Stop Pretending We Are All Nice People: The Dark Side of Being a K-Pop Fan
Recently the western media has become obsessed with the “unified force” that are K-Pop fans—applauding the efforts put in to flood racist hashtags with K-Pop content to drown out any hate, raise money for Black Lives Matter related funds, and even taking down applications used to report on protesters movements by spamming it with fancams to the point it broke. All these actions are commendable and are reasons to celebrate, but let's not simply go around patting ourselves on the back.
*** warning: some language and imagery in the following article may be triggering. Proceed at your own caution.
Before you read any further, know that this is not everyone, that there are nice fans in every fandom just like there are horrible fans. However, it is important to recognize the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with being a part of the K-Pop fandom and to stop pretending these bad things aren’t happening. While these issues are not as visible in day-to-day interactions, they are highly prevalent in online interactions across all major social media platforms.
Not All K-Pop Fans are Allies
Some K-Pop fans have used several different identities to target members within the fandom community and even idols themselves. Racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and ableism are just a handful of the things that can be seen among members of the community. When it comes to racism, the members of the community that deal with it the most are the Black members. Black and POC K-Pop fans are constantly silenced and verbally beaten down by fans when asking for use of their cultures to be acknowledged. Here are some examples of the types of things Black K-Pop fans deal with on a regular basis.
And that is just scratching the surface of one part of one fandom. It occurs in most fandoms. This isn’t the only way it manifests either. This week the maknae of a well-known boy group had come under fire for supposedly having a Black girlfriend, the only evidence of this being the now deleted tweet of one person. This “news” spread like wildfire on Twitter and was met with an overwhelming amount of hatred that drowned out those who were celebrating. The mere idea of someone's favorite member dating a woman of color had people outraged. Even though the rumor was proven to be false, the reactions of the community spoke louder than anything else.
While homophobia isn’t as prevalent, fetishization of LGBT relationships are. Many fans who enjoy fanfiction that pairs their favorite group members together turn around and outwardly demonize members of the community that are LGBT.
Ableism is another massive issue in the community—more specifically how K-Pop fans use mental and physical illness as a way to insult each other and idols. The most recent case being between the fans of two newer boy groups. The argument was over who was the “4th Gen It Boy.” One group of fans decided to call one of the other group’s members dancing “seizures.” Using debilitating illnesses as insults invalidates the members of the K-Pop community that actually deal with these issues and makes them feel as if they are bad people for dealing with these health problems.
Not All K-Pop Fans Know Where The Line Is
There is a line in every situation a person should never cross, things that shouldn’t be said and shouldn’t be done. A lot of fans have no idea when to stop or even when to never begin. This is evident in tons of situations where fans go out of the way to cause fan wars between different fandoms.
Bullying and death threats happen so frequently within the community that new fans think it's an acceptable way to express their displeasure with anything that occurs. Open the mentions of anyone who has a dissenting opinion about anything within the fandom, it is full of people saying awful things and wishing awful things to happen to the original poster.
Doxxing is a major issue on the internet that is prevalent in several communities, not just K-Pop. However, some K-pop fans think it is okay to dox people who don’t align with their own views. While some cases are exposing IP addresses and physical locations, other times it goes so far that it can be life threatening to the victim. Most recently there was the case of a muslim ARMY being doxxed and at the same time being outed to her family due to false accusations brought against her by her own fandom. This put her life in harm's way because some people thought they had “evidence” of her being an anti. It was later discovered that it was all fabricated.
None of This Is Funny
The worst thing of all is when these fans are called out for their behaviors they all say “it’s a joke,” or it's “just K-Pop, it's not that deep.” They are right, it is “just K-Pop,” so why is it they feel the need to threaten people's lives, bully people to the point of self harm, and even expose people's information without their permission? People's well being isn’t something to be played with just because their opinion about your favorite group or song isn’t one you like. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and should feel safe to express this wherever they feel.
How To Protect Yourself
Some K-Pop fans are lucky enough to have a real life K-Pop community to interact with, however the majority of fans find their community online. As with any interactions online, it is important to protect yourself and your information to keep yourself safe.
Practice Basic Internet Safety
The basic things we were all taught before engaging on the internet: be aware of what information you are sharing online as you aren’t sure who is on the other end of the screen, use secure passwords, activate 2 factor authentications on all of your profiles to add an additional layer of security. If doxxing is a major concern, utilize a VPN (virtual private network) to protect your IP address and your location.
Utilize The Tools Provided By The Platforms
Twitter and Tumblr have integrated tools to allow for stricter filtering on your feed. Everyone knows how to follow, unfollow, and block on all of these platforms. Some may not be aware of the more intense tools provided by the platforms themselves.
Twitter on the other hand has a bit more layers of protection to allow for people to have control of their conversations. Not only are they able to mute mentions of certain content, but they can also mute mentions of certain people without muting their account. Learn how to mute content and mentions here. The newer thing that Twitter has added in recent months has been the addition of hiding replies, and even limiting who can reply to certain tweets. For some threads, if you weren’t tagged in the original thread you can’t even participate in the discussion.
Tumblr
Tumblr has a super stringent feed filtering system. It splits into two categories, the first being hashtags the other being content. The hashtag filtering system hides posts on the Tumblr feed that are tagged with the hashtags selected. Content filtering is a bit stricter than the hashtag filter, it will hide posts that contain phrases added to the filter. It is not case sensitive and will hide any mentions of the words even if it is part of a larger word. For example if the word “go” is added to the filter words like “goat,” “gold” “godmother” and “government” will also be filtered. Go here to learn how to use the hashtag filter and go here to learn how to use the content filter.
Step Away From Social Media
When things get to be too much, it is okay to completely step away from social media. Stepping away allows for emotional, mental, and even physical health to reset itself and take a much needed break. Other people project their emotions onto social media accounts for the world to see and forget how their words can affect others. Take some time away to allow yourself that space to rejuvenate and come back if you want to. Remember to focus on real life before online.
Final Thoughts
It was mentioned in the beginning of the article and it will be mentioned again: this behavior isn’t something that all K-Pop fans participate in. There are good people in every fandom who just want to enjoy the music with other fans. The majority of fans are kind and welcoming, the loud minority is what makes the community a toxic place. There is a lot of good that does come out of the K-Pop community; however, none of that matters while these issues are still rife within the community. Like any online community, K-Pop fans have a lot of work to do to become more inclusive and more accepting of all types of people. Change is possible if fans are willing to do the work. Until real change begins to occur within the community, use the tools given by different platforms to protect yourself.