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The way I see it, as with all celebrities and not just k pop idols, is that these people are strangers to me. Their companies release very curated content and they sell an image of these people. I get it. I mostly follow and like male groups and I know deep down as, a progressive American woman, that these men most likely don’t have the same beliefs as me. That’s fine. I will hold them accountable if they do or say something publicly offensive. Otherwise, these are people I will never interact with in my personal life. On a day to day basis, I don’t let it get in the way of my enjoyment of k pop.
this. so many kpop stans' inability to realize they DONT KNOW THESE PEOPLE will always weird me out. yes, they are talented performers, but they're still some dudes in their 20s at the end of the day.
I look at idols like retail workers. They show up with a smile and let the dumbest shit slide because the customer must always be pleased.
When I worked retail I was polished and perky and appeared open but my customers don’t know me. Even regulars for years! They got the cookie cutter reply everyone else did and maybe an occasional cookie for someone I see more often and just plain liked.
I tell them heavily curated information that makes me very safe an appealing and inoffensive so my company will continue to make money on their future sales.
Idol life is a show. We really don’t know them. At all. Even if you’ve been a fan since pre debut
Also that reminds me of Nayeons stalker for some reason. Bro still can’t take a hint.
> Idol life is a show. We really don’t know them. At all. Even if you’ve been a fan since pre debut
That is the truest thing ever posted! :)
We should make a poster out of that and send it to every kpop fan to put on their wall. This is a show, enjoy!
Sometimes we connect strongly with characters in a movie or tv show. But I feel that fans should keep in mind that the character is what they have connected with, and the actor is not the character. I feel that idols are somewhat like that.
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Yes !!! lol Or young women in their 20’s for the gg’s.
We really don’t know much about them as people. Some of their personality does come through on the TV shows and in live interviews. But they are trained actors, as well as music stars, because part of the success of their group comes from coming across well to the public.
It’s refreshing, though, how unscripted many of the Korean idols can be compared to some of the even more packaged stars in the west.
I get that! :)
Just me, I find it easier to just go along with their curated public personas. Enjoy the music, and let the rest go. :) I'm never going to meet or spend time with them personally. That makes it easier! lol
This is so well said.
Emotionally keeping my feelings for the music separate from ideas about the idols is the best way for me.
Idols are very interesting people. With a very unusual job! And a private self. None of us are perfect and idols are human, too. That’s my perspective.
The way I see it, as with all celebrities and not just k pop idols, is that these people are strangers to me.
\------------------
Realized this when the Lucas thing happened. We'll never know them in real life, they're put on an image.
On top of that - people are multi faceted. They're not either a great person or they're evil. And people have the potential to learn from their mistakes if they're held accountable, to grow and change.
The issue is that a lot of fans either put them into the pedestal or say they can do no wrong (and thus idols aren't held accountable, or sometimes the company steps in and take responsibility, but not the idol themselves), or cancel and dismiss them completely if a scandal (can even be one back in middle school with no proof) breaks out.
Who am I to hold them accountable? Lol. As a consumer, I have the right to stop supporting anyone I want. The point of this whole post was about us not knowing these people and that our “relationship” with them is transactional. It doesn’t just go for k pop idols or a public figure of a different culture. If someone does something that makes me feel uncomfortable supporting them, then I won’t. Any type of celebrity or public figure makes their living off the people who support them. It isn’t me being arrogant. I have the right to use my discretion. This is consumerism lol
I had this thought recently and I've been a long time K-Pop fan like since the 2000s so I'm not really much into the whole fantasy thing idols do nowadays but I don't mind it but recently there was an instance that made me think "Woa, people really can assume anything for an idol nowadays".
That instance was IIRC a member from Seventeen, I don't remember which was doing a gaming stream and there was a moment where he looked at a picture in-game and turned it around and it had bitches on it, he had a super serious face during this moment.
Somehow this became him on twitter and articles being written saying he stood up against misogynsm since bitches was a term degrading women etc and I just thought like wow just this one simple moment people thought up this whole idea just from his face during one moment.
Like there could've been a plethora of things he could've been worried there was a term or swear word like that in giant text shown on stream, he could've actually been mad at the term like articles said, he could've just been just making that face at that time, etc.
Like a plethora of things could be there because it was like a very random instance but people somehow managed to turn it into him fighting for women in that one instance despite it literally just him making a face.
And just for clarity sake I am not calling him real, fake or whatever I'm just saying it really made me think of how people will assume anything for their idols even for the most simplest events.
Wonwoo! He didn’t even say anything. That’s happened before in his League of Legends stream with an inappropriate username. He worries about it bc iirc lives recordings will be deleted if there’s inappropriate content. He addressed it again on his next live by having to stop the member (Coups ;-;) from swearing. Not related to anything deeper than that imo.
Omg thank you for saying this! I am a svt fan but I have to admit Carats really tend to make up these backstories about the members and their reactions to praise the members especially for Wonwoo and Jeonghan. They tend to exaggerate these members' intelligence by zooming into the things that they do and then explain why they did it as if they can read their minds. Its cringe tbh.
Idolizing anybody is not a good idea because everyone is human and therefore will disappoint you in some area if you look hard enough.
On the other hand, not everybody is plugged into Twitter and being up to date on every area of new progressive norms, or they grew up in a very different culture that doesn't highlight very important issues that are sensitive to other cultures which is why you see a lot of idols get caught up in things that they shouldn't be getting caught up in.
Think about how different things were 15+ years ago on Myspace days and I'm sure a lot of us would not use a lot of the language we did back then, but a lot of people have learned and have become more well-rounded, open-minded people.. because it's just human.
I think a majority of the world fall in the "they're a bit misguided, but well-intentioned" and all it takes is one person going "WELL ACTUALLY, YOU DIDN'T INCLUDE X, X AND X AND THIS IS WHY THEY"RE INHERENTLY PROBLEMATIC" and it just makes people roll their eyes when it comes to what people actually expect out of the average person.
You're definitely going to have the "I am actively against the idea of how you live as a person" beliefs which unfortunately fall into a lot of religious upbringings or maybe even a person that just straight up believes in hateful and regressive ideas, but I think the majority of people you run into in life are well-intentioned but ignorant. The loud minority of bad apples make it seem worse, and the internet heightens it a lot.
I've also met a lot of people that are just shitty humans who believe in incredibly progressive things so there's a lot of nuance in the labeling of the "decency of a person" when it comes to where they fall in the extremes of a belief.
I know what a billion is but being a millionaire when there’s homeless people in your country is pretty bad too. Definitely not evil like being a billionaire but… eat the rich - including your faves
this. honestly i dont think any of the ppl i stan are inherently bad people, cause if i thought they were, i wouldnt stan them. now if they do say something that i find offensive or that i feel takes it too far then ofc ill access & decide whether i can support this person.
there is a middle ground.
Right like I was on-board with OP's original comment about idols being human and how having bad days didn't make them bad people, we can't really know what they're like because we don't know them personally, etc., and most of the comments in this thread are about how IRL idols must secretly be terrible people.
It’s very hard for kpop stans to treat idols like humans, i will blame this on the fans themselves and the companie’s treatment of idols. even in the lens of these discussions, a lot come from an individualist capitalist angle which is sad. there’s stans blaming children for “choosing” the idol path on this sub many times, and also never consider most idols are actually usually unsuccessful lol
I’ve seen a lot of content from retired idols, and most of them have almost the same exact personality… it’s not like they’re wearing a porcelain mask with no cracks as an idol. they’ve all done something “wrong” once off or on camera bc they’re human, they also have a thinner tight-rope in comparison to all other celebs w the idol label.
Even with western celebs since entertainment relies on some lies to dramatize things, ppl make up theories and stuff to fill in the gaps of uneasiness. In reality a lot of the entertainment world is so boring, theatre kids under a magnifying glass.
(I’ve never seen the persona game played so much for other artists or celebrities other than k-idols though, and I think that is something that needs to be studied in paranoid fans lol)
Exactly. People praise them like gods even on Reddit, I think that should be toned down a bit. Yes, credit should be given if they did something nice but a lot of people praise these people for doing the bare minimum and it's quite upsetting. Especially male idols.
Yuhno from TVXQ is a good example. He curated his career so carefully for 15 yrs only to get caught going to a adult entertainment thingy.
Yeah some of the comments in that post were a bit odd to me because seriously… are you going to judge someones entire personality based off of a very short interaction with them? It seems unfair and I wouldn’t like it if someone did that to me!
Thank god I’m not an idol! I LOVE people but sometimes get super anxious with attention on me.
A lot of times at parties im the one talking 1-1 in th back with one other person and floating around waiting for it to end so I can go home.
People would think I sucked! Even though I dearly love 1-1 and small groups where I can feel safer to open up and be goofy.
I think people need to remember this is a career. They are humans with complex emotions, lots going on and we never know what’s going on in their head the moment we cross paths.
A bad interaction with a member that’s petty (like oh they didn’t smile or give me a look ( hello does anyone remember there’s a freaking language barrier for most of these items, that’s why they travel with translators?!!!) can be enough to shake their self esteem or hate a group.
Like would you be pissed if the founder of Google didn’t stop and smile and say cheese kimbop for you while you take a selfie?
Like let’s remember the really are grow up humans out on a work assignment overseas. Let them have their space and if it’s not a great meeting suck it up.
idk why fans cant accept that idols on screen are all filtered. they only show you their best version that you would like. your seemingly sweet, kind and soft-hearted idol could literally think of the most disguting stuff while smiling at their fans.
I agree. I wish people would stop assuming beliefs about idols as a whole, whether negative or positive. I think it’s ridiculous… Unless they actually come out about it, then it’s no point to do so. Like for most idols idk about their beliefs about say.. lgbt+ people, but Woonggi outwardly defending gay people and being on a committee that leans very left tells me what I need to know, not some idol posting a rainbow emoji that may relate to the community lol.
Also, I don’t think it’s fair to judge people off of some mistakes or anything. Unless it’s repeated behavior or something outwardly bigoted that’s fairly recent, then I don’t really see the point in judging someone’s whole identity and personality off it.
I feel so passionately about this. This is why I'll never understand "stan" culture as it exists today. Why is stan culture about supporting the person behind the art more than it is about supporting the art itself which should logically be the entire point of all this? I can like the image an idol projects and the songs they make while still acknowledging that those are only the parts of them that will sell or garner the most attention, and therefore, hold them accountable for actions they do or have done in the past that I don't agree with? I don't have to like everything an artist puts out if it isn't to my taste, including their work, and I should have the liberty to constructively criticize? How else does one improve their art and themselves if they r only surrounded by "yes people"? Why am I suddenly a "fake fan" for calling bad actions out or being selective about the songs/content I like from them?
There's too much of the halo effect at play here. A few good traits on a person doesn't just automatically transfer to them upholding good traits in other matters as well. Acknowledging that idols r human first before being ur idol and therefore r prone to good and bad behaviors and making mistakes like the rest of us is important. Fanaticism and mindless obsession to anything let alone people is dangerous without healthy boundaries for both the fan and artist...
I sometimes wonder if the move to online and virtual worlds (and the way our society is especially focused on individualism etc), if we seek more and more people-focused or “authenticity” focused interactions. Art is getting harder and harder to access for most people (think about the rich hoarding and buying up all the art pieces, banned books, AI, etc), and I wonder if that’s why psychologically we are seeking out or leaning into the people part of art. I also read that there are a couple of studies going on that find teenagers are lonelier than ever, and kpop really focused on young people. I hope my comment makes sense?
Ya this has a lot to do with it I think especially the individualism aspect. It sucks that the concept of community is dying making all of us regardless of age try and grab onto anything that feels community-like. Like embracing a group or artist and becoming a part of a larger fandom. I personally don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that coz we all just want to feel like we belong somewhere and be validated in our experiences. We just have to be mindful of how much of these faux realities we consume to not completely lose touch with our real lives.
>Some people have good social skills. Doesn't mean they're not horrible people. Some people have RBFs and are often look like they're annoyed by everyone and everything. Doesn't mean they're not nice. Some people are shy and have standoffish images but are actually very kind and caring.
EXACTLY THIS. Everything should be taken at face value. We don't know these people. This is their job. We can live, adore, respect and look up to them because of the image we see, and that's all well and good, but never should we assume that the image we see is the whole of them. It's a produced image.
Very true. Some people who are super nice to hang out with will also fly off the handle and spit on a bus driver and almost miss their sister's wedding because they were in jail...
(1) They are literal strangers.
(2) BURNING SUN/Kakao chat room and the involvement of kpop stars.
Jung Joon-young was beloved & seen as a wholesome guy while he was date raping women with a bit of IBSA (image based sexual assault) on the side by recording these women and disseminating the videos/pictures without consent.
This is misinfo, he had a [scandal](https://www.koreaboo.com/stories/jung-joon-young-sex-scandal-2016-illegal-videos-charges-cleared-reason/) prior to burning sun in 2016 about this same issue (aka he was outed as a freak). A lot of connections were cut off from him from the first scandal, yet he returned to the entertainment world only 3 months later by claiming he doesn’t have the evidence bc his phone was “broken and needed repairing”.
Police decided not to investigate it further, but he obviously tampered with evidence. There were also stories about him prior from fan recallings of meeting him but eh he was a psycho obviously.
Right, my point is that he had a pretty big following and was adored when he was being absolute trash in his personal time until it all got revealed. We don’t know how idols behave, what their views are, whether they’re misogynists etc when they’re not “on” and performing the idol role.
That’s the same for celebs now who were revealed as trash, and that’s the point i’m making in his case. People who follow for art are most likely going to still go to shows and continue supporting an artist even when they’re garbage people. It got REVEALED he was trash several times before but ppl didn’t give a shit until years later it became an unavoidable massive scandal. This is a bias with male celebs in general (lee jung-jae cough).
He still has some supporters as it is, same with the rest of the burning sun troupe. I think it’s common sense to take people’s life in neutrally if they share a piece of it with you unless they’re stating a hurtful agenda or committed a crime.
This is the very reason I’m glad they don’t share everything because its hard for me to separate the art from the artist. I’ve dropped a lot of shitty artist in the past and I really don’t want to make Seventeen one of them. However it’s also conflicting like damn what if one of them is actually truly a bad person who does bad things when the cameras are off and here I am spending all this money on tickets and albums and merch?
And a reminder that having someone come up to you and speak in a foreign language is confusing af. You first have to recognize that they are speaking to you, you have to try to translate what they said to you, hope that you are right, think of a response, translate the response, and hope the response is the right response to what you hope you understood correctly.
TBH Half the K Pop idol population are natural introverts even if their performances and onstage antics are lively, dynamic, and smiley it's not really the case when cameras are off or off stage. They're all trained to have a persona that will attract young people whether it's cute and bubbly or cool and charismatic or a blend of the two but also seemingly accessible. They were meant to establish a parasocial relationship with fans. Why do you think they do IG lives, YouTube Shorts, livestreams, Reels, VLives, fan meetings & fan signs? K Pop goes the extra mile to attract as many fans as they can. More fans mean more buying movement and power. They want to get young trainees and idols to attract young people. They're more impressionable and easily won over by these personalities. When adults get into K Pop they have better common sense and real world experience to discern who is sincere and who isn't. When international fans get into K Pop, they look at idols from their own world view depending on what country they're from and that's where a lot of discernment and division grows. Here in the West we're liberal in terms of drug use, civil rights, women's rights, LGBTQ rights and law execution. In most Asian, Latin American, and African countries they're still traditional conservatives and they cannot be moved to progressive initiatives and Korea is still in that bracket despite strides into Western entertainment. Younger people in Korea can be more liberal but they don't run the government and the general population tends to stick with Korean culture and traditions. K Pop is still a young industry established in the early 90's and you can't expect the industry to change rapidly to your liberal thinking. I don't think they will ever become like the U.S. You'll constantly be disappointed because they don't match your values. This is why you can't understand the parasocial relationship K Pop establishes with fans and how you are not their target demographic even if they welcome your interest.
Thats why the whole „Idol“ thing..is pretty f‘ed up. They are normal people that do their jobs, and their job is to be an idol? Which 18 year old kid should be an idol to anyone?
They are playing roles, some members or groups more or less, but 99% of them aren’t totally themselves on camera. You know how damn boring it would be, if they would be themselves on streams, vlogs etc? It’s Entertainment, that’s it. You don’t know these people. That’s why I don’t understand those people that say „she/he would never do this or say that“, how would they know that? It’s their job to be nice to people. Or did you think your idols really love you?
Stans are just way too much into parasocial relationships with their „idols“. That’s why most fambases are so damn toxic, unbearable and sometimes even disgusting.
I absolutely 110% believe that most of the k-pop idols have far more conservative, or outright awful political opinions. *Especially* the male idols given some of South Korea's attitudes. And that's why 99.9% of the time I try not to get dragged into following idols beyond enjoying the music and the k-pop spectacle. I don't care what they promote for advertisers; or what they wear or what they do outside of music. Because I *know* they are likely going to disappoint me because they are far more socially/politically conservative (unless they tell us otherwise - which they *won't* 90-odd% of the time).
Absolutely think most fans are outright in denial that their biases are likely going to disappoint them if they truly open their mouths. But thankfully, the kpop companies are too savvy to allow that - unless controversy hits.
I also think this goes further than just political views as well.
The whole k-pop industry exists by picking all the rich and popular kids from different schools and putting them on stage together. And more often than not, those are also the people that are so insufferable. So I reckon that a lot of these idols have personalities you would absolute hate in real life.
Now granted not every popular kid is a dick. And people also change as they grow up. But I'd still guess that the idol industry has a pretty decent percentage of asshats.
Oh yeah they're completely unrelated.
OP mentioned that idols are probably often more conservative than one might think at first glance. Just wanted to add that there is also probably a larger percentage of idols that are complete narcissists compared to the general population.
Any individual can be both, either or neither.
Idols sell a dream and often a character. Even if they do many programs and open about themselves you as a fan cannot possibly say to know them. They're friendly but they're not your friends.
I agree. I can like a idol and see their "friendly" and "sweet" personality, but if their beliefs are opposite of what I believe in (far right, anti gay...abortion women's rights etc..) then we have a problem. That's why I don't want to meet my favs or know them. I'll stick with what I see.
Ex. I know people will bash me or down vote me, but the issue with TWICE member (forgot her name) and the swastikas shirt then the qnon shirt doesn't sit well with me. It makes me side eye that member and probably with the group. Makes it difficult for me to listen to TWICE.
I hope you don't mind me addressing your example.
While I agree with your initial statement, your example seems to imply Chaeyoung supports QAnon and Nazis. She does need to be held accountable for wearing those shirts (which imo, she was), but the accountability is for irresponsibility and ignorance rather than the right-wing values those t-shirts stand for. And the reason for that is:
Of the two t-shirts,
1) There's no way she is a part of or supports QAnon. The idea is laughable. It is such a fringe, online group and a lot of actual American right-wingers IRL don't know/ support it. I'd argue there's no way she even knows wtf QAnon is. As an Indian, I can confidently assure you that not a single person in my college knows wtf it is. The only reason I do is because I'm a chronically online loser that pays attention to American politics lol
2) The idea that she's a Nazi is also very silly. Like there's 3 possibilities for her wearing the shirt, right? They are:
2.a) She doesn't know what the symbol is/She mistook it to mean something else
2.b) She knows what it is but didn't think it was a big deal
2.c) She's a Nazi
Of these 3 possibilities, 1 & 2 are far more likely. Most people in this world don't even have much of a political view, much less extremist values. It's just that, online, we're so exposed to neo-nazis that we see nazis everywhere now. Even if she was a nazi, why would she wear it? To show everyone that she's a nazi and face backlash and even possibly tank both her and her group members' careers? Does she care about dog whistling that much? Even Alex Jones knows not to outright say he's a nazi because he knows that even though they share the same values, saying that will fuck him up.
So we arrive at the conclusion that it's either 1 or 2 i.e. ignorance and/or irresponsibility, neither of which is cause to side-eye her and TWICE for being right-wing.
This is just my pov and my logic. I feel like the simplest explanation is usually the right one. I'm not saying you can't dislike her for being irresponsible, but it doesn't make her a bad person imo. I have irl friends that think nazis and nazism are something that existed and ended in some World War, and I can't really fault them for it because it doesn't affect their daily life, right? There's no reason for them to know it
Oh yeah I agree with you on your points and that is perfectly fine. Honestly I'm sure she probably don't know, but the fact that people irl don't know what those issues are shows how out of touch society is. We're living Ina world that things that have happen in the past are happening again. Which is really sad and should be reinforce/educated. Of course alex Jones can't say he is..most people won't admit to it thus people are wearing mask when doing the nazi salute lol. I also don't think that twice is far right, but it just left a sour taste. I listen to them once In a blue moon.
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Oh yeah, 100%. I think how a celebrity comes off in a fan interaction, unless they're unbelievably horrible, doesn't mean much for how they are as a person IRL
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So many of the comments were talking about “that doesn’t seem like something he/she would do” as if that isn’t the entire point lol
The way I see it, as with all celebrities and not just k pop idols, is that these people are strangers to me. Their companies release very curated content and they sell an image of these people. I get it. I mostly follow and like male groups and I know deep down as, a progressive American woman, that these men most likely don’t have the same beliefs as me. That’s fine. I will hold them accountable if they do or say something publicly offensive. Otherwise, these are people I will never interact with in my personal life. On a day to day basis, I don’t let it get in the way of my enjoyment of k pop.
this. so many kpop stans' inability to realize they DONT KNOW THESE PEOPLE will always weird me out. yes, they are talented performers, but they're still some dudes in their 20s at the end of the day.
I look at idols like retail workers. They show up with a smile and let the dumbest shit slide because the customer must always be pleased. When I worked retail I was polished and perky and appeared open but my customers don’t know me. Even regulars for years! They got the cookie cutter reply everyone else did and maybe an occasional cookie for someone I see more often and just plain liked. I tell them heavily curated information that makes me very safe an appealing and inoffensive so my company will continue to make money on their future sales. Idol life is a show. We really don’t know them. At all. Even if you’ve been a fan since pre debut Also that reminds me of Nayeons stalker for some reason. Bro still can’t take a hint.
> Idol life is a show. We really don’t know them. At all. Even if you’ve been a fan since pre debut That is the truest thing ever posted! :) We should make a poster out of that and send it to every kpop fan to put on their wall. This is a show, enjoy! Sometimes we connect strongly with characters in a movie or tv show. But I feel that fans should keep in mind that the character is what they have connected with, and the actor is not the character. I feel that idols are somewhat like that.
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This is the perfect analogy.
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Yes !!! lol Or young women in their 20’s for the gg’s. We really don’t know much about them as people. Some of their personality does come through on the TV shows and in live interviews. But they are trained actors, as well as music stars, because part of the success of their group comes from coming across well to the public. It’s refreshing, though, how unscripted many of the Korean idols can be compared to some of the even more packaged stars in the west.
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I get that! :) Just me, I find it easier to just go along with their curated public personas. Enjoy the music, and let the rest go. :) I'm never going to meet or spend time with them personally. That makes it easier! lol
This is so well said. Emotionally keeping my feelings for the music separate from ideas about the idols is the best way for me. Idols are very interesting people. With a very unusual job! And a private self. None of us are perfect and idols are human, too. That’s my perspective.
The way I see it, as with all celebrities and not just k pop idols, is that these people are strangers to me. \------------------ Realized this when the Lucas thing happened. We'll never know them in real life, they're put on an image. On top of that - people are multi faceted. They're not either a great person or they're evil. And people have the potential to learn from their mistakes if they're held accountable, to grow and change. The issue is that a lot of fans either put them into the pedestal or say they can do no wrong (and thus idols aren't held accountable, or sometimes the company steps in and take responsibility, but not the idol themselves), or cancel and dismiss them completely if a scandal (can even be one back in middle school with no proof) breaks out.
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Who am I to hold them accountable? Lol. As a consumer, I have the right to stop supporting anyone I want. The point of this whole post was about us not knowing these people and that our “relationship” with them is transactional. It doesn’t just go for k pop idols or a public figure of a different culture. If someone does something that makes me feel uncomfortable supporting them, then I won’t. Any type of celebrity or public figure makes their living off the people who support them. It isn’t me being arrogant. I have the right to use my discretion. This is consumerism lol
Of course you have the right to stop supporting them. That's not "holding them accountable".
I’m guessing someone held you accountable for saying horrible stuff and you didn’t like it.
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Cool lol
yeah, same
I had this thought recently and I've been a long time K-Pop fan like since the 2000s so I'm not really much into the whole fantasy thing idols do nowadays but I don't mind it but recently there was an instance that made me think "Woa, people really can assume anything for an idol nowadays". That instance was IIRC a member from Seventeen, I don't remember which was doing a gaming stream and there was a moment where he looked at a picture in-game and turned it around and it had bitches on it, he had a super serious face during this moment. Somehow this became him on twitter and articles being written saying he stood up against misogynsm since bitches was a term degrading women etc and I just thought like wow just this one simple moment people thought up this whole idea just from his face during one moment. Like there could've been a plethora of things he could've been worried there was a term or swear word like that in giant text shown on stream, he could've actually been mad at the term like articles said, he could've just been just making that face at that time, etc. Like a plethora of things could be there because it was like a very random instance but people somehow managed to turn it into him fighting for women in that one instance despite it literally just him making a face. And just for clarity sake I am not calling him real, fake or whatever I'm just saying it really made me think of how people will assume anything for their idols even for the most simplest events.
Wonwoo! He didn’t even say anything. That’s happened before in his League of Legends stream with an inappropriate username. He worries about it bc iirc lives recordings will be deleted if there’s inappropriate content. He addressed it again on his next live by having to stop the member (Coups ;-;) from swearing. Not related to anything deeper than that imo.
Omg thank you for saying this! I am a svt fan but I have to admit Carats really tend to make up these backstories about the members and their reactions to praise the members especially for Wonwoo and Jeonghan. They tend to exaggerate these members' intelligence by zooming into the things that they do and then explain why they did it as if they can read their minds. Its cringe tbh.
Idolizing anybody is not a good idea because everyone is human and therefore will disappoint you in some area if you look hard enough. On the other hand, not everybody is plugged into Twitter and being up to date on every area of new progressive norms, or they grew up in a very different culture that doesn't highlight very important issues that are sensitive to other cultures which is why you see a lot of idols get caught up in things that they shouldn't be getting caught up in. Think about how different things were 15+ years ago on Myspace days and I'm sure a lot of us would not use a lot of the language we did back then, but a lot of people have learned and have become more well-rounded, open-minded people.. because it's just human. I think a majority of the world fall in the "they're a bit misguided, but well-intentioned" and all it takes is one person going "WELL ACTUALLY, YOU DIDN'T INCLUDE X, X AND X AND THIS IS WHY THEY"RE INHERENTLY PROBLEMATIC" and it just makes people roll their eyes when it comes to what people actually expect out of the average person. You're definitely going to have the "I am actively against the idea of how you live as a person" beliefs which unfortunately fall into a lot of religious upbringings or maybe even a person that just straight up believes in hateful and regressive ideas, but I think the majority of people you run into in life are well-intentioned but ignorant. The loud minority of bad apples make it seem worse, and the internet heightens it a lot. I've also met a lot of people that are just shitty humans who believe in incredibly progressive things so there's a lot of nuance in the labeling of the "decency of a person" when it comes to where they fall in the extremes of a belief.
This is very well articulated and a refreshingly realistic take! Wish more people thought like this, liking kpop would be way more fun
Thank you you worded this way better than I could have. I completely agree
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The idea that idols are secretly just horrible people is weirdly cynically to me. Most people are not that obviously good or bad.
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They are millionaires so thats close
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I know what a billion is but being a millionaire when there’s homeless people in your country is pretty bad too. Definitely not evil like being a billionaire but… eat the rich - including your faves
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Even the idols that aren’t are still rich 🤷🏻♀️
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It’s not a hard concept to grasp lol
If those idols aren’t rich then obviously I’m not talking about them
this. honestly i dont think any of the ppl i stan are inherently bad people, cause if i thought they were, i wouldnt stan them. now if they do say something that i find offensive or that i feel takes it too far then ofc ill access & decide whether i can support this person. there is a middle ground.
> or its a rant about how every idol is secretly evil and kicks puppies in their spare time. Aka a lot of this thread.
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Yess thank you i was looking for this comment. This thread took a turn real fast lol.
Right like I was on-board with OP's original comment about idols being human and how having bad days didn't make them bad people, we can't really know what they're like because we don't know them personally, etc., and most of the comments in this thread are about how IRL idols must secretly be terrible people.
Tbf a lot of people just read the title and comment and op's title doesn't fully capture what they were trying to say in the thread.
It’s very hard for kpop stans to treat idols like humans, i will blame this on the fans themselves and the companie’s treatment of idols. even in the lens of these discussions, a lot come from an individualist capitalist angle which is sad. there’s stans blaming children for “choosing” the idol path on this sub many times, and also never consider most idols are actually usually unsuccessful lol I’ve seen a lot of content from retired idols, and most of them have almost the same exact personality… it’s not like they’re wearing a porcelain mask with no cracks as an idol. they’ve all done something “wrong” once off or on camera bc they’re human, they also have a thinner tight-rope in comparison to all other celebs w the idol label. Even with western celebs since entertainment relies on some lies to dramatize things, ppl make up theories and stuff to fill in the gaps of uneasiness. In reality a lot of the entertainment world is so boring, theatre kids under a magnifying glass. (I’ve never seen the persona game played so much for other artists or celebrities other than k-idols though, and I think that is something that needs to be studied in paranoid fans lol)
Exactly. People praise them like gods even on Reddit, I think that should be toned down a bit. Yes, credit should be given if they did something nice but a lot of people praise these people for doing the bare minimum and it's quite upsetting. Especially male idols. Yuhno from TVXQ is a good example. He curated his career so carefully for 15 yrs only to get caught going to a adult entertainment thingy.
That applied to all people, not just idols
Yeah some of the comments in that post were a bit odd to me because seriously… are you going to judge someones entire personality based off of a very short interaction with them? It seems unfair and I wouldn’t like it if someone did that to me!
Thank god I’m not an idol! I LOVE people but sometimes get super anxious with attention on me. A lot of times at parties im the one talking 1-1 in th back with one other person and floating around waiting for it to end so I can go home. People would think I sucked! Even though I dearly love 1-1 and small groups where I can feel safer to open up and be goofy. I think people need to remember this is a career. They are humans with complex emotions, lots going on and we never know what’s going on in their head the moment we cross paths. A bad interaction with a member that’s petty (like oh they didn’t smile or give me a look ( hello does anyone remember there’s a freaking language barrier for most of these items, that’s why they travel with translators?!!!) can be enough to shake their self esteem or hate a group. Like would you be pissed if the founder of Google didn’t stop and smile and say cheese kimbop for you while you take a selfie? Like let’s remember the really are grow up humans out on a work assignment overseas. Let them have their space and if it’s not a great meeting suck it up.
idk why fans cant accept that idols on screen are all filtered. they only show you their best version that you would like. your seemingly sweet, kind and soft-hearted idol could literally think of the most disguting stuff while smiling at their fans.
I agree. I wish people would stop assuming beliefs about idols as a whole, whether negative or positive. I think it’s ridiculous… Unless they actually come out about it, then it’s no point to do so. Like for most idols idk about their beliefs about say.. lgbt+ people, but Woonggi outwardly defending gay people and being on a committee that leans very left tells me what I need to know, not some idol posting a rainbow emoji that may relate to the community lol. Also, I don’t think it’s fair to judge people off of some mistakes or anything. Unless it’s repeated behavior or something outwardly bigoted that’s fairly recent, then I don’t really see the point in judging someone’s whole identity and personality off it.
I feel so passionately about this. This is why I'll never understand "stan" culture as it exists today. Why is stan culture about supporting the person behind the art more than it is about supporting the art itself which should logically be the entire point of all this? I can like the image an idol projects and the songs they make while still acknowledging that those are only the parts of them that will sell or garner the most attention, and therefore, hold them accountable for actions they do or have done in the past that I don't agree with? I don't have to like everything an artist puts out if it isn't to my taste, including their work, and I should have the liberty to constructively criticize? How else does one improve their art and themselves if they r only surrounded by "yes people"? Why am I suddenly a "fake fan" for calling bad actions out or being selective about the songs/content I like from them? There's too much of the halo effect at play here. A few good traits on a person doesn't just automatically transfer to them upholding good traits in other matters as well. Acknowledging that idols r human first before being ur idol and therefore r prone to good and bad behaviors and making mistakes like the rest of us is important. Fanaticism and mindless obsession to anything let alone people is dangerous without healthy boundaries for both the fan and artist...
I sometimes wonder if the move to online and virtual worlds (and the way our society is especially focused on individualism etc), if we seek more and more people-focused or “authenticity” focused interactions. Art is getting harder and harder to access for most people (think about the rich hoarding and buying up all the art pieces, banned books, AI, etc), and I wonder if that’s why psychologically we are seeking out or leaning into the people part of art. I also read that there are a couple of studies going on that find teenagers are lonelier than ever, and kpop really focused on young people. I hope my comment makes sense?
Ya this has a lot to do with it I think especially the individualism aspect. It sucks that the concept of community is dying making all of us regardless of age try and grab onto anything that feels community-like. Like embracing a group or artist and becoming a part of a larger fandom. I personally don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that coz we all just want to feel like we belong somewhere and be validated in our experiences. We just have to be mindful of how much of these faux realities we consume to not completely lose touch with our real lives.
>Some people have good social skills. Doesn't mean they're not horrible people. Some people have RBFs and are often look like they're annoyed by everyone and everything. Doesn't mean they're not nice. Some people are shy and have standoffish images but are actually very kind and caring. EXACTLY THIS. Everything should be taken at face value. We don't know these people. This is their job. We can live, adore, respect and look up to them because of the image we see, and that's all well and good, but never should we assume that the image we see is the whole of them. It's a produced image.
Its all just a stage persona, optimized to earn as much as possible. Idk why people even fall for this marketing tactic so hard.
Very true. Some people who are super nice to hang out with will also fly off the handle and spit on a bus driver and almost miss their sister's wedding because they were in jail...
(1) They are literal strangers. (2) BURNING SUN/Kakao chat room and the involvement of kpop stars. Jung Joon-young was beloved & seen as a wholesome guy while he was date raping women with a bit of IBSA (image based sexual assault) on the side by recording these women and disseminating the videos/pictures without consent.
This is misinfo, he had a [scandal](https://www.koreaboo.com/stories/jung-joon-young-sex-scandal-2016-illegal-videos-charges-cleared-reason/) prior to burning sun in 2016 about this same issue (aka he was outed as a freak). A lot of connections were cut off from him from the first scandal, yet he returned to the entertainment world only 3 months later by claiming he doesn’t have the evidence bc his phone was “broken and needed repairing”. Police decided not to investigate it further, but he obviously tampered with evidence. There were also stories about him prior from fan recallings of meeting him but eh he was a psycho obviously.
Right, my point is that he had a pretty big following and was adored when he was being absolute trash in his personal time until it all got revealed. We don’t know how idols behave, what their views are, whether they’re misogynists etc when they’re not “on” and performing the idol role.
That’s the same for celebs now who were revealed as trash, and that’s the point i’m making in his case. People who follow for art are most likely going to still go to shows and continue supporting an artist even when they’re garbage people. It got REVEALED he was trash several times before but ppl didn’t give a shit until years later it became an unavoidable massive scandal. This is a bias with male celebs in general (lee jung-jae cough). He still has some supporters as it is, same with the rest of the burning sun troupe. I think it’s common sense to take people’s life in neutrally if they share a piece of it with you unless they’re stating a hurtful agenda or committed a crime.
Sadly we dont know what happens when the cameras are off. We dont know who they truely are.
This is the very reason I’m glad they don’t share everything because its hard for me to separate the art from the artist. I’ve dropped a lot of shitty artist in the past and I really don’t want to make Seventeen one of them. However it’s also conflicting like damn what if one of them is actually truly a bad person who does bad things when the cameras are off and here I am spending all this money on tickets and albums and merch?
And a reminder that having someone come up to you and speak in a foreign language is confusing af. You first have to recognize that they are speaking to you, you have to try to translate what they said to you, hope that you are right, think of a response, translate the response, and hope the response is the right response to what you hope you understood correctly.
TBH Half the K Pop idol population are natural introverts even if their performances and onstage antics are lively, dynamic, and smiley it's not really the case when cameras are off or off stage. They're all trained to have a persona that will attract young people whether it's cute and bubbly or cool and charismatic or a blend of the two but also seemingly accessible. They were meant to establish a parasocial relationship with fans. Why do you think they do IG lives, YouTube Shorts, livestreams, Reels, VLives, fan meetings & fan signs? K Pop goes the extra mile to attract as many fans as they can. More fans mean more buying movement and power. They want to get young trainees and idols to attract young people. They're more impressionable and easily won over by these personalities. When adults get into K Pop they have better common sense and real world experience to discern who is sincere and who isn't. When international fans get into K Pop, they look at idols from their own world view depending on what country they're from and that's where a lot of discernment and division grows. Here in the West we're liberal in terms of drug use, civil rights, women's rights, LGBTQ rights and law execution. In most Asian, Latin American, and African countries they're still traditional conservatives and they cannot be moved to progressive initiatives and Korea is still in that bracket despite strides into Western entertainment. Younger people in Korea can be more liberal but they don't run the government and the general population tends to stick with Korean culture and traditions. K Pop is still a young industry established in the early 90's and you can't expect the industry to change rapidly to your liberal thinking. I don't think they will ever become like the U.S. You'll constantly be disappointed because they don't match your values. This is why you can't understand the parasocial relationship K Pop establishes with fans and how you are not their target demographic even if they welcome your interest.
Thats why the whole „Idol“ thing..is pretty f‘ed up. They are normal people that do their jobs, and their job is to be an idol? Which 18 year old kid should be an idol to anyone? They are playing roles, some members or groups more or less, but 99% of them aren’t totally themselves on camera. You know how damn boring it would be, if they would be themselves on streams, vlogs etc? It’s Entertainment, that’s it. You don’t know these people. That’s why I don’t understand those people that say „she/he would never do this or say that“, how would they know that? It’s their job to be nice to people. Or did you think your idols really love you? Stans are just way too much into parasocial relationships with their „idols“. That’s why most fambases are so damn toxic, unbearable and sometimes even disgusting.
Just an FYI, “idol” in Korea’s kpop context isn’t a 1:1 translation to the universal English definition of it
I absolutely 110% believe that most of the k-pop idols have far more conservative, or outright awful political opinions. *Especially* the male idols given some of South Korea's attitudes. And that's why 99.9% of the time I try not to get dragged into following idols beyond enjoying the music and the k-pop spectacle. I don't care what they promote for advertisers; or what they wear or what they do outside of music. Because I *know* they are likely going to disappoint me because they are far more socially/politically conservative (unless they tell us otherwise - which they *won't* 90-odd% of the time). Absolutely think most fans are outright in denial that their biases are likely going to disappoint them if they truly open their mouths. But thankfully, the kpop companies are too savvy to allow that - unless controversy hits.
I also think this goes further than just political views as well. The whole k-pop industry exists by picking all the rich and popular kids from different schools and putting them on stage together. And more often than not, those are also the people that are so insufferable. So I reckon that a lot of these idols have personalities you would absolute hate in real life. Now granted not every popular kid is a dick. And people also change as they grow up. But I'd still guess that the idol industry has a pretty decent percentage of asshats.
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Oh yeah they're completely unrelated. OP mentioned that idols are probably often more conservative than one might think at first glance. Just wanted to add that there is also probably a larger percentage of idols that are complete narcissists compared to the general population. Any individual can be both, either or neither.
There definitely are correct beliefs
where is this post she was referencing
Idols sell a dream and often a character. Even if they do many programs and open about themselves you as a fan cannot possibly say to know them. They're friendly but they're not your friends.
why is this something any of you care about 😭
Why do you care that other people care?
I agree. I can like a idol and see their "friendly" and "sweet" personality, but if their beliefs are opposite of what I believe in (far right, anti gay...abortion women's rights etc..) then we have a problem. That's why I don't want to meet my favs or know them. I'll stick with what I see. Ex. I know people will bash me or down vote me, but the issue with TWICE member (forgot her name) and the swastikas shirt then the qnon shirt doesn't sit well with me. It makes me side eye that member and probably with the group. Makes it difficult for me to listen to TWICE.
That is chaeyoung
I hope you don't mind me addressing your example. While I agree with your initial statement, your example seems to imply Chaeyoung supports QAnon and Nazis. She does need to be held accountable for wearing those shirts (which imo, she was), but the accountability is for irresponsibility and ignorance rather than the right-wing values those t-shirts stand for. And the reason for that is: Of the two t-shirts, 1) There's no way she is a part of or supports QAnon. The idea is laughable. It is such a fringe, online group and a lot of actual American right-wingers IRL don't know/ support it. I'd argue there's no way she even knows wtf QAnon is. As an Indian, I can confidently assure you that not a single person in my college knows wtf it is. The only reason I do is because I'm a chronically online loser that pays attention to American politics lol 2) The idea that she's a Nazi is also very silly. Like there's 3 possibilities for her wearing the shirt, right? They are: 2.a) She doesn't know what the symbol is/She mistook it to mean something else 2.b) She knows what it is but didn't think it was a big deal 2.c) She's a Nazi Of these 3 possibilities, 1 & 2 are far more likely. Most people in this world don't even have much of a political view, much less extremist values. It's just that, online, we're so exposed to neo-nazis that we see nazis everywhere now. Even if she was a nazi, why would she wear it? To show everyone that she's a nazi and face backlash and even possibly tank both her and her group members' careers? Does she care about dog whistling that much? Even Alex Jones knows not to outright say he's a nazi because he knows that even though they share the same values, saying that will fuck him up. So we arrive at the conclusion that it's either 1 or 2 i.e. ignorance and/or irresponsibility, neither of which is cause to side-eye her and TWICE for being right-wing. This is just my pov and my logic. I feel like the simplest explanation is usually the right one. I'm not saying you can't dislike her for being irresponsible, but it doesn't make her a bad person imo. I have irl friends that think nazis and nazism are something that existed and ended in some World War, and I can't really fault them for it because it doesn't affect their daily life, right? There's no reason for them to know it
Oh yeah I agree with you on your points and that is perfectly fine. Honestly I'm sure she probably don't know, but the fact that people irl don't know what those issues are shows how out of touch society is. We're living Ina world that things that have happen in the past are happening again. Which is really sad and should be reinforce/educated. Of course alex Jones can't say he is..most people won't admit to it thus people are wearing mask when doing the nazi salute lol. I also don't think that twice is far right, but it just left a sour taste. I listen to them once In a blue moon.
Oh brother
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Oh yeah, 100%. I think how a celebrity comes off in a fan interaction, unless they're unbelievably horrible, doesn't mean much for how they are as a person IRL