It is clear that fandom spaces offer a clear platform for social interaction and engagement. Just watch any football game or any Taylor Swift concert, and you’ll see people of all ages, backgrounds coming together for something they love. It is one of the beautiful facets of fandom culture; being able to come together with like-minded people who are just as obsessed with something or someone as much as you are. This is no different when it comes to the arena of K-Pop.
K-Pop in recent years has been noted for its heavy fandom presence in many spaces, with fans dominating social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more. But, what’s even more surprising are what these fans are talking about. Expecting to perhaps see pictures of dancing attractive boys or stunning girls grinning into the camera in fancams, more often than not, most times there are critical discussions that are being had right on these forums, in little blurbs that speak volumes. Using hashtags to voice their opinions, K-Pop fans are often seen turning the opposing side against themselves, using their own hashtags to promote their agendas. Drowning out the opposing side with a touch of humor is something that the global K-Pop fan community is known for, especially American K-Pop fans. With the use of political K-Pop memes and fancams out of context, K-pop fans use K-Pop to promote their own personal agendas and messages, revolutionizing what it means to protest by using out-of-context foreign media on a digital space.
Observing specific issues within the K-Pop community gives even greater insight into this phenomenon. As reported by Forbes about the hashtag “#WhiteLivesMatter, “A day after they were partially credited with President Trump’s low rally turnout in Tulsa, Oklahoma, K-pop fans flooded the #WhiteLivesMatter hashtag on Twitter Monday morning, turning it into the platform’s number one trend—and fooling the algorithm into categorizing it as a K-pop trend—as the massive, dedicated fanbase continues to support the anti-racism movement….K-pop fans (sometimes referred to as “stans,” a slang term for a dedicated supporter) posted videos, memes and animated gifs of their favorite Korean pop bands and artists, and many included anti-racism messages with their tweets.” This response continues when it comes to the presidency. After Biden was inaugurated into office and the hashtag, “ImpeachBidenNow” was started, K-Pop stans responded by once again flooding the hashtag, making it their own.
Although these online forums are not necessarily spaces built for deep discussion, fans often use other affordances to voice their opinions, in the form of screenshots, linking articles, or stringing tweets together. The comments section is often filled with humorous commentary and in-depth discussion. What’s more interesting is that despite Korean media coming from a more conservative country like Korea, K-Pop in America is often used to promote liberal ideas. With most fans identifying as liberal, they quickly rally against right ideas with little to no opposition or push back.
As the phenomenon continues, there will be even more hashtags K-Pop fans will flood, and more causes that they will speak up against. But one thing is for sure, we will all be here to witness it, and we will have no choice but to hear them roar.
Journalism 2.0 