18. My Idol Texted at Me for a Month
Unpacking Weverse DM
Hi there. Welcome to Active Faults.
Hear me out and I promise this is relevant: one of my closest friends is obsessed with coconut water. It has gotten to the point of a fortnightly delivery subscription where a carton of it would show up at her doorstep like clockwork.
I was just about to query the health implications of this before she presented me with a striking paradox. A regular subscription to something you crave, she said, simultaneously increases and eradicates the demand.
Today, let’s talk my subscription to Weverse DM.
For those new to the K-Pop scene, Weverse DM is the HYBE equivalent of Bubble, the OnlyFans of South Korean entertainment where idols can send subscribers private messages as well as exclusive photos and videos. Made possible by a system that automatically fills in the blank when the idol types “Y/N”, the subscribers would receive texts addressing them by their customisable usernames, fuelling Dreamgirl fantasies to the absolute fullest. A lot of people, including me, would use a run-of-the-mill alias like a nickname of us in our real lives. But for the best results, you should use “baby”, “dear” or “wife” so the DMs could entail infinitely more. Subscribing to a well-trained idol with Bubble proficiency should feel like you’re in the talking stage with your lived-in soulmate. Easy, domestic intimacy mixed with heart-fluttering courtship that never sours because it never ends.
Some fans have argued that this is but a Weverse live stream in instant-messaging form. The idol comes online, answers some questions and acts cute. I’d argue the opposite, because live-stream is a public act no matter how hard you ignore the dizzying confessions of love in 10 different languages disappearing at the top of your screen. Hell is Other People and this is a different story. This is Exclusivity.
They text you quick snaps of pretty clouds, a sibling’s tabby cat, what they had for lunch. Selfies of them in bed, en route to errands, on the plane and in the gym. Asks you about your day, what did you have for dinner, what song you’re listening to and tells you theirs. Your weekend plans, your MBTI type, your blood type, your astrological signs. Apologises for their inactivity and calls you pretty. Confides in you that they’re tired from work, they woke up from a nightmare, they miss their hometowns and mum’s cooking and who they used to be. Always present and always unreachable, a figment of imagination only a breath away.
I don’t “text back” because it cringes me out. But they caught me red-handed and sent this: “Don’t just read it and reply to me. I saw it.”
In moments like these, it almost feels real.
On Xiaohongshu, you’d find fans comparing the fan service they receive from each member of the group like comparing different models of vacuum cleaners. He is the “best value” out of them all, they claim, because he is a “little yapper” who is chronically online, tells you his every move, sends the most photos and therefore the most boyfriend-y. “You’d get the most out of paying for his DMs”. In the most respectful way possible, sometimes these posts read like a customer review of a sex toy or an escort.
DM personas of the idols are forged collectively in this cavity, which then feeds into their “real-life” Artist Personification. He texts you immediately after his plane lands, so he’s the obedient, reassuring and responsible type of boyfriend to regularly “报备” (report-in, a term for location/activity update messaging between romantic partners). He sleeps too early and too much so he would leave you on delivered, but it also means he’s the homebody type who won’t go out to “party” and “cheat”. The words the idols throw out into the void are bound to return like a thousand boomerangs, moulding public perceptions of them and, by association, their popularity. I imagine Weverse DM would override quite a bunch of their other schedules in terms of importance and urgency. It would inadvertently determine the trajectory of their career.
I also wonder if the idols are hauled into peer competition or held accountable if they don’t meet certain KPIs like a salesperson. Are they looped in on the statistics or attending ‘progress check-in’ meetings? Will they find out which of their teammate performed well and pulled the most amount of subscribers in the last quarter? Are they joining forces to pool the most effective chat-up lines, or gatekeeping it to get ahead on the scoreboard? Since HYBE has been so keen on AI, will they strategically analyse the chat histories, dissecting the conversation line by line to spot patterns and maximise engagement? Will they harvest that data for “training and monitoring purposes” and school idols into more profit-inducing ways of fan service?
As a subscriber, fandom law (and Weverse law) decrees that I must refrain from sharing any of these “confidential” chats. It’s a serious leak of paywalled content that discourages sales and violates the rights of existing fellow customers. Despite this, screenshots of messages are constantly circulating on social media platforms, especially the “unhinged” ones or excessively flirty ones, proof that the idol has got serious game (“don’t show this photo anywhere, it’s between you and me). I’ve seen complaints of these leaks more than once: I paid for paywalled content because I’m a dedicated fan. It’s reserved for me and I deserve to enjoy this illusion of artificial exclusivity with the idol. These accounts who “搬运” (translate and therefore relocate the content to Chinese spaces) are infringing my rights as a consumer.
This air of secrecy reminds me of this brilliant Substack series on American sororities that I accidentally got too invested in. Maybe this is what some of you felt like following AF, because to me it reads like stories from another planet. The reason why Greek life has been kept so clandestine, I think, is also why fandom uses jargon, checks credentials and creates enclosed spaces for discussions. There’s a need to construct a shared identity through a unique set of identifiers. Weverse DM is a fandom adhesive.
At the same time, the counterargument is that pirating Bubble or Weverse DM content is justifiable, even righteous and patriotic. South Korean entertainment companies have spent too long cutting us garlic chives. It is about time that we band together and change our destiny as cash cows benefiting foreign industries.
From a different angle, K-Pop fandoms for HYBE artists in the West are boycotting their priced commodities like merch as well as Weverse DM, because of the company’s affiliation with Zionist figures like Scooter Braun. Others boycott because Weverse DM perpetuates parasocial relationships that emotionally manipulate the fans and physically drain the idols. They should, in theory, only participate in offline fan meets which they are obligated to mentally prepare for, not contracted to send X amount of DMs a month. Or something far worse could happen: antis could pay the money just to send hateful threats somewhere the idols themselves can directly see. It creates a convenient channel for targeted attacks. The result is that mega fan accounts on Twitter or Weibo would take one for the team, subscribe and live-translate the DMs for the greater good. A “I paid for it so you don’t have to” kind of thing.
No matter how many fans would boycott, I doubt it will ever disappear. Even independent artist companies like ex-Blackpink Lisa’s LLOUD has released its own version, LLOUD Bubble App, for Lisa to talk to her fans. It will continue to exist as long as idols are financially funded by their supporters.
However, does it actually work?
I paid for it and almost never read the messages. I logged onto Weverse to write this piece and found this notification:
Why, I asked myself? Because constancy collapses into tedium without exception. My friend no longer gets excited going to Tesco to carry a few bottles of coconut water home. She no longer savours it, or play-fight with her partner to see who gets the last sip. Because what you crave shows up by default, and the human mind needs novelty and impossibility by default. Once made into a constant stream, idol content became a chore to keep up with and coconut water became as insipid as loo rolls.
On the other hand, she has completely lost control of her coconut water consumption because she lost count. Supply is seemingly inexhaustible and unquantifiable. Even though a subscription seems to be cheaper in the short run, you end up burning through more cartons than you normally would. Demand soars and stabilises at a level designed and desired by the brand while your real need becomes obscured. Do I really need to know what my idol is flicking through on Netflix that night? No. But now that he mentions it, I want to know more.
Can you see my replies? Am I even understanding you because I’m translating your messages into my language? Who else are you texting like this? Are you really you? Do you even want to be here? What are we?
" Hell is Other People and this is a different story. This is Exclusivity." this is perfect and made me laugh so loudly