Holiday Special: Into the New World
A Week in Seoul
Hi there. Welcome to Active Faults and Merry Christmas if you celebrate!
This is a special dispatch from Seoul as I yet again go on holiday and fail to pause my workaholic brain. It’s the one place where fandom observers are almost forced to take stock of their surroundings, because there’s simply too much going on, everywhere, all the time.
When in Seoul, the Hamletian question of “to be or not to be” is no longer a dichotomy. Here, it feels like it’s impossible not to be a fan—or, even more impossibly—be a fan at all.
Let’s start at Seungsu. It’s Christmas Eve and festivities billow out of this newly christened hip-and-trendy shopping block. Pinterest board boutiques daintily dot the neighbourhood and the narrow pavements bleed glitter. Young, dressed-to-the-nines Instagram-perfect couples stroll around holding hands as well as dry bouquets and cakes iced so smoothly it looks like inedible mantelpieces. Singlehood has no place in its 5-mile radius, or any of the other artsy districts, the whole city.
Celebrities would film content or spend their off days near Seungsu, because that’s “in” right now. So are Sinsa and Hannam. Idol advertisements in these districts take up entire walls. Unrealistically flawless faces tower over the fans, who queue up to pose with them at their feet. Their concrete eyes are now above our eye level and their flirtatious glints can only be captured if you are far away enough. You’re supposed to look and worship from a distance, like it’s Christ the Redeemer.
Apgujeong south of the Han River is a lot quieter, because the air over there feels like it’d charge you a processing fee if you breathe it wrong. It’s where the A-listers actually live and shop. Seoul’s Fifth Avenue equivalent is aptly named K-Star Road, where pseudo-KAWS figures representing all of the top-earning K-Pop groups stand guard to every flagship store of every luxury brand imaginable. A day after I was there, HOSHI of SEVENTEEN stopped by Chrome Hearts who had to temporarily shut the place for the duration of his visit. Another bagel cafe in the area was once graced by DK, and Chinese fans on Xiaohongshu hyped the place so much the owner made bilingual signage and a “DK set menu” for easy ordering. That’s pretty much what happens for every idol of every group, visiting every eatery in town. The Star Effect illuminates back alleys and shoddy corners.
And then the demographic shifts again once you reach Hongdae. This side of town has all of the universities in an animated huddle. Roads are braided by more schoolgirls wearing even shorter skirts and heavier makeup that should eventually look “effortless”, “clean”, “naturally youthful”. Olive Young the drug store chain is packed with clueless freshmen boys getting last-minute Christmas gifts for their girlfriends. They hold up shades of pinks and mauves and tangerines to the fluorescent light and study the composition of these gloss-shine-tint-gel-jelly-mousse-stain, all endorsed by the same handful of female idols.
Outside, beautifully made-up couples queue in the barely-above-zero cold to take “life four cuts” in semi-professional photography studios. As far as I observe, these are the only places with a visible, snaking line. Apparently these instant photo keepsakes are “in” right now, something that you have to do with your loved ones when you’re out and about. Using up a hefty chunk of your life to wait and capture your life at the best it could ever appear to be. The cameras have built-in touch-up and beautification, which means instant idol-fication, using technology as advanced as AI. The studio also offers cutesy headbands, headwear, hair pins, wedding veils, and sometimes even backdrops of airplane toilets, to feature in your photos.
Hongdae is also where glitzy album stores are scrunched together, dubbed a paradise for “追星女” (star-chasing girls i.e. female fans) by Chinese social media. Rows and rows of albums, magazines, photobooks and posters stretch on and on. Lightsticks blink and blast bright on the shelves. Autographs, flags and towels drape like tapestry. The songs start to sound the same. Mesmerising merch items, new and vintage, scoot close like trinkets in a hoarder’s home. The whole place would first be split by gender of the groups, then seniority that correlates to current popularity, and finally into individual zones where visitors gravitate towards. Slowly, we form the fandom of that group in the flesh. Shelves I stop and marvel at are significantly less crowded because I’m looking at groups that are 9 to 12 years old. Newer groups are always paraded at the front of the store, where masses of 9 to 12-year-olds loiter about.
From there, I drop in “pocaspot”, a photo card retailer where you can browse over 10,000 photo cards of idols on an iPad like dishes on a menu. The price ranges from a couple thousand won to over 320,000 won, depending on the rarity of the card. With a few clicks, you can make the payment and collect your goods from the store the next day. I school my steely resolve of rational spending by chanting the magic words that photo cards are just pieces of 2-inch paper. I exit “Ducky World” with the same resolve and heightened sense of incredulity that there’s demand for a whole store dedicated to selling photo card holders. I eventually cave at the last copy of SEVENTEEN’s self-produced magazine that I missed the release of. I have never seen it in real life before. The owner of this album store speaks fluent Chinese and accepts AliPay with an enthusiastic nod.
Then, you’d get to Myeongdong. There’s literally a store called K-Pop Mecca. Every surface is covered in miscellaneous K-Pop items that cater towards every aspect of a lived life. It is so much more overwhelming than company-run stores like Kwangya of SM or the SameE of YG, where at least the catalogue is limited to their artists.
Walking through the place made me physically nauseous, because I didn’t know where to look and how to stop looking.
More of these are now popping up in the city’s oldest commercial district, probably a last-ditch attempt to compete with everywhere else in Seoul. It’s counting on K-Pop as an anti-ageing panacea, bringing in a gush of eager-eyed, lenient Gen Z consumers to replace the Myeongdong regulars who are older domestic tourists and less likely to spend. Walking down, I feel like I’m scrolling through TikTok with my feet. 15-second sound bite of a beat-drop chorus from a shop, then the next, then the next. An endless stream of earworms looting your attention you can’t hear your thoughts.
To temporarily escape all the sound and fury, I stumble into a side street behind an advert wall of Jang Wonyoung. I look at some of the elderly owners here, who are trying to rebrand their traditional souvenir shop with idol music. They fill the place with items like fluffy hats and gloves and phone cases, which are now part and parcel of the industry, because they can be worn by celebrities and turned into trends and hence desirable commodities. Everything is idol-fied.
Another hour passes and I feel like a wrung towel, but it’s not a physical exhaustion. A city infatuated with glam is taxing. The way it builds its identity around an industry boasting conformity and perfection is menacing. It leaves you questioning your idiosyncrasies and “flaws”. It hunts down divergence.
I’m writing as I ride the KTX back to Seoul, after spending a day in Busan with a dear friend who previously drew the cover photo of Active Faults. She’s back home for Christmas, and I unload all of my burning questions to the native: What’s with life four cuts? Why does everyone look the same, shopping at the same brands, wearing the same items, hairstyles, make-up, colour schemes? It’s what’s expected based on the beauty standards, she says with a sigh. It’s SNS, the idols, and the K-dramas, programming the masses subtly and explicitly. Be in love and be loved, or at least appear like it. The culture now is The Media. On Naver, the nation’s search engine, Entertainment is the second tab next to News.
Of course, a lot of album stores have existed since the 70s. K-Pop fans have always frequented these old haunts. What’s different is how South Korean entertainment is now ferociously exported to attract foreign fans. This then spurs domestic enjoyers to hop in: if Chinese and Japanese and Europeans and Americans are into K-Pop, it becomes a phenomenon that no one should miss out on. Domestic establishments then cater towards everyone.
I also spent an evening catching up with another Korean friend, sharing tteokbokki over talks of protest rallies, impeachment, and dictatorships. She sat outside the National Assembly alongside other protestors belting out anthems of rebellions. A few weeks ago I cried watching a video of musical actors performing “Do You Hear The People Sing” at the rally, because that song is a similar symbol of resistance and power in mainland. Other song choices include Girls’ Generation’s debut song, Into the New World. G-Dragon’s Crooked. All incredibly moving to witness. Fandom has always been about love, resonance, and faith. That’s the foundation of democracy. It shows you how this industry truly mobilises popular spirits, especially in times of crisis. It communicates a shared longing for something bigger and better, more promising, more life-giving.
But what does it mean to live our existences in the here and the now, if we’ve manufactured the Ideal that is palpable, tyrannical, and all-consuming?
This was deliciously immersive. Happy new year!