on march 25th, 2018, stray kids made their official debut. on march 25th, 2019, STAY and stray kids celebrated the first anniversary together. on march 25th, 2020, stray kids celebrated another anniversary- their second- even as a budding pandemic spread. on march 25th, 2021, another anniversary, this time their third, was celebrated. on march 25th, 2022, the fourth anniversary of stray kids passed. on march 25th, 2023, we all celebrated the fifth anniversary of the next biggest thing, stray kids. now the date is march 25th, 2024, and it's the sixth anniversary and sixth year of stray kids. stray kids has become one of my favorite groups in a short period of time with their unique sound and charm, so: let's document my STAY in this world ;) i first listened on june 20th, 2023. this was a few weeks after the release of 5-star. keep in mind that i was still a casual listener! the song that first caught my attention was definitely youtiful. such a pretty song and it was all in english, so i could understand it without captions :) slowly i fell down a rabbit hole of stray kids tracks. still, it wasn't until very recently that i think i made the little jump between baby stay and stay! the song that really brought me into stray kids was actually not a stray kids song. it was the cover of 'love poem' (by iu) on kingdom. seungmin, jongho (ateez) and eunkwang (btob). [p.s. this beautiful cover also played a role in my atinyfication, but let's talk about stray kids for now haha] after i heard the cover, i decided stray kids was a group i wanted to get into. i watched two episodes of skz code trying to figure out who was who (in vain, since there was so much chaos i had no clue what was happening). it was time out, episodes 33 and 34 (i think). finally, after a long scroll through the k-profiles, i could recognize seungmin (my love), bangchan, felix, and hyunjin, although there was still much confusion about who was lee know and who was jeongin, as well as getting changbin and han mixed up haha a few skz code episodes later and i could finally tell them apart (thanks to the 3-part lover's race haha) and i started listening to all their songs i'm a bit partial to japanese k-pop songs for some reason, and slump was one of my favorites! i didn't realize han was a rapper, hearing his voice in slump i definitely thought he was a vocalist anyways, it was almost october before i finally knew a lot of their songs (thunderous in particular i memorized the lyrics to, not sure why that one got my attention but it did) and was able to say that i stanned skz and while it's barely been half a year throughout my whole chaotic ride into the world of stayville, it's now six years to the day of their debut :) so to stays everywhere, whether you've stanned for six years or six days, six weeks or six months, whether your bias is bangchan, lee know, changbin, hyunjin, han, felix, seungmin (<3), or i.n, happy stray kids anniversary! i hope you (a beautiful person!) do something beautiful on this beautiful day. - yuli (3/25/2024)
