Why K-pop

K-Pop fans aren't "weird"...

They're real people, real humans that we can learn from.

 

Thanks to K-Pop’s reliance on digital media, the growth of AAPI activism (i.e. #StopAsianHate), and the increasing influence of Korean media (think Parasite, Squid Games, or Singles Inferno), Western media has just begun to give K-Pop the spotlight they deserve. BLACKPINK recently headlining Coachella (the first Korean act to do so) is a great example. However, even with this growing presence, there is still a closeted nature to K-Pop in the West. Many people are still hesitant to admit that they listen to K-Pop, like a certain group, or are interested in the music genre as a whole.

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Until 2019, I was also hesitant. I was hesitant about telling my friends I listened to K-Pop and was hesitant to show them my favorite Korean song. I was hesitant because I remember when the weird, silly dance for Gangnam Style was all that people saw of Korea, and I grew up thinking that’s all that other people would remember too.

 

Since then, I’ve realized that these hesitancies often stem from learned (or internalized) microaggressions and implicit biases of Asian stereotypes. The model minority stereotype classifies Asians as anti-social and non-vocal nerds, while the perpetual foreigner stereotype paints Asian culture as exotic or undesirable, feeding into the fetishization of Asian women and the emasculation of Asian men. K-Pop, too, is met with these microaggressions and implicit biases. I still hear people refer to male K-Pop idols as being "gay" or "too feminine". I am still met with awkwardness after playing Korean music because it might “sound weird”. I continue to see tweets of people criticizing K-Pop fans as “unhinged,” “obsessive,” and “need to stay in Korea”.

 

For my project, I wanted to focus on K-Pop fandoms in particular because I know I can play a part in breaking down these racist, fetishizing, and emasculating microaggressions and implicit biases directed toward K-Pop and their fans. I'm tired of Asian Americans growing up, shying away from sharing their interests because of outdated and incorrect stereotypes, and I have experienced the power of K-Pop fans, firsthand.

 

Through my ethnography, I’ve had meaningful politicized conversations with BTS ARMYs, cultural debates about TikTok with NewJeans’ BUNNIES, and hopeful conversations on our humanity with a Red Velvet ReVeluv. I’ve even experienced a thundering “Antifragile” fan-chant from LE SSERAFIM fans during a culture show at UMICH; twice. Adding that to my extensive research on various academic articles about K-Pop and their fans, I’ve learned that K-Pop fans are just as human as a New England Patriots fan or a Travis Scott fan. We, in the Western world, are simply just unfamiliar with them.

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So why should you care about K-Pop fandoms in particular?

 

Of course, fandoms are not new. Taylor Swift’s Swifties, Beyonce’s Bey Hive, and even The Beatles’ Beatlemania have been around for decades, but K-Pop fandoms aren’t new either. Yes, BTS’ popularity is unprecedented, but K-Pop has been around since the late 1990s. Adapting from the idol-production system of J-Pop, South Korean talent agency, SM, created the current standard for not only creating successful K-Pop groups, but successful K-Pop groups with dedicated followers; groups of followers we now call fandoms.

 

As marketers, fandoms are extremely important to look at because of our shift into membership marks. Over the years, brands have signified different meanings. At first, brands became trademarks which signified a legal mark of ownership. During the 1960’s, brands leveraged value propositions and positioning statements to signify reliance through trust marks. In the 90’s and early 2000’s, love marks took brands beyond transactional value to create affinity-based relationships. Now, brands signify even stronger meaning with identity marks, marks that signify who we are, what we believe, and where we believe to reside in this social world.

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But there’s a new brand mark that’s on the rise: membership marks. Tangential to identity marks, membership marks also signify who we are, but they go one step further to signify our membership of certain networks, networks that are made up of people that we believe are like us. Moving forwards, it’ll be integral for brands and their membership marks to help build up communities, to support them, and to play an active yet non-commercial role in our society.

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When I learned about membership marks, I couldn’t stop thinking about K-Pop, and neither should you. Here’s why.

 

K-Pop fandoms are some of the most powerful networks on this planet with hundreds of millions of fans worldwide. BTS alone has 70.9 million followers on Instagram, 56.5 million followers on TikTok, and 73.2 million subscribers on YouTube. Tweets with #KpopTwitter broke the yearly record with over 7.8 billion tweets in 2021. And though it would be idiotic to ignore these numbers alone, it’s hard to ignore the $10 billion industry when K-Pop fandoms are capable of making real powerful changes in our society. They’ve raised over $1 million for Black Lives Matter in a single day, bought out hundreds of seats to leave empty to humiliate Donald Trump at a Trump rally, and seemingly have the power to cancel any artists that make a fatal mistake. The power of K-Pop fandoms is real and for marketers in the Western world who want to understand the ins and outs of creating a membership mark, there’s definitely something to learn from the K-Pop industry.

 

The next two pages, “Personas” and “Lessons,” are just the beginning of understanding the intricate and intriguing industry of K-Pop. You’ll learn how K-Pop fans are human and valuable. You’ll begin to understand what makes them tick. You’ll begin to grasp why I believe K-Pop fans are unique.