In the music video for his 2019 single “Loved You Better,” the K-pop idol Holland gazes at himself in the mirror and curls his left hand into the shape of a gun. He stares at it sullenly as he brings it up to his face and places his slender fingers into his mouth. But after his hand bucks up, as if he’d “pulled the trigger,” a spray of glitter and confetti explodes from his head.
Holland then emerges from the darkness with a newfound assuredness, strutting through a fairground now donning a fabulous, sweeping coat, black lipstick, and fiery red hair. “Ignite your wounds, let them burst like sparks/Keep on howling and shouting that you’re different,” he belts in Korean over a triumphant house-pop beat, singing the words to his fans as much as he’s saying them to himself.
“[That scene] wasn’t supposed to represent suicide,” the 24-year-old rising star tells them. through an interpreter, calling from his Seoul apartment one morning in mid-June. “It was a scene that I used to symbolize how the old Holland has died, and how a new Holland was reborn. The main message of ‘Loved You Better’ is to convey the transformation that occurs when you love yourself.”
For Holland, the idea of rebirth is connected to openly embracing himself and coming out in one of the most public spheres possible: K-pop. In 2018, he debuted as what he calls the first openly gay K-pop idol ever, with a single called “Neverland,” a melancholy indie R&B track whose music video features the singer kissing another Korean man. Instead of being met by shame and vitriol, like he was when he was initially outed by a classmate in middle school, he was celebrated by viewers for his unabashed, beautiful expression of queerness.