‘Record Of Youth’ is a South Korean drama starring Park Bo Gum, Park So Dam, and Byun Woo Seok. The drama highlights the lives of the youth striving hard in the present to achieve their life goals. The drama is a ‘record’ of their friendship, their failures, conflicts, and success in terms of life, love, and career. What’s the best part about this drama? It is a ‘record’ of us as a fangirl as we live our boring home and work routine but still manages to make ourselves happy whenever we watch our idols on screen.
Characters
Park Bo Gum as Sa Hye Jun
Park So Dam as Ahn Jeong Ha
Byun Woo Seok as Won Hae Hyo
Synopsis
Sa Hye Joon, a handsome model wanted to pursue a career as an actor. He’s been constantly applying for acting roles but still struggles to find the perfect role for him to fit in. He’s bound to make a big decision in his life, to give it his last shot as an actor or enlist and serve the military.
He meets Ahn Jeong Ha, a make-up artist who has numerous frustrations that she normally destresses through fangirling on Sa Hye Joon. She also wanted to pursue a career as a professional make-up artist and that’s when she met her idol.
We have our own fair share of struggles in real life
Regardless of whether you are a fangirl or not, ‘Record of Youth’ is all about how we give our best in everything we doto succeed in our little ways. Ahn Jeong Ha decided to leave the four corners of her office workplace to pursue her dream of becoming a make-up artist turning her hobby into work.
She gives her best to make ends meet every day and manages to run her own channel doing a number of make-up tutorials to random people as her hobby. When she managed to finally get a spot in a beauty shop, her talents paved her way to get more clients and that put her to trouble in work further having some of her colleagues envy her a lot.
The standards on having a ‘good’ boyfriend
Jeong Ha, being a fangirl herself knows the limit of reality and idol culture. She might be fangirling on Sa Hye Jun but she knows the boundaries of being a fan and personally knowing the actor. Even if we know that there’s only a 0.01% chance of us meeting our idol which means it is actually a blessing, the chance to make him our boyfriend is close to impossible.
In fact, that’s called a miracle. The standards of having a ‘good boyfriend’ are far different from our standards of ‘idols’ but at the end of the day, fangirls tend to enjoy fangirling more than searching for a ‘good boyfriend.’ Perhaps, we understand how Ahn Jeong Ha feels.
Fangirling is our therapeutic escape
Believe it or not but when you ask a fangirl why she watches a Kdrama, you will hear some saying that it is a healing drama, and watching (plus fangirling over our favorite oppas and unnie) is totally therapeutic.
How can a drama actually bring healing to a person? — Well then, I guess it’s the power of the storyline and the acting of our faves. I must attest that fangirling indeed has been helpful to me during tough times and I met a lot along the way as I fangirl.
How therapeutic can it be? After a long day at work, wouldn’t it be so nice to finally open your phone or laptop and watch your favorite playing various roles in Kdrama? Seeing him smiling a lot in variety shows or simply peeking on his recent vlive or IG live?
Our idols live their own lives too
They are our idols, they are either singers, actors or dancers but they have their own lives too. They can be our idols on stage and on cam but that also meant they have lives to live too. The drama initially reminds us of the boundaries between fangirling and accepting the fact that we created a ‘world’ where our idols exist. It’s a bubble of our own where we felt close to our idols despite them not knowing us.
Record of Youth also reminded me that our idols are there to make up happy but we must understand that there’s always a limit to fangirling and that boundary shouldn’t be crossed. At the end of the day, we know we are just part of the statistics to which they refer to as ‘fans.’
We are not just a number, we are a family
Despite the huge wall between the fan and the idol, isn’t it fascinating how we managed to memorize all their favorites, their personality, and such? We spend so much to buy their merchandise, to send them gifts during their birthdays, anniversaries, small wins, and more.
The best part about fangirling is that you depend your happiness on someone who never knows your existence yet his or her wins, mood, and struggles in life give you both happiness and heartaches.
