[Interview] K-pop content creator Ian Lau
This British-Born Cantonese content creator is making his mark on the K-pop space with more than just his dance covers and funny fan interviews.
Images: @theianlau
Ian, 23, first became interested in K-pop back in 2015 after listening to South Korean singer-songwriter RAIN’s “LA SONG”. It wasn’t until 2017, however, that he fully dove into Korean pop music following his discovery of K-pop superstar band BTS’s “Dope”.
While “Dope” kick-started his admiration for BTS, Ian admits that the group’s track “Save Me” stood out to him the most amongst other previously watched ‘jokey’ representations of East Asians in media.
“At the time I was really into that kind of EDM sound,” he says. “The synchronised dance from the music video had me hooked from the minute I saw it. I think because before that moment I had never really seen any Asian representation in music that came across as cool to me, especially since the virality of “Gangnam Style”.
“As a kid I had only ever seen jokey songs and representation, and so I think seeing something like “Save Me” really opened up my eyes that maybe I could do something cool like that too.”
Seven years on from his first encounter with K-pop, Ian began creating his own K-pop based content for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. You may have seen him asking K-pop fans trivia at concerts or to ‘guess the poorly AI-generated idol’ correctly to win a small cash prize.
As well as fan interviews, Ian also regularly posts dance covers of group’s such as Stray Kids and Tomorrow by Together. His creative and engaging content led him to amass a combined following of 300,000 followers across all three of his platforms in just a single year since he first began posting.
This number continues to grow day by day.
Dance covers and a meaningful tattoo
Finding inspiration to dance through BTS’s “Save Me”, Ian admits he never learnt the full dance successfully. Despite this, he persevered with K-pop dancing and turned to husband-and-wife dance duo, Ellen and Brian, to learn how to cover the group’s ‘Love Yourself: Her’ title track “DNA”.
He explains: “That song, I would say, is the first chorus that I had learnt successfully without skipping or making up parts.”
Having loved to dance from the age of eight years old and entering several school talent competitions in which he performed self-taught break dance routines, Ian took a break from dancing for several years. He says: “I didn’t find the time or reason to do it anymore.”
That was, of course, until K-pop came on the scene. Ian explains: “To date my favourite K-pop dance would have to be ENHYPEN’s “Go Big or Go Home”, simply because the choreography is just so high energy and fun to do.
“I’ll also have to add RIIZE’s “Siren” to my list of favourite choreographies,” he continues, “because it was my first attempt at doing a different style dance that was somewhat more hip-hop in comparison to dances I had learnt previously.”
Loyal viewers of Ian’s content will know the 23 year old designed his own ATEEZ inspired tattoo and admits to having been a fan of the eight-member group for several years now.
Images: @theianlau
When asked which K-pop idol or group he would choose to dance with he told Cherry Chu Magazine: “It would have to be ATEEZ.” He explains the ATEEZ-inspired tattoo features lyrics from their song “The Real” and describes their songs and choreographies as always being ‘fun and impactful’.
Editing for eaJ
Whilst being inspired by numerous K-pop idols, Ian previously worked as a Video Editor for one such idol. Former Day6 member turned soloist and Twitch Streamer, eaJ took to his stream back in 2023 to announce he required a video editor for his short-form gaming content.
An eager Ian, who self-edits his own video content to this day, jumped at the chance: “My work with eaJ was very sudden,” he explains, “I had been a fan of eaJ for quite some time and even watched his videos back when he was on YouTube.
“I had even created my own animated music video for one of his solo songs as part of my final university project. However, I had never really watched his streams. Watching live streams was just something that I didn’t really enjoy but that day I figured I’d go onto his stream.
“About half an hour in he mentioned something about needing a TikTok Video editor, and the moment I heard that I leapt into action. I had to make a Twitter account so that I could tweet an edit that I had just made of his gameplay.
“A few hours later he reached out and I became his editor from that point on. I edited for him for about 4 months I believe before he decided to take a break on the videos.”
Despite no longer working for the Argentine-American musician and singer, Ian explains that they still occasionally keep in touch.
NEVERMIND ARCHIVE
Adapting to the ever-growing K-pop dance market seems to come easy to Ian who is currently in the works of starting his own streetwear and dance clothing brand.
He explains: “The brand's name is NEVERMIND ARCHIVE. The name actually stems from BTS’s song “NEVER MIND.” Released 8 years ago, it’s always been one of my favourite songs and it really resonates with me.”
Established in January, 2024, NEVERMIND ARCHIVE is a Premium Streetwear Label based in the UK. The brand consistently focuses on producing designs to develop their concept of “Effortless Streetwear”, and as an Asian-founded company, draws inspiration from East Asia’s infamous style of streetwear.
NEVERMIND ARCHIVE also strives to create and build a community of dancers worldwide connected through their designs. Who knows, in a few years we may even see big-name idols repping this brand.
While K-pop is often criticised for being too fast-paced and overly ‘manufactured’, Ian prefers quality over quantity. He explains that in the beginning of his content creation career he “was trying to edit and churn out videos at a ridiculous pace.”
“Because of that I was making mistakes in editing, spelling, and so on. Recently, I’ve realigned myself and started changing the way I create content. I'm not just reuploading the same piece to each social channel, I’m adapting videos depending on the platform they’re going on.”
He urges other start-up content creators to recognise that there’ll always be a fear of falling off and losing relevance on social media platforms. However, he tells them: “In the end, as long as you’re creating content you like, who cares?”
Follow @theianlau on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
Follow NEVERMIND ARCHIVE on Instagram and keep your eyes peeled for their launch, coming soon.
