Dear Girls’ Generation,
Well — it’s been quite the wild ride, hasn’t it? As I’m sure any fan who’s been around since the beginning will be able to tell you; and I think even those who joined later can still recount the ups and downs, the sheer rollercoaster ride that is the K-Pop industry, the arduous journey full of bumps and bruises you all had to toil through in order to get to where you are today. Which, arguably, is at the very, very top of it all.
We can take a moment to look back, of course. Just briefly, vaguely — because eight years is quite a long time, and quite a lot has happened — really, none of us can say that we were ever exactly in your shoes. But we can still imagine: the pre-debut jitters; the twists in your stomach at the first words of doubt, of dislike, of pure venom; the nightmare of facing a world completely dark to your light. But also: the staunch hope and steadfast belief that things would get better; the smiles and laughs shared between members and SONEs alike; the moment you got on stage and were nearly blinded by the massive pink ocean waving back at you.
But even at the peak, we can still stumble, sometimes. Even people outside of the fandom have at least heard about what happened recently, just last September. It threw everyone off, at the very least: all of those years, all of that laughter, all of those moments when we thought we had actually connected — had they all just been ripped away, left as only mere impressions in the wind? Was Girls’ Generation finished? Had the journey downhill finally begun?