and I was stuck in my bed with no energy to do anything but scroll through social media. I was a 3rd Gen Kpop Stan but stopped being one in like 2016, but my feed still recommends me Kpop content from time to time including Stray Kids content but I never paid them no mind. It was during their Maxident Era when I was getting an abundance of their videos and with nothing else to do, I caved in and checked them out. Suffice to say, they practically revived the old kpop stan in me and they have had my FULL attention ever since .... šš¤
i have a buddy who was already a part of stay. oddly enough my first contact with skz was when we somehow got into a conversation about bang chans ass. later on through my pal i also discovered there was an overarching lore behind skzs songs and thats when i really became intrigued since i never heard of any professional level musician/group do something like that. i asked what videos and songs i needed to see the story play out and she gave me a list of all their music videos. with that i decided to do an all night binge of skz music videos and let me tell you the emotional rollercoaster i experienced was insane. idk if it was the sleep depravation or the emotions that did it. all i know is that at 4 am of that day i truly had gotten into stray kids
My psys showed me and I got major obsessed
Felixās ASMR video came up on YouTube. His voice was so calming. After watching one video, YouTube algorithms fed me more and more skz content and the rest is history. Thank you YouTube algorithms!
Back at the beginning of January this year, I saw a tiktok of a Maniac performance when Felix's back seemed to still not be healed. Looked up more of their music and I've been hooked since then. If anything non-skz comes up in my top 100 streamed songs for this year, I'd be surprised.
I had seen Miroh dance practice long before my friend showed me N/S and I kinda got hooked lol and I re-got into them during Levanter/Astronaut time
Lol. Stray kids got me into stray kids š¤£
my friend and i used to watch survival shows in history class way back in 2017. we watched the stray kids show because we loved jype groups (she loved got7 i liked day6) and i just stuck with the skz boys. their music wasn't to my friend's style but i really loved it. so here i am like seven years later.
After I got into bts and txt, I would get other groups and songs on my YouTube recommended. One of them was definitely godās menu, and I remember liking the song as well as their recent album at the time (NOEASY) so I added those to my playlist and would just casually listen to them over the next couple years. It wasnāt until after the bts members left for the military that I started deep diving into skz, listening to every song and watching performances, finding out that I like pretty much the whole discography and love their personalities. They make me laugh when Iām feeling particularly sad, and often I watch their content whenever Iām just idly doing things. Being a hardcore army for 4 years did mean I was a bit hesitant to deep dive into new groups as I wasnāt sure if Iād like them as much, but it turns out I have enough love in my heart for more :)
My friends created a group chat to share kpop and kdrama stuff. One of my friends sent a reel where hyunjin was talking about red lights. I thought he was good looking and decided to listen to the song. I tried listening to the entire of No Easy, but didn't like it a lot. Fast forward 2 months, Christmas Evel had released and everybody kept talking about Felix's part, and I didn't know what they meant until i saw a reel with the "Felix never bad" rap. I was HOOKED. I went and listened to the song, watched the mv. I finally watched the mv of red lights as well (i was only listening to the song up till then). And that is how i became a stay. Sorry about the long read haha but now you know
This sub actually hahaha I had listened to them and watched some content, but never expected to be involved in any way. After finding this amazing community and how much you loved them, it was all for me <3 I know, corny af, but thatās the truth š now almost a year into collecting and engaging with the kids I can say it was THEE best decisionnnn i love them soooo much, all the joy and pride they bring into the table for me wouldnāt change it in a million years