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| K-pop boy band EXO boasts a big fandom. Courtesy of SM Entertainment |
By Dong Sun-hwa
Kim, 23, is an ardent fan of K-pop boy band EXO. When EXO played a three-day concert in Seoul last year, she stayed at a hotel near the concert hall for three days to watch all the gigs. Once, she waited for more than 15 hours, only to see the K-pop act on the red carpet for a few minutes.
But all of Kim's fan activities are secret ― hardly anyone around her knows her love for EXO.
"I began 'fan-girling' at 16," Kim told The Korea Times. "Initially, I didn't hide that I was a K-pop fan and used to upload numerous photos of my favored singers on my social media accounts. But one day, my mother said, anxiously: 'You are old enough ― shouldn't you be dating or hanging out with your friends instead of chasing after the singers?'"
Many of her friends seemed to share comparable perspectives with her mother. When talking about K-pop, none of them directly said that the enthusiastic followers were "odd and pathetic," but Kim still could read their thoughts through tone and facial expression.
"After realizing how negatively people view K-pop fans ― especially those who are grown-ups ― I decided to keep my liking a secret to avoid getting hurt," she said.
Dozens of international fans revealed they were also reluctant to openly support the genre. One online user wrote in 2017 on Quora, an American question-and-answer website, that she could not rant about K-pop freely because some of her friends were picked on for liking it.
Another commented: "I rather stay silent so I won't hear other people saying nasty things about K-pop. I get criticized a lot, about being a K-pop fan."
Why do people raise eyebrows at K-pop followers? Experts gave some possible reasons.
"Fans of pop culture are often derided for having low-brow taste," CedarBough Saeji, a visiting assistant professor of Korean Culture at Indiana University in the U.S., said in a recent email interview with The Korea Times. "The most destructive narrative is the one that dismisses all K-pop fans as immature little girls. I hate to see age and gender wielded like a weapon against K-pop fans."
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| Some K-pop followers invest considerable time and effort in fan activities. Yonhap |
In Korea, there is even a derogatory term referring to K-pop fans, "Bbasooni," meaning "a fan girl who blindly chases after an older male singer." The term was coined in the 1990s when male acts like rock band Seo Taiji and Boys rose to stardom here and mesmerized legions of female followers who invested considerable time and effort in fan activities.
Unlike the majority, some have crossed the line and turned into "sasaengs," who follow the singers around the clock, invade their privacy and cause inconvenience to others.
In one case, in 2019, four fans of K-pop boy band Wanna One forced hundreds of passengers on a Seoul-bound flight at the Hong Kong International Airport to disembark shortly before take-off and go through another round of security checks. They booked seats to get a closer look at the members on the plane and after seeing the stars, asked for a refund and attempted to get off the plane.
Critic Jung Yeon-kyung says there have been other cases of "excessive behaviors" like this.
"When a singer sparks controversy, some fans blindly defend their star out of affection," she said. "For non-fans, this is hard to grasp."
But the critics say people should refrain from making a hasty generalization that all K-pop followers are "misbehaving." Seattle-based music critic Kim Young-dae added that the term Bbasooni is misogynic in essence.
"When a man devotes his money to a car or other pricey items, he is usually free of criticisms," Kim said. "But when it comes to female K-pop fans, many people think they are splashing out on good-looking stars."
In fact, the episodes of obsessive fans are often more highlighted than those of other followers, who have joined forces for a good cause.
"K-pop fans have done a lot of good things," Professor Saeji said. "Disparate groups of people have learned to harness online tools to achieve goals that bring their favorite artists to an ever bigger audience.
"They've also donated to causes and spent a significant amount of time learning about a new country, culture and language. As the world learns about this side of fandom, I think it really improves the image of fans."
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| K-pop juggernaut BTS. Courtesy of Big Hit Entertainment |
K-pop behemoth BTS's global fandom ― ARMY ― for instance, donated 1.2 billion won ($1 million) in June to support the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and battle racial inequality. Boy band EXO's fandom ― EXO-L ― contributed more than 12 million won ($10,000) in March to help combat COVID-19.
"It is crucial for some obsessive K-pop followers to develop more rational and critical attitudes, but the public should also be able to respect the fans' taste," critic Kim said.
Critic Park Soo-jin told The Korea Times: "K-pop fans do not have to strive to change the public's perception of them. They just have to make sure they stick to morals when enjoying their fan activities. It is the public who should realize the positive influence of the fandoms and try to cast away a prejudice."
