Jay Park TV Is Here to Entertain

Jay Park returned to the K-pop sphere in 2010, and since then, he’s been on an upward journey, releasing albums, continuing to B-boy, and writing for other artists, somewhere in between grabbing a Disk Bonsang at the 26th Golden Disk Awards. Back in July of this year, he added another fun activity to his list: Jay Park TV, a web series uploaded to his YouTube channel. The endeavor has only four episodes to date, but each is at least eight minutes long, featuring random snippets of his life: backstage footage of concerts, appearances, shoots, B-boy battles, and Jay Park just fooling around with his friends, primarily other members of the Art of Movement crew. The footage is edited by a fellow crew member, Hep.

As a casual fan of Jay Park’s music, these episodes are bundles of fun while revealing just how busy Jay Park is between doing music, being part of a crew, and performing. Quite a bit of the footage is of traveling to places, waiting in between activities, or just messing around. The language can be vulgar; but honestly, that’s not unexpected. Thus far, there have also been appearances by KARA‘s back view, Ailee, and Super Junior‘s Kyuhyun, the last of which gives a rather passionate lip-syncing job of “Abandoned” while Jay Park provides the vocals. Friends of Jay Park play a large part in keeping the humor going. Indeed, they’re probably a large part of why the show is entertaining. They all appear to know how to have a good time and aren’t camera shy in the least.

The episodes as a whole are similar to the [Real 2PM/WG/JJ] series JYP Entertainment does for its main idols, but with considerably less care for image. There’s no reason to be careful as the public label Jay Park carries is vastly different from that of any JYPE idol. As a result, you can find club scenes, drinking, profanity, and vulgar humor all put together to provide a more realistic view of what some men do in their free time. The main objective is to be entertaining, which explains footage of rock-paper-scissors with the loser forcefully sliding bare skin along a block of ice or the surprise that Batman is secretly a crew member. But the secondary objective is to show what Jay Park actually does, who he keeps company with, and how it’s going. It’s through fulfillment of this secondary objective that we learn about his family losing their house in Seattle, how his crew has lost consecutive battles, but how it’s still going good with strong performances in Australia and multiple CFs at work.

Another positive for the relatively new show is that it’s in English. The majority of spoken language is in English, with Korean subtitles. After reading subtitles for several shows, it’s nice to have something around that doesn’t need that. Any other words on screen helpfully identify the action on stage–where the venue is, who is performing–and sometimes come with associated comments.

A warning about the episodes though: they’re definitely meant for a tolerant audience. Some of the humor may make some uncomfortable, but most of it is funny in the ridiculous of what is happening. The episodes have their slow moments, but they help gear the show towards showing moments in Jay Park’s life, not just the parts that make good comedy. Personally, I enjoyed watching the B-boying,the performances and some of the wacko humor the most, but to each his own.

Above all, having a webisode deal is a good way to relate to both fans and advertise talent. Unlike more of the polished images that idols tend to put on whenever a camera is nearby, this is just pure, good fun filmed by a fellow crew member. I wouldn’t call it a series to wait for, especially since it’s on an erratic schedule, but it’s good to watch if you’re looking to wind down or simply be amused.

(SidusHQ, jaybumaom0425, Hep)