Remember back when MBC festival was held in June? Do you remember the day before the concert when fans followed EXO-K around Oxford Street and got bashed for it? After that festival, they got labeled as crazy fans who don’t know how to keep their distance.
You must be joking.
Firstly, It’s not just UK fans who act that way. Only some people reacted that way and of course, people tend to want to find the negative things about a situation or a person because its more interesting. Every country has the same kind of fans who have the same behaviour. Do you really think its easy to stay calm seeing an idol who lives miles away for one minute and act responsible? No. No-one can be so calm that they wouldn’t stutter at least once to their favourite idols (well, there have been a few people who I’ve come across have).
Not even I was when I saw Rain.
Picture has been blurred for obvious reasons
In fact even K-Pop fans in this country seem to dislike being in a fan in the UK. When my friend showed me the pictures of the Seoul Bakery writings in the wall, I was fuming because I know three of those people’s usernames and I’m guessing the people who wrote this don’t know who they are and are just judging them by how they were at the time. Sure when an idol comes here, we all want to see them as much as possible especially since most of us do not have the money or time to go to the concert and airport (Of course you shouldn’t go to extreme and following an idol everywhere but some people have got to remember its not the same people).
But wait! Remember what I posted in Obsession around idols…? That fancam of those girls on the same hotel floor as Wooyoung in LA goes to show there are fans who just as worse in other countires. Or from what I read in an article, a group of American A+s got into the lift with MBLAQ and harassed the boys so much that they had to get off a few floors before their actual stop to lose the crazy fans.
“There will always be a hierachy system. People think their better than everyone else just because their ‘known’ its like school all over again with stupid cliques. And you always get the bitchy mean fans.”
Alisha
We’re all fans at the end of the day trying to get a picture or fancams of our favourite idols to remember the moment but it’s not about boasting how many times you’ve seen your oppa or unni.
Some people may think this will be contradicting with some of the previous things I’ve written but it’s never about the K-Pop fandom but only a select individuals that I notice act like this. Plus I feel pissed off that because of one incident, the fans of this country were branded at the time as some of the worst K-Pop fans ever. I’m not speaking up for just some of the people that I knew who were present but also the people who were acting responsibly.
Conclusion? Don’t bash other fans when every Idol fan has their crazy moment. I really hope we don’t get the same treatment during Big Bang’s upcoming tour. Especially since the majority of people are coming from other parts of Europe and Asia for the concert.
Awesome post! I’ve noticed how intense some fans can be, especially here in the states. We call them stans; the ones that bully anyone in disagreement, or just act like they own the stars. Their freaky behavior continues because no one bothers with them. So I see where you’re coming from. People should understand that not all fans are that crazy, and of course, that they hardly get to see these entertainers in the flesh.
There is nothing wrong with liking idols based on their looks–as long as you don’t judge them based solely on their looks. The issues lies within the role of looks in K-pop and how it, as a system, reinforces beauty standards. I think that’s the inherent problem with all entertainment industries, in all countries, that despite how much we complain about how the entertainment industry propagates beauty standards, we still support it by buying into it. Are physical appearances in K-pop really that important to us fans? Just ask yourself this: would K-pop be as popular as it is without all the aesthetics? Would you still love it without all the pretty faces?
I think every sub-culture has its fans and antis, though I was surprised that UK has this attitude to K-Pop idols, I hadn’t noticed it as much. It’s important not to obsess too much about idols and definitely not to try and harass them! They’re performers, musicians, actors, but at the end of the day they’re people trying to make a living, and doing their best to appear perfect, as ideal as a person can be (Koreans are obsessed about being perfect, aren’t they?), and fans need to respect and value that, not demand even more exposure than they’re already giving to us.
I hope this view of UK fans will change, would be lovely to see idols here again soon!
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Ah dude man i only just saw this post when i was searching something for SB on google… lol ahhh when someone wrote my name on the wall. Nice blog anyways! ^^
Thanks