Personas

When interviewing K-Pop fans, my main goal was to learn about their differing levels of identity congruence with K-Pop. I wanted to understand the human side of what makes them tick in order to learn how they see themselves within their fandoms. The stereotypes that cast a negative and prejudiced light on K-Pop fans largely stem from exaggerated and extreme ends of the K-Pop diaspora. As with any network, people on the fringe of the network don’t always accurately represent the majority of the community. You can find extremists in sports fan bases and political parties too. There are many different types of people that make up a fandom and the term ‘K-Pop fan’ felt too generalized for me to truly understand what it meant to be a part of a fandom.

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Thus, I created 5 personas (see below) to represent the different types of fans that exist in K-Pop. The personas are listed in order of congruence level, from most to least. Though it’s possible that a K-Pop fan falls under only one of these personas, it is common that they identify across multiple. From my ethnographic research, I’ve come to learn that many fans have overlapping motivations, practices, or beliefs regarding their fanship. It's also common that they identify with different personas depending on the fandom.

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Personally, I'm a ReveLuv (Red Velvet's fandom) that identifies under the "My Friend" Fan persona as well as the Fulfillment Fan persona! Though I mainly practice my fanship through content consumption in my free time, I've grown quite the affinity towards the groups members!