07. Boys From a Different Pack
How Chinese K-Pop Fans Keep Track of Time
Hi there. Welcome to Active Faults.
Last issue was an overview of potential stances and practices Chinese fanquan can take up in the face of nationalism. I argued that Chinese fans of K-Pop are oblivious radicals because they are driven by their love for foreign celebrities to distance themselves from nationalistic discourses.
Today, I want to sketch out the landscape of K-Pop in China. Existing studies use outdated terms like “Hallyu” and tend to pace around second/third-generation groups throughout the years 2005-2013. However, since the Korea-Ban in 2016, K-Pop fanquan developed a new character arc and is seen in a drastically different light.
Get ready for some hard-core fanning.
Input War
This, is how you buy virtually anything related to a K-Pop group in China.
Disclaimer: we’re entering uncharted waters even I’m not 100% certain about. It has taken me not hours but days to (almost) get to the bottom of the incredibly murky, unnecessarily convoluted process of purchasing a K-Pop album in China.
I first set out to go through route no.1 before realizing it was unavailable due to shipping restrictions after the pandemic. I then, like most fans, resort to routes no.2 or 3 where I purchase through the artist’s official supporting fan club in China, which partnered up with multiple retail platforms. They sometimes can partner with up to 10 platforms, all selling the same album with minute differences in “specifications” (配置), i.e. other merch items included in the package.
Acting as the middleman, SFCs would have already negotiated a reasonable retail price with the platforms and opened specific purchase links ahead of the album release at Chinese fans’ convenience. They might have also negotiated with international (and domestic) couriers and/or warehouse storage facilities, to set up shipping arrangements for fans if a platform is not responsible for that. Fans could then individually buy the album through the links or team up with other fellow fans to form a “fleet” (车队), bulk-buy and enjoy lower shipping costs on average.
That leads us to a core concept in K-Pop fanquan: “China Inputs” (中输).
“China Inputs” are the number of sales for a K-Pop commodity that came from China. It is monitored through the aforementioned specific purchase links, which were introduced for this purpose in the first place. This is by far the most important measuring metric for a K-Pop idol or group’s popularity in China, comparable with the GDP for a country’s wealth.
And like the GDP, “China Inputs” is a crucial piece of statistics for Chinese K-Pop fans abroad and an integral part of their fan identity. The whopping number would be repeatedly evoked on Twitter or Korean social networking sites like Naver to flaunt Chinese fans’ purchasing power. It’s quoted as if they are competing with other international fans or local Korean fans in a war of authenticity and loyalty: I am a realer fan than you, because I’ve chipped in a heck ton of money. When they are unsatisfied with the artist or their management company, it’s strategically weaponised to make a statement: my words have to be taken seriously because of our input.
All of this is coupled with simmering anti-Korean sentiments after 2016 and ever-increasing hostility towards the rest of the world in the past decade. The unsurprising result: an awkward, painful, teeth-grinding and ambivalent dynamic between Chinese K-Pop fans, other non-Chinese fans and Korean celebrities.
Don’t Burst The Bubble
That obsession with gaining leverage is also detectable outside of the financial context.
K-Pop idols are known for their intimate relationships with their fans. By signing up to become a K-Pop fan, you’re essentially surrendering large portions of your time and attention to the maintenance of that elusive intimacy. Offline and online fansigns have to be participated, music show performances have to be attended and live streams have to be watched.
The emergence of “bubble” takes fan-idol interaction to a whole new and disconcerting level. An app-based paid service first released by one of SK’s Big Three entertainment companies SM, users on “bubble” can receive messages, photos and videos from their idol for their enjoyment, addressing the fan specifically by their preferred name. It’s OnlyFans in the entertainment industry and quite literally so. Naturally, more bubble-like apps appear as each entertainment company create their own version. Some of them allow idols to post Moments, Instagram-story-like snapshots of their day to further hone in their connection with fans.
A K-Pop fan’s everyday life can be dominated by their idol’s virtual and physical presence to any desired extent. As I write these two paragraphs, my phone buzzes three times with notifications from Twitter, Weibo and Weverse (bubble for the entertainment company HYBE which owns BTS) alerting me of my group’s concert in Japan that’s happening this very moment, the release of a fan club members-only documentary tape, and never-seen-before bloopers from a cover stage.
As Esther Yi writes in Y/N, her phenomenal novel about K-Pop fandom:
fans remembered details from their lives in arbitrary connection with the pack of boys. It was how we kept track of time.
That level of interwovenness, when complicated by ethnic differences and political fraughtness, amounts to a bizarre sparring match between Chinese K-Pop fans, other non-Chinese fans and Korean idols. Endless rounds of sexually charged Sumo where the air is filled with static and the force field is fickle.
Chinese K-Pop fans, proudly parading their “inputs”, want to establish a formidable presence in the fandom almost as a political campaign. On Weverse, some put the national flag 🇨🇳 in their user IDs. They comment on posts and live streams in Chinese, lines of boxy characters coexisting with dozens of other languages. They have Twitter, YouTube and Instagram accounts to broadcast their “inputs” to international fans.
Financial investment legitimizes their feeling entitled to tailored “fan service” from Korean idols. They expect idols to learn Chinese, text on bubble in Chinese, cover Chinese songs, post on Chinese social media and send Chinese New Year (and not lunar new year, mind you) greetings. Idols who do this are seen in a better light. At the same time, some bitterly comment on how they are only serviced because their idols are pandering for money. Many know wiser, but a handful tends to further ask for ideological conformity too: they expect K-Pop idols to be pro-China or hide their anti-China beliefs at the very least.
Being a Chinese K-Pop fan also means facing a daily dilemma that’s almost ethical: to learn the Korean language or not to learn - tis the problem. Most are envious that Korean fans communicate well and get more attention from their idols. But learning the language requires effort. And my guess is, the reluctance also comes from the fact that it symbolises a betrayal. The toss and turn are only exacerbated by the frequent lack of quality Chinese subtitles when the artist’s company releases new content, which is often elevated to a bigger deal. It becomes politically tinged and can be interpreted as disrespectful, a dismissal of China from South Korea.
Thus, the struggle is “I paid for you to service me, but I want to be visible to you as a subject of your service”.
TINA
So much of fandom is related to power.
K-Pop, with its highly streamlined and systematized work processes, strikes a balance of power not unlike the system of checks and balances you’d find in a liberal democracy.
Each party is kept in line by their mutual dependence on the others. In this system, Chinese K-Pop fans recognize their influence and agency to unprecedented extents, while simultaneously feeling alienated from the gist of the game, being kept away from the conversation by their nationality. That sense of alienation culminates into a few different kinds of defence mechanisms: aligning with their idol by being oblivious radicals, begrudgingly attempting to blend in, becoming ATM machines, or forcing themselves into apathy once and for all.
In the next issue, I will explain why, despite the alienation, Chinese fans are still stiffening their upper lips and voting with their money to remain in K-Pop. It’s because the alternative could be much worse: mainland entertainment (内娱), its less than competent artists earning 2.08 mil a day nonetheless and tyrannical companies that everybody wants to go bankrupt. I want to compare the routines and standards of the two worlds, and further dissect the tension surrounding Chinese fans and foreign entertainment.
See you then!