During the rise of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, K-pop stans were hailed as heroes for their unconventional contributions. It was in early June when a swarm of stans clogged Dallas Police Department’s snitch cam - an app designed to report crime or suspicious activity. Instead, the app was flooded with fancam/edited videos of their idols consequently bringing rejoice to the mainstream side of twitterverse. Collaborative schemes like this are usually utilized by stans to frame K-pop as a subject of praise in all social media platforms, giving the rise to what we coin today as ‘stan culture’. Mass donating to charities and vast dissemination of information are all a part of stan culture. The latter being naturally connective, allows for friendships and special bonds to be made. A sense of unity and acceptance is also shared as anyone of any race, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation are inclusively accepted. Stan culture can be a really good place where fans unite to achieve a greater good, but it can also be a toxic catalyst to a scope of serious issues merely unaddressed too often with their growing dominion over the internet. Thus, this eventually aggravates cancel culture, competitive aggression, and the upheaving of idol’s images inflicted by young stans on varying social media platforms.
Cancel culture is, at least hypothetically, the idea that people should be shunned for ideas or actions that others find disagreeable, most specifically on the internet. It usually involves a person being canceled from within their own in-group by their own peers, not canceled by someone from a different group.. In my sporadic visits to stan twitter as a BTS Army stan account, one thing I have come to notice is how bullying is constantly being perpetuated. There are times when fans enjoying content online shift from admiration mode to spewing hate on anyone who spits a single wrong word about their idols. Case in point would be the harassment directed towards rapper CupcakKe. She commented on how one of the bts members were quote on quote, “sexually attractive”. Immediate reaction took place and CupcakKe found her account being spammed with death threats. Now whether malice was intended or not, there was no reason to chase the rapper off of twitter. Threatening employment and background checking a critic to invalidate or discredit them are their main strategies.
An additional subculture would be the competitive prowess to chart the songs, stream their idols’ music videos and flood contests that rely on popular voting polls. Mass-viewing parties are organized for music videos on both international and domestic Korean platforms like Youtube, Spotify, MelOn, Genie, Naver Music and Bugs. This practice is demonstrated by the list of the most viewed online videos in the first 24 hours on YouTube, dominated by Kpop tracks such as Dynamite from BTS (101.1 million) and How You Like That from BlackPink (86.3 million). Streaming in its natural form isn’t toxic, but the subsequent aggressive behaviour that fans display is. When people don’t participate in these activities, they’re deemed as “fake fans” who aren’t deserving of the content that their idols put out. However the blame cannot solely be put on hardcore streaming fans for wanting views, at least initially. Part of the problem in toxic competitive prowess also lies in the mechanics of the award system. Streaming is a criterion for winning the weekly music show awards such as Music Bank, Inkigayo, and Music Core. This further incentivizes fans to strive to achieve their streaming goals and pressure strangers on the internet to do the same.
In a more recent setting, black fans of K-pop group Enhypen are also building opposition against racist members of their own fandom after a member, Heeseung, allegedly sang the N-word in a video. The main problem arising here is the transparent anti black sentiment of asian fans who desire to brush this incident under the carpet because the N-slur has been deduced to be “just a word”. In addition to this are multiple photos of lynchings and vile lashings aimed at black Engenes. It was also reported that a black Enhypen stan allegedly took their own life due to online abuse from fellow fans of the fandom (Greene, 2021).
*Trigger Warning: racism, suicide*
With the black community suffering from anti-blackness are the online lashings that Heeseung faces. Majority of their fans have swarmed like bees once again to protect the member instead of the black community who has been clearly offended.
*Trigger Warning: racism, hateful language*
This anti-blackness stems from the great fixation on Heeseung’s emotional health rather than the problem of racism at foot. It is situations like this that create a divide amongst fans at the cost of morals. Online bullying of Heeseung shouldn’t be justified; however, this issue cannot be brushed under the rug by Engenes, rather they should respectfully acknowledge what Heeseung has done rather than defend his politically incorrect action.
In truth, K-pop is a fantasy consisting of visually attractive idols who put on amazing on-stage performances and are portrayed as perfect artists in variety shows. K-pop idols undergo years of media training and are expected to behave in a certain way that never allows them to draw from their own realities. It is inevitable to question their artistry as most K-pop songs are sanitised and self-censored. In front of millions of fans, they are trained to dress and act in certain ways that are far from their real life personalities. In return, these high standards and perceived personas make it harder for fans to reconcile with the fact that these idols are, in fact, flawed humans too. When these idols end up saying a politically incorrect statement, their perfect persona will either break and they’ll be cancelled, or fans will gather to defend them with the mentality that they could do no wrong.
Overall, stan culture only allows a system of hatred to be normalised. Even stans holding good intentions do not draw attention to the structural problems of pressing issues. A great portion of stans do not believe that people can undergo rehabilitation and change for the better. Ruining a person’s career, getting them fired or pestering them off social media won’t stop the next vile joke or article. It will not improve the lives of those who are affected or fall victim to whatever conflict caused. Fandoms are so quick on their feet to dispense anyone with hatred that does not speak 100% positively about the object of their obsessions. Oftentimes fandoms subconsciously think that they’re doing these acts out of protection when in fact, irrationality and aggressiveness are only promoted.
In this digital age where newfound knowledge sprouts every second, stans are perceptible to misinformation. There is a lack of discernment, ergo anything that comes to surface is considered true and spreads like wildfire. A great number of online users are minors who possess the need to use their platform for the greater good but end up spreading misinformation instead. There is no doubt that these consumers hone organisational skills and a wide social network that can possibly allow change within platforms, but we must learn to galvanize the good and address the bad of these situations, even in stanning celebrities or our idols. After all, there is no such thing as an absolute good thing, and that itself is required to be understood for morals to detrack the influence of popular yet controversial opinion.
References:
Whyte, W. (2018, January 08). BTS Fans Have Been Sending Death Threats To CupcakKe And It's Not OK. Retrieved August 05, 2020, from https://www.popbuzz.com/music/news/cupcakke-bts-fans-death-threats/
Dahir, I. (2021, July 4). Fans Of K-Pop Group Enhypen Are Speaking Up Against Fandom Racism After A Member Allegedly Sang The N-Word. BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ikrd/k-pop-group-enhypen-fandom-racism.
Greene, P. (2021, July 7). Fans condemn BELIFT's silence over ENHYPEN member Heesung's usage of racial slur and racist abuse from fellow fans. https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/fans-condemn-belift-s-silence-enhypen-member-heesung-s-usage-racial-slur-racist-abuse-fellow-fans.
Kachroo, S. (2021, July 3). Fans show love to Enhypen's Heeseung as idol steps back after racist accusations. https://www.zoomtventertainment.com/korean/article/fans-show-love-to-enhypens-heesueng-as-idol-steps-back-after-racist-accusations/779711.
[blackengenes]. (2021, June 30). hello everyone. we’ve recently been informed that a black engene has possibly committed suicide due to constant bullying and attacks. this took place on tiktok, the user making a last post and deleting their account. please look below. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/Black_Engenes/status/1409906336687661056
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