제 3 호 To Be a True K-pop Idol Fan, Should I Prove the Cost?
Kicker: OPINION(CULTURE)
To Be a True K-pop Idol Fan, Should I Prove the Cost?
Excessive Spending Culture of K-pop Fandom
by Min-gyeong Lee, Editor
lee.mkpeach@gmail.com
▲ One of the major South Korean music awards ceremony presented annually by entertainment company CJ E&M
The K-Pop idol industry nowadays has the most powerful influence abroad among Korean culture, which is an important way for foreigners to be interested in Korea. The national interest in the K-POP industry has increased, especially since BTS won the first place on the Billboard Chart and many books about how their success could be possible have flooded the market. About the reasons why K-POP idols, such as BTS, produce excellent results, some “self-proclaimed” experts cited elements such as bright steady efforts of artists or unique performance that emphasizes both dance and singing; however, hardcore K-pop fans sneer at those analyses. In fact, the factor that the masses do not know or consider serious is the factor of their success: that is, the sacrificial “support culture” of fandom.
▷"Support culture" of Kpop fandom
The idol fan base is much more enthusiastic and sacrificing than the culture of other fan bases, and the entertainment agencies encourage it to be so. When a new album is released, K-POP fans use multiple devices to stream the album throughout the promotion period so that it can be raised to the top of the music chart and in order to increase the chance of winning a fan signing event; it is common to purchase from dozens to hundreds of the same albums. The fans often collect money for each member’s birthday, other specific anniversaries, or the days when idols can interact with their fans and present “support” items including from high-quality lunch boxes to various luxury brands. Fans may raise and pay for expensive advertising costs on subway walls for the purpose of publicity and celebrations on birthdays and anniversaries of their idol's debut. This is also a fact that is not well known. If the fan base is very small, the most sacrificing and enthusiastic fan, also known as “Homma”, is a home-master. This is a person who shares photos on the Internet by taking, retouching, editing photos and videos carefully, following the activities of entertainers, and sometimes even make loans to support costs alone. With the great success of the idol audition program "Produce 101" series provided by a music broadcasting station, Mnet, the kpop fans' active and voluntary promoting and support culture is getting deepened every day. It became known and controversial that fandoms of trainees who unfortunately haven't won the audition program recently raised about 100 million won for debut support money and sent it to their office. Even if someone point out the flaw of this phenomenon gently, those fandoms rather comment aggressively in protest against it, like “‘ggondaes’* are blaming for using my own money without permission”.
▲ Released Kpop Albums
▷Why is this excessive spending culture for Kpop idols happening?
The Kpop industry has formed a loyal and armed fan base rather than using great performances and splendid music videos. Instead, it has fostered the fan base's enthusiastic attitude by promoting a state of mind of “pseudo - dating relationship”. They strengthen and maintain special and differentiated relationships from other relationships of "fandoms - subjects" (political figures' fan base, anime fandoms, game fans, etc.) through specific and various group concepts - for example, hot, innocent, cute, dreamlike, dashing, etc. -, autograph signing events for fans and online broadcast contents. Of course, the performance on stage includes those elements of “pseudo - dating relationship”, that is, the direction and production which stimulate the fantasy of lovers.
We need to worry about nowadays excessive consumption culture for the Kpop idol industry. The K-Pop idol consumption culture still yet has a strong influence among young people, especially teenagers. These industries make youth and adolescents spend money and time on people who are virtually unrelated to them when they should invest in themselves for the future. As a result, this kind of culture has been based on the interests of the whole country to strengthen the influence of Korean culture overseas. However, it is not right to leave the matter unsettled. If someone indirectly or directly overcharges you, it is not really by their will.
*ggondae: the Korean term for a narrow-minded old human
Sources:
https://www.kunews.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=30376
http://www.ktv.go.kr/program/ranking/view?content_id=545914
https://thepin.ch/think/mp43yr/idol-signature
https://www.nocutnews.co.kr/news/5131126
https://aminoapps.com/c/k-pop/page/blog/most-wanted-kpop-album-2016-2017/LmI8_uwD6QRmdeRXp413ER37gRpRan
