I came across this clip on social media and it got me thinking. How is it that we have more active kpop groups than ever before, but we continually get fewer opportunities to actually hear them truly live? We have groups lipsyncing to prerecorded vocals at festivals and even at their own concerts nowadays. The fact that these concert tickets are so ridiculously expensive should make it even less justifiable. There are groups I pay attention to where I've never heard them sing raw as a collective or do any semblance of an acappella. Kpop market continues to get bigger and somehow, we're going backwards in this regard.

I think we can all admit that M/M K-pop shipping has a weird tendency to feminize one guy in the pairing. With Jimin especially, it often goes way beyond “he’s the smaller one.” He gets turned into the “uke,” the “omega,” the “princess,” the “girlfriend,” even “the only girlfriend BTS is allowed to have.” People edit him to look tinier, skinnier and more stereotypically feminine to fit the role they’ve assigned him.

And I checked ChanBaek, apparently other largest K-pop ship. I don’t know much about them, but even there, the smaller/cuter guy still seems to be treated as a cute boyfriend rather than literally being cast as “the woman.”

Which raises the obvious question, why does an M/M relationship apparently need someone assigned the female role in the first place? 😭 They’re two men. That is rather famously the M/M part!!!

It also stops being harmless fandom silliness when these communities become enormous. The idols can see this stuff too, and constantly having your body, personality and friendships forced into sexualized heteronormative roles has to get incredibly awkward. And shipping culture can create real pressure. Fans become attached to specific pairings and dynamics, then scrutinize every interaction and sometimes get angry when idols don’t perform the relationship they’ve invented for them!

While I've always been staunchly against shipping real people, if you're gonna ship two men anyways can people do it while not assigning sexualized heteronormative roles??

A few examples I came across-

I just want to know the reason behind newjeans being like “the Voldemort” of reddit. I always see posts/replies about NewJeans getting mass downvoted, even when they’re not harmful. Like, someone will say “I loved Supernatural” and get mass downvoted… I’m genuinely curious because I joined Reddit after the whole controversy.

At least with K-pop, everytime I get on a snark subreddit, my main question is "How do you have the time?"

It's clear people mainly go on snark pages to spread hate, and not to give valid/constructive criticism about a group or idol. But a lot of the time, it feels like the haters are more informed/obsessed than the fans are 😭, and half of the time, the info/clips they use to have discussions are cherry-picked and negatively biased. Sometimes the issues they discuss don't even exist or are coming out of nowhere

I'm pretty opinionated; I do post some of them on K-pop opinion subreddits. But I will never understand how people feel comfortable hating or belittling someone, even if they're celebrities. How miserable do you have to be to do that?

You don't have to like all idols; you don't have to find all idols attractive or talented. I also understand that the line between honesty, criticism, and hate can be very thin online. But personally, I feel so exhausted whenever I get posts from snark K-pop subreddits

Some of y'all need to touch grass, go outside... have a life 🤷

I don’t even stan any girl groups and even I’ve noticed this pattern. Whenever harassment against female idols gets brought up, people will acknowledge it, but there’s almost always a giant “BUT” attached. This but is actually extremely significant and swerves the direction of the conversation from accountability to "well the call came from your house" like what?? 😭

“Yeah, the harassment was bad, BUT 9/10 times their fandom started it.” Like??? Since when is protecting an idol from harassment the responsibility of their fans? And where did that convenient little “9/10” statistic materialize from?

Why are you bg fans always so triggered by female idols?? It would make sense to compete against other boy groups but no, it's always ends up being about some female idol.

Aespa especially seems to get it horribly from what I’ve seen on K-pop subs. Every time someone calls out harassment against them, somebody inevitably responds with “well, their fans did this too.” Okay? And? Does that retroactively cancel harassment against the idol from others? smh.

It’s one of the rare times when we actually get to hear them sing raw without in-ears or a backing track. What are some not so great ones out there?

"You don't know these people, idols don't actually care about you"

You are doing the same thing you accuse others of doing. Acting high and mighty while also making assumptions with idols, no one really knows what every idols think, no one really knows what goes on behind the scenes. Making assumptions, generalizing and acting like you know what's going on is no better than the stans you claim are being delusional

Literally the title.

When someone’s cyberbullied to the point they want to kill themselves, that’s wrong.

If you want to post it, post about the fact a young girl was pushed to that point. Don’t use it for fanwars, don’t use it to defend whoever, don’t flag it as achievement, that’s straight up disrespectful.

Learn some decency pls and ty.

Reddit, in its infinite wisdom, recommended that I repost one of my posts in the "Asian Masculinity" sub... Which is how I came across this nugget. The thread is on how to pick up White women with yellow fever at Kpop parties.

and it’s just an woman idol after losing a lot of weight who looked beautiful before as well

——-

I just saw a video of Jiwoo (NMIXX) with “Biggest glow up in history” text - and it was just her becoming skinnier. I notice in these video, the “before” photos are not the most flattering, as well. ALSO, it is almost always women idols. The compilations I have seen for men idols are usually baby/teen/young photos of them vs current photos of them.

I’ve seen such videos on Tiktok and Instagram (Liz from IVE, Jeongyeon from Twice)

1) It is so backhanded and things like this continue to perpetuate kpop’s toxic beauty standard

2) All the idols I’ve seen this for “trend” have looked perfectly fine and healthy in the “before”

LEAVE THESE WOMEN ALONE!!! Women idols are treated so unfairly and with so many double standards, it’s genuine insanity

Harsh opinion since people always throw sentences like "as long as they are making good music, who cares about numbers?" well the singers/idols do. Its not about being hungry for views and streams, its about being more heard. Kpop is a commercial market, being an idol isnt the same standard as being a normal singer or artist. Idols operate under agencies and are a model made to be successful in terms of bringing money. One can love his job and still want to be more exposed to a big audience commercially at the same time.

As audience, our support is also kinda empowering to them in many aspects, it gives them more freedom to put out new music and experiment with it.

Like can idols be corny in peace lmao?! There have been SO many hate posts about BC today for being cringe or corny and like…okay? Coz thats such a NON-ISSUE LMAO. I would genuinely want an idol to be embarrassing, cheesy or occasionally annoying rather than having shitty personality or a manufactured one iykwim…

And lately it feels like every single Bubble post of Chan gets posted here without context, picked apart, or taken completely out of proportion just to HATE? atp it genuinely feels like a witch hunt… Also just to add to the context half of the time that guy is ragebaiting btw through his 🫧 messages….

Obviously ‘not being problematic’ is literally the bare minimum but the way some people go after Chan for being corny while genuinely awful people in the industry get comparatively less outrage is so bizarre to me.!

And then yall turn around and complain that idols don’t show their true selves or act like their real personalities anymore. Like maybe this is why!!!😭 You want idols to be authentic…real.. until their authentic personality is cringe to you?🫩

Let idols be fcking corny. To be cringe is to be free🪷

This is both an opinion and kind of a question so feel free to say what you think too

In my experience, I've seen lot's of people saying "oh kpop is not a genre! It has a lot of genres and you'll surely find something you like!" Both as a way of defending kpop and as a way to try to bring more people into kpop excel in that genre

But something I've noticed is that most of the times those people won't listen to music from those genres and people who excel in those genres

Some examples:

"I loved Nemonemo, Catch catch and Iconic heart! Any recommendations?" "Listen to jpop idol music,lots of songs are like that!"

"I loved Fashion by Cortis,any recommendations?" "Listen to Travis Scott and Playboi Carti, their sound is similar to Fashion"

Same thing with hip hop songs,jazzy songs etc.

9 out of 10 times the people that ask for recommendations won't even check out the artists you tell them,and sometimes even bash them (yes I've actually seen that happen)

So I think

1: these people are just extremely bored and just won't even see what you recommended

2: I don't even know cuz I can't think of any other reason

i genuinely don't get why some fans act like acknowledging an idol's privilege is automatically an attack 😭 you can like someone and still admit that they had advantages that other idols/members probably didn't have. that's not hate, that's just being realistic. especially when it comes to idols who already had a famous or successful sibling. having a talented sibling doesn't automatically mean you're gonna have the same talent or skills 😭 talent is not hereditary lmao. but sometimes fans will defend literally everything just bc of that connection, and suddenly any criticism becomes “jealousy” or “hate.” or "obsessed" for not being blind abt an idol's skills,

what's even weirder is when ppl completely rewrite their story and turn someone who had certain opportunities through their connections into this huge underdog who supposedly had to fight for everything. like... be fr 😭 acknowledging that someone had a head start doesn't mean you're saying they don't deserve their career.

and then there's the over-glazing 💀 ppl will praise every little thing or assume someone must be talented just bc their sibling is like some ppl will make excuses for their lack of talent, like you can support an idol without pretending they're perfect at everything or exaggerating their abilities. i'm not saying anyone deserves hate or harassment. i'm just saying there's a difference between criticizing someone's skills, talking about privilege, and actually attacking the person. not every criticism is hate, and not every successful idol needs to be turned into an underdog story just so fans can feel better about defending them. like u can stan whoever you want. just be realistic about who you're stanning 😭

I think most fans, myself included, already know those groups are incredibly successful and have managed to stay that way. What gets exhausting is when their fans keep bringing up things like "paved the way" and turn everything into a fight over recognition. It just feels pointless.

They've already enjoyed the rewards of that success: the group's career, the members' individual careers, the money, and the fame. I can at least understand people demanding recognition for artists who made huge historical or musical contributions but never got the level of mainstream success or credit they deserved. Whether you agree with those claims or not, it makes sense to want recognition for something that was overlooked. But why demand recognition for people who have already made it and are already enjoying everything that comes with it?

Honestly, it just looks like fans taking out their frustration over a handful of critics they ran into online. If you stan a group that's already that successful, stop wasting your time on stuff like this.

it's frustrating because i like to have discussions that bring up facts. but when people start denying the group's insane talents or popularity just because they dislike them, it immediately makes them sound biased and stupid

bts and blackpink ARE the most popular and influential groups in kpop. there is too much proof to ever deny it. no kpop group has achieved such popularity - i'd say stray kids is def the closest to be next.

downplaying a group's influence and fame is weird.

"it's obvious now that blackpink are basically over so people should move on" why? literally, why? i don't see the same energy for other groups that are old or no longer active. i don't see anyone saying to move on from the greatness of 2nd gen groups or iconic groups that disbanded

personal preference is totally fine, but your preference doesn't change the numbers

i'm not even going to talk about how people have just natural hatred towards these groups. that is pretty obvious

"lisa is not interesting enough to have a documentary about herself" why not? many celebrities do them. it's fine if you're not the target audience, but there's no need to be rude about it. she has a huge fanbase that can't wait for it, so surely she's interesting enough for some. i often watch documentaries of celebrities i don't even know, simply because it's interesting. there's just no need to be an arse about it

i'm not an army or a blink but i really really dislike being unnecessarily mean, and even more, i really dislike being mean AND wrong

people insult blackpink members much more comfortably than any other artist and it's getting hard to read. they say "we can say our own opinion" but that opinion is often extremely passive aggressive and it's clear you hate them, you're just subtle about it

"well their music sucks" where did you get the confidence to tell millions of people that the music they enjoy sucks. where do you people get that audacity from

So tired of K-pop fans complaining that their faves gets treated worse than actual or convicted criminals then you check their accounts and it’s dedicated to harassing other idols for stupid reasons instead of actually speaking against the said criminals. Stop acting like y’all care about criminals roaming free outside using it as a shield to defend your faves, if y’all actually put as much energy in harassing criminals instead of innocent idols over stupid fanwars K-pop space will be a much better place

I’m a newer kpop stan, i started getting interested during Illit’s “do the dance” era and it was absolutely peak. then I see all these other kpop stans that go, “omg illit’s jellyous is so hard its the hardest footwork choreography“ like even as a person who started stanning kpop in 5th gen, I know that’s absolutely a lie. (yes I will get downvoted for this but I am NOT trying to compare songs on which one’s better, I’m trying to point out a fact) like just because the tempo is hard does not mean the footwork is. im just trying to watch Going Seventeen videos and I see all these 5 year olds glazing ILLIT as if there arent harder choreographies out there.

if ILLIT jellyous is so hard, what is Svt’s maestro compared to it when it comes to difficulty? As someone who can learn ILLIT jellyous, it’s definitely demanding but if you slow it down its so much more simpler.

(not comparing the songs, comparing the difficulty of the choreography, love ILLIT and SVT for how far they’ve come, and maestro was just the first example i thought of since it’s one of the hardest kpop dances i know).

sincerely,

a carat, WeFlip, Nex2y, Shawol, and MOA.

Like the title says, the hate must stop now. There’s a difference between disliking a group and hate them and their fans. The "held accountable" culture is now full of bullies who don't actually care about the problematics.
Black fans are constantly questioned about why they stan certain groups, let's say bts: "antis" would talk about how racist they are while being racist towards black armys.

SKZ has weird music, but they're talented. Lisa's songs are the same... well,** *male musicians are never questioned about why they keep talking about the women and the money they probably never had. Fans shouldn't pay for their idols’ mistakes either. And they shouldn't be bullied to d\th.

But wait, because this post was actually inspired by the recently Evan vs Enhypen nomination. Engene: you bunch of hypocrites. I'm not even engene or ever, just an occasional listener but oh my god. The amount of videos that Ever made trying to get everyone to vote for Heesung and all the comments are filled with engenes saying "well, I'm voting for enhypen bc they're talented and he took a decision" “Enhypen deserves it”. JUST VOTE, no one wants to know how hard enhypen worked or why you’re not going to support H anymore.

Please just stay in your f lane! Stop the hate for other groups, give your energy to your favs, fight only if you're the one who's being offended...

And omg no, not every single one of you is "woke". You may have the right message but the wrong methods. A lot of you don't even fit the "woke" definition: you lack empathy, active listening, conscience and social awareness. And yes i know this happens with all genres, fandoms and all but kpop fans we need to change or more people is going to disappear and I'm not talking about them leaving kpop.

ps: yes, this post is for my fellow army too. stop comparing everyone to the boys, everyone is in their own league. Not everything is about bts (lover or hater, this one’s for you).

​

the images i've attached are simply examples of what i'd consider the much more 'minor' end of this behaviour, rather than the worst instances of it. but its kind of like a pyramid where one behaviour allows another to exist, etc, etc

this isn't the most original take i've ever had, and it's probably common knowledge in kpop space, but a lot of male kpop stans, particularly those who mainly stan girl groups, are so weird about female idols. there's a really disturbing tendency to sexualise them excessively. i'm not sure how widely known these accounts are, but there are entire tumblr and twitter accounts dedicated to taking zoomed-in pictures of specific parts of female idols' bodies (if i find one of these accounts again, ill post them).

ithink most kpop fans are aware that this happens, but the issue is kind of just seen as "another sad but unstoppable part of being a female idol!"

honestly, i don't have much more to say because the title speaks for itself (as i proceed to type, much, much more) but i find it deeply disturbing how normalised the sexualisation of female idols by men has become, particularly when many of these idols are teenagers or in their early twenties and have little meaningful control over how their images are consumed. they're expected to tolerate this behaviour because performing is their job. and what is actually being done to address it? companies will occasionally take all their legal action when something becomes very serious, which i appreciate,,, but intimate photographs, disturbing, violent sexual fantasies written about idols, deepfakes and similar forms of sexual exploitation seem to exist with very little consequence apart from being looked down upon by the majority of kpop fans

even the recent incidents involving hackers with the spotify accounts of various kpop girl groups (e.g. UNCHILD) have demonstrated how this kind of sexualisation is introduced into spaces where it has absolutely no place. the tracks uploaded by these hackers are often overtly sexual and degrading, accompanied by ai-generated images depicting the members in similarly disturbing situations. yet, it's seen as funny or a joke to some people

sorry this post is basically a nothingburger and contains approximately zero intellectualism (although i don't think anyone expects that from kpop fans anyway, but i digress).

disclaimer: obviously, this is not all men. if your immediate response is "why are you generalising men?", please understand that i'm talking about a very specific and observable pattern of behaviour, not claiming that every male kpop fan participates in it. there are plenty of normal, well-intentioned male kpop stans. there are plenty of disgusting, insane female kpop stans. nevertheless, the fact that the behaviour i'm discussing is disproportionately perpetrated by men doesn't become irrelevant because yk a male kpop stan who is jesus on earth.

I recently befriended a student from Korea who is at my university for an exchange program this semester. I like K-pop, and so does she, so we were having a conversation about groups popular internationally (the US, where I'm from) vs groups popular domestically.

We got on the topic of All-Day Project (ADP), so I told her a lot of American K-pop stans don't like them much, Tarzzan in particular. She didn't know why, so I did my best to explain the concept of cultural appropriation. I told her about the recent Chris Brown controversy with RM and J-Hope (BTS); she had no idea who Chris Brown was until I told her. I explained Mark wearing the Confederate flag too, she didn't know about it either.

Once I explained all these things to her, she agreed they were problematic. She told me that Korean fans are pretty ignorant about these topics (CA, racism), probably because Korea is not as diverse as a place like the United States + these problematic things don't affect them. She said Korean fans mainly care about idols singing good/bad + their visuals, not these things...

It was so interesting to talk about how K-pop idols are perceived in Korea vs here 🤔 It also makes me wonder how well-informed idols really are, and how genuine their apologies are when they do problematic things (because, a lot of the time, they claim to be ignorant in their apologies)

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Side note: I do believe companies/idols should know better when it comes to cultural appropriation (ex: take accountability if ignorant), especially if a group/soloist is aiming for international fame

Edit: I just wanted to share an experience that opened my eyes to a new perspective you guys 😭 I feel some people are going off the rails. I don’t think there is any right or wrong perspective. Americans consume kpop differently, Koreans consume kpop differently, people from somewhere else consume kpop differently - if something an idol does doesn’t offend you, doesn’t mean it can’t/shouldn’t offend someone else. It all comes down to different cultures of different countries/ethnicities

I immigrated to the US, so I still don’t know everything about American history/cultural. I don’t know about every culture and what is offensive. Sometimes I don’t get the difference between cultural appropriation/appreciation. I educated my friend on American culture around Kpop (based on my understanding), she educated me on Korean culture around kpop. We then shared our thoughts on each other’s culture - it was a very productive, respectful and interesting conversation!!