Q&A with dot1q: The Mysterious One

As
member #2, dot1q has been known by some as the unofficial “dad” of the
forums. Before the 2005 crash, he even had a fan club in the clan forum. As an admin, he takes care of many of the technical matters
at Soompi. Now living in New York, he is married and has a wonderful baby daughter.

How long have you been a member of Soompi and how did you find it?

I
started visiting Soompi from nearly the beginning. If you remember the
green Soompi Town sign, then you’ve been around a LONG time. I think it
was around 2001-2002 when I approached Soomp! and offered to help with
the servers as well as become an admin on the forums. I’ve been a part
of the Soompi staff ever since and boy has it been a wonderful
experience. I had lurked for about 1-2 years before actually
registering. I finally registered so that I can start an argument with
mods/admins which got my account suspended on the 1st day… haha. I
guess fate has brought me where I am today, but I seriously discourage
anyone from doing this as the likelihood is that its NOT going to get
you an admin position on Soompi.com… haha xP. How did I find Soompi?
I “Altavista’d” looking for “kpop music” and it was one of the results
on one of the subsequent pages. What’s “Altavista”? It was a leading
search engine before “Google’s” time.

What do you do for Soompi?

I’m
basically one of the admins on the forums and the one who takes care of
all the technical stuff. In a nutshell, its my responsibility to make
sure that the technology and servers behind Soompi.com are always up
and running properly. I’ve also always kept a tight communication and
relationship with soomp! over the years to make sure the Soompi
community was healthy and ongoing. Obviously, in the last couple of
years, we’ve been amassing a whole team of awesome people to take this
role on and take Soompi to the next level.

How did you come up with your user name?

If
you don’t know me already, I’m a “techy” kind of guy. All my user names
were “tech” oriented, including my current one. However, my original
user name (which I kept for 2-3 years) was actually my real full name
but I changed it because I was starting to get stalkers. 🙂

Who got you into K-pop?

My
cousins were blasting “Seo Taiji / Nan A Ra Yo” and intriguingly, it
was quite fun to listen to. From that point on, K-pop just became my
mainstream choice of music. Till this day, I follow and listen to
mostly K-pop.

soomp! says you have the “largest kpop music collection known to mankind”.  What are your comments on this?

I
don’t know if its the largest known to mankind.. haha… but it’s quite
sizable. I’ve met plenty of people with large music collections (100k+)
but I seldom meet someone with more “K-pop” than I do. I probably
listen to less than 1/10th of a percent of my collection but I guess
its sort of become an addiction collecting. I still collect till this
day and I don’t think I will ever stop.

If you had to listen to one K-pop song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I’m
a guy and I am by no means a fan of any kind of boy band group (past or
present). But for whatever cosmic reason, I can always listen to “HOT –
Candy”. It’s officially my favorite K-pop song of all time. I can build
a playlist of recent top songs and I’ll just throw Candy in the mix
just because I never grow tired of it.

As member #2, how do you feel as the unofficial “dad” of the site? (some members consider you that ^^ )

I
think it’s sort of cool that people on the community think of me that
way. I think its both flattering and quite amusing the conversation
that goes on in that topic. Soompi members can be very funny at times
and this is one of those things I’ll always remember. Maybe they’ll
retire the number and I can always keep it even if things blow up again
(like it did in the great crash of ’05).

What Asian cultural tradition would you like to pass on to future generations?

I’m
pretty open-minded in that I would like to pass on to them some core
foundations, but I expect ultimately there would be some kind of fusion
and/or change. If I had to make a blanket statement, I would just hope
for that our future generations at least have an appreciation for where
they came from and how history evolved to bring them to where they are.
I couldn’t ask for more.

Favorite Activity or Hobby

I’m
a technology oriented person, but I don’t think I’m a “nerd” or
“geek”… haha. Actually, in the past couple of years, I think this
stereotype is slowly starting to fade out. Being computer savvy even
seems to impress the girls today~! But anyway, I just love technology
and always have had a inherent interest in things like gadgets and
computers. My other passionate hobbies include photography and reading.

If you go to karaoke, what song do you have to sing?

I
don’t think I have any particular song(s) that I have to sing. I
generally tend to try to sing the newer stuff for the sake of not
hearing “he always sings the same old songs.” I guess some people enjoy
Karaoke primarily for singing, but for me its always been a good place
to get together and have fun with friends. 🙂

If you could invent anything , what would it be?

Something
that can make people tick 24/7. I think sleep is such a waste of time
especially given the relative short amount of time we have to live our
lives. Even physically resting with an active conscience would be
better so at least you can think about things.