pslasher

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Another Transformative Approach to Fan Identity

When speaking of the possibility of K-pop stans transforming their fannish identity and negotiating their identification with their idols, inherent in the discussion is the racism and cultural appropriation of the industry and fandom that affords different possibilities to Black and non-Black fans. While the difference between South Korean and North Korean fans is how the different structure of fandom means a certain relation between the fannish identity and the object of the fannishness, the discussion about racism and cultural appropriation points out the relation between the the fannish identity and fans’ racialized identities, which no structure of fandom can erase. Otebele uncovers these relations for us.

For many non-Korean or South Korean–based fans of K-pop, distance is a defining factor in their interaction with the industry. For Black fans, this distance is not only physical but also formed by industry practices that contribute to their abjection. (…) The ceremony for such divorce between fandom and racial discourse marks an impossibility for Black K-pop fans who may find that pleasure in the media object rests in the fractured space between fan and antifan.

This impossibility is dissolved in a dream in which fannish identity and racialized identity, fan and anti-fan can be clearly separated. White fans are allowed to express their fascination and frustration as part of their fannishness, while Black fans’ vigil labor, a term coined by Otobele, is seen as placing them outside of this same fannishness.

Here, by speaking back to the K-pop industry and non-Black fans, these creators deploy vigil labor to demonstrate the potentiality of Black fan power in resisting fandom expectations and negotiating the fluid boundaries of being fans. (…) This resistance defies established modes of being a fan, placing critique not only on media objects but also on fandom and, doing so, through its transformative creations.

Otobele here points out that vigil labor actually obscures the boundaries of fan and anti-fan: it is transformative work and critique at the same time. Vigil labor creates value for the fans whose pleasure of fandom is disrupted by racism, the term an important addition to the theory of resistant fandom practices or might even be completely new lens through which we can view this theory.

Otebele, Osarugue. 2024. “The (Anti)fan is Black: Consumption, Resistance and Black K-Pop Fan Vigil Labor.” In “Centering Blackness in Fan Studies,” guest edited by Alfred L. Martin Jr. and Matt Griffin, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 44. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2024.2465.

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Posted by aninfiniteweirdo

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In previous posts, I have talked about data fandom and fan labour as something inherently linked to commercialization. In a paper I read, though, I discovered a case where data fandom was used as a tool – both to achieve certain goals on social media directly and to transform the participants’ fannish identity.

When the Dallas police launched the app iWatch Dallas for people to report law-breaking demonstrators, K-pop fans flooded the Dallas police official Twitter account with random K-pop videos—and many of these videos were fan cams. The app was disabled due to “technical issues” within a day, possibly because of such negative reactions on social media (Alexander 2020). Later, many K-pop fans spammed racist, white supremacist Twitter hashtags, such as #WhiteLivesMatter, with fan cams, eventually leading to these tags’ trending under the “K-pop” category on Twitter (Aswad 2020).

Zhang, Muxin. 2024. “Fandom Image Making and the Fan Gaze in Transnational K-pop Fan Cam Culture.” In “Fandom and Platforms,” edited by Maria K. Alberto, Effie Sapuridis, and Lesley Willard, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 42. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2024.2463.

Fans in general are certainly very aware of discourse about them and their activities – that is the entire premise of this blog. It is more of a question of whether a transformative approach is accessible, not if we are aware that alternatives might be needed.

However, Zhang also shows that this use of fancams was not universal among stans. The difference is made between North American fans and South Korean fans and this difference is attributed to the identification with an idol’s success.

This identification might be very well grounded in the way the industry operates.

(…) fan leaders are portrayed as individual opinion leaders or fan clubs (formal or informal) who set the agenda and organize the collective action of daily fan activities, while they also function as intermediaries maintaining a close communication with the idol’s media companies and uniting individual fans.

Wu, Xueyin. 2021. “Fan Leaders’ Control on Xiao Zhan’s Chinese Fan Community.” Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 36. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2021.2053.

Because of this coordination between the media company and fan leaders, the activities of fans can have an impact of the idol’s reputation and thus success. This responsibility is not shared by the North American fans.

In this way, while all the fans described can identify with their bias but it is an identification that is expressed in different ways which leaves them with different ways of expressing their fannish identity. Though, we are only looking at one case here, it already reveals some of the complexities and nuances we can encounter in fandom.

Szabó Dorottya

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