Kpop, a Pandora box of the music industry, has never failed to surprise and annoy people
with a bunch of weird stuff.
While it is such things that ironically help idols garner lots of love, recognition and
money in a short span of time, some, including the idols themselves, have recently realized
how annoying these habits of Kpop stans are.
Idols are objectified and labeled as the nation’s lovers, thus not allowed to have feelings
and get into any romantic relationships
As LE SSERAFIM’s Huh Yujin once said one of her biggest ambitions was to change the
idol industry and most recently, Jackson Wang also said that he had had enough of the culture
where fans were possessing and obsessing with Kpop celebrities, the problem of idols being
labeled as the nation’s lover and framed to acting in certain ways to live up to the
title is extremely dire.
While the Kpop industry is originally created to bring good music to the world and in there,
idols are the means to deliver those pretty pieces of art, everything has been twisted
to the point that such a nature is completely changed.
Now, when talking of idols, most Kpop stans immediately connect them with a type of nation’s
lover, a type of object for fans to romanticize their boring life, and a material for them
to put into fantasies where they and the idols would have a perfect romantic relationship.
While this sounds sickening and cringy, it’s actually so normalized in Kpop that many just
treat it like a norm that idols must obey.
This practice even impacts the way the industry runs and how the media revolves around it,
leading to the fact that many outlets treat idols’ dating as the hottest topic in town.
In fact, dating news of idols often receives so much attention that it is rumored such
topics are frequently used to cover up more consequential scandals related to economy
and politics in South Korea.
With just one search away, you can already see piles of evidence leading up to this assumption,
for example the way Heechul and Momo’s dating news was released at the exact same time as
the incident of President Moon Jae In in 2019 and how the relationship between GD and Jennie,
who were said to have already been dating for a while, was suddenly exposed at the time
when the national bullying scandals that involved all big names of Kpop in 2021 blew up.
While things might be coincidental and not causative, you can still see how the norm
of fans labeling and objectifying idols to their fanciful lovers has impacted the way
many industries function and make money.
While the benefits are undeniable because at the end of the day, such an annoying habit
of Kpop fans still helps many people put bread on the table, it ironically makes idols, aka
the protagonists of everything, suffer a lot.
If a celebrity wants to amount to great successes that can compensate for their blood, sweat,
and tears throughout their trainee years, they mustn't get into any kind of romantic
relationship and should refrain from interacting much with idols of the opposite gender.
Basically, they must live like a soulless robot whose first and foremost mission in
life is to keep fans entertained though it might be at their mental wellness’s expense.
So, what happens if people go against these possessive thoughts of people to chase the
love of their life?
Well, obviously, they would be mercilessly bashed, drastically boycotted and sometimes,
constantly bombarded with death threats just for having feelings like a normal person.
For example, when Dispatch released news about Jennie and Kai’s relationship, Jennie was
immediately stoned, called out for focusing too much on dating rather than making music
and even receiving death threats.
Or later when Jennie was reported to be seeing V, many also came to her Instagram to drop
vomiting and sh*t emojis and accuse her of seducing V with an ulterior motive and as
more pictures of their relationship were leaked, she even received death threats, which again
all because she loved a man.
Or in the case of EXO’s Chen, he was boycotted by his own fans right off the bat after learning
about his marriage.
Despite the attempt to re-enter the music industry, Chen failed to make it to the top
100 of most charts, couldn’t even get into MelOn, the biggest streaming platform in South
Korea, and within one hour, he only got 871 likes on this site.
Compared to the era when his relationship wasn’t exposed, Chen’s peak reputation
once helped him have up to 900.000 in a short span of time.
Besides having to keep their natural emotions contained, idols also have to put up with
another aftermath of fans’ obsession with labeling and objectifying them as lovers:
witnessing others use them as materials in sickening romantic fanfics yet can do nothing
about it.
Of course there are many types of fanfics but until now, whenever talking about fanfics,
most will immediately relate the term to RPF, or Real Person Fiction, which involves sensual
activities between idols with their members or idols with fans.
While this culture has been here to stay since Kpop gen1, Kpop stars have still felt resentment
and second-embarrassment when reading such delusional stories.
For example, back in the day, SECHSKIES’s leader Eun Ji-won once outright expressed
his irritation, saying after reading fanfics about him and other members, he was so ashamed
and discomfited that he couldn't see into the eyes of the other members.
Even BTS’ V, who is supposed to be super-duper cautious in every word because of the massive
influence he has on people, still decided to voice his unhappy opinions about fanfics,
saying people should have come out of their imagination as it wasn’t good to have such
a delusion as to seeing BTS’ members romantically close to one another.
Victimizing idols while the idols are actually living the most flamboyant life
Before talking about this, can you answer the question of why many young people give
up on lots of things and agree to spend most of their youth in exhaustive practice rooms
to become idols?
Well, needless to think, things obviously boil down to how people can literally flip
their life to a new page, leading the flashiest life and always being showered in money and
attention when managing to become one of the top names of Kpop.
In fact, even B-level idols nowadays can already make a decent amount of money thanks to the
chances to increase coverage on various newly born social platforms but somehow, regardless
of all these things, many Kpop fans have still frequently victimized their idols, saying
they were being tortured by their management agencies in one way or another, and asking
the companies to stop mistreating them.
The ridiculous trend where fans kept accusing entertainment corporations of abusing their
artists went so out of hand that there was a period in Kpop, mainly in the 2020-2022
phase, one of the most talked-about topics had the keyword “mistreatment.”
Ironically, in most cases, while fans were screaming at top of their lungs to ask for
better treatment for their idols, the idols were enjoying themselves at the most flamboyant
parties, having money flown into their bank account every minute, always getting hands
on the trendiest and fanciest designer duds and probably even having a better work-life-balance
than most fans.
Needless to look for any far-off examples, BLACKPINK remains the epitome of this ridiculous
discussion and even until now when the members have just returned to the race after two years
resting, fans still found holes to accuse YG Entertainment of mistreating the girls.
When BLACKPINK had just debuted and had only one comeback every year, it was understandable
for BLINKs to complain that YG Entertainment was holding back the girls regarding their
developing career as all the members proved themselves extremely talented factors of the
Kpop industry.
However, as time passed and it later turned out that YG Entertainment limited the number
of BLACKPINK’s comeback yearly to keep them relevant longer than their peers, which is
easily through the fact that individual brand values of all members were still on the top,
on the same par with the most famous gen4 idols, BLINKs somehow still saw flaws in the
way YG Entertainment managed BLACKPINK and accused them of mistreating the girls.
For example, after BLACKPINK finished their first tour, admitted themselves to be completely
drained and wanted nothing but a long break,BLINKs still stoned YG Entertainment for not investing
in the girls’ career.
Ironically, even after seeing the members, especially Jennie and Rosé, flying to the
most flamboyant parties in Hollywood, visiting various countries and only occasionally attending
fashion events to keep the heat for their reputation, many BLINKs still acted like BLACKPINK
were suffering and they only dragged themselves to those entertaining places because YG Entertainment
refused to give them jobs.
Turn every idol's statement into cultural appropriation accusations
As Kpop’s reputation rapidly branches out to every single corner of the world, which
is obviously synonymous with idols having higher chances of making more money thanks
to the wider exposure, this also ironically puts them under way stricter and more confusing
public scrutiny because one action may be appropriate for one culture but extremely
offensive in others.
The thing is, while such a struggle for idols of the new generations is apparent and usually,
idols, most of whom have spent years in the practice rooms doing the same arduous things
with a single hope of living a better life down the road, also try their best to keep
a squeaky clean, many Kpop stans still try to find faults in everything the idols say
to accuse them of offending and disrespecting certain cultures.
Needless to travel too far to the past, most recently, the case of NewJeans’ Danielle
has already depicted perfectly every ridiculous criteria the public imposes on idols when
it comes to their statements though the messages obviously stem from good wills.
Things all started when Danielle congratulated her Asian fans on having a happy Lunar New
Year but instead of writing Lunar, she used Chinese New Year instead.
Even now, I myself can’t deny writing “Chinese New Year” is a bit too narrow-minded of
Danielle since this is the time not only China but many Asian countries also mark a new beginning.
Basically, as a girl who has already harbored the dream of becoming an idol for years and
eventually managed to debut under a relatively influential agency like ADOR, Danielle should
have prepared herself better with historical knowledge since idols are literally perfect
living goddesses and she should live up to this image.
However, seeing people calling her a brainless idol and mercilessly bashed her for weeks,
and in some Asian countries like Vietnam, netizens even racistically called her a “nihao
girl” to make fun of her wishing people a happy lunar new year, is still unacceptable
for me because of various reasons.
First, everything she did stem from mere goodwill and had netizens looked deep into her wishes,
they should have seen that Danielle not only put efforts into caring and sharing happiness
with fans but also indirectly promoted the Asian tradition to Western fans.
Second, as a girl born and raised in the West and just came to South Korea a few years ago,
people couldn’t expect her to know every little thing about Asian cultures and the
extremely thin boundaries between offensive and non-offensive things in different Asian
countries that many natives aren’t even aware of.
So, why do you think people still let these annoying things happen eventhough the nuisances
clearly outweigh the perks?