52 The Duality of Twitter Culture Among K-pop Fans

Faculty Mentor: Allison Segal (Writing & Rhetoric, University of Utah, Asia Campus)

South Korean culture has sparked explosive popularity outside Korea with an astounding 156.6 million fans worldwide (Kim, 2022). With this incredible growth of the culture, K-pop has become a new dominant genre of music in the global industry. In particular, BTS has received numerous nominations for Grammy Awards in recent years, revealing its recognition of their profound influence in the global music landscape (The Korea Times, 2022). In addition, the inclusion of several K-pop songs in Hollywood movies, such as “As If It’s Your Last” by Blackpink in Just League and “Zimzalabim” by Red Velvet in Trolls Word Tour (Seijas, 2023), underscores the expanding impact of K-pop on a global scale. Following this popularity, fans worldwide have begun connecting on social media platforms, with Twitter emerging as a hub for interactions. Twitter recently has undergone a name change to X, however, it is still often known as Twitter in various fields, including in academia (Maros & Basek, 2022; Pawening, 2023; Saraswati & Nurbaity, 2020). Here, abundant fan activities occur, exposing users to a digital environment where both personal and public communications occur on a global scale. With a significant portion of international K-pop fans actively participating on Twitter, it prompts a significant question: What are the consequences of this engagement with K-pop on the platform? To answer this, precise research on multiple aspects of Twitter Culture among K-pop fans is necessary. Therefore, exploring the digital fan community, humanitarian-based social actions, cancel culture, and fan war is essential to understanding the dynamics of social media, which play a vital role in global culture.

There are reasons behind the rise of Twitter as the best social media for K-pop activities. Herman (2020b) describes Twitter as a bridge between K-pop and the world, which spreads cultural diffusion across the globe. She says that international fans can check real-time updates on the K-pop industry and share active conversations about them on the platform. They often upload photos of their favorite K-pop idols and use specific hashtags to express their love. Surprisingly, there were 7.8 billion tweets with the hashtag “#KpopTwitter” in 2021 and this marked a 16% increase in Twitter volume worldwide (Hutchinson, 2022). This indicates several important points. It shows that K-pop conversations became more diverse and lively throughout the year. Also, it demonstrates the impacts of K-pop fans in driving trends and interactions on the platform. Now, Twitter has evolved into a virtual world where international K-pop lovers hold substantial influence.

While the strong convergence of global K-pop fans fosters a diverse K-pop culture on Twitter, the resulting consequences are contingent upon the various interpretations of individual fans. One of the examples that reflect this phenomenon is streaming culture, which is the action of excessive listening of music 24 hours a day. Yang (2023) talks about both advocates and opponents of this culture. She states that K-pop fans get involved in this activity to promote their favorite idols and their songs to the general public by ranking high places in music charts or music shows. Fans who support this streaming culture illustrate it as unpaid labor that is something like a hobby that they intentionally do to support their idols. Also, they participate in this to the point that it does not damage their personal lives, without feeling pressure at all. On the other hand, she states that some people are highly skeptical of this activity and the difference between the two parties led to the “#SayNoToStreaming” event. People who go against this activity emphasize the prevalence of pressure and say that it is an action forced by the other fans rather than an individual’s free decision to do it or not. According to her, one Korean fan says that she was forced to prove her support and love for her favorite K-pop idols by participating in streaming culture, and that caused mental and physical exhaustion in her life. These varying responses of the fans to the streaming culture underscore the multiplicity of perspectives within the K-pop fan culture on Twitter.

Moreover, some aspects of the K-pop Twitter culture evoke mixed feelings from the fans. One of the examples is running a K-pop fan account. Herman (2020a) from Forbes interviews two owners of huge K-pop fan counts and explores their experiences of running the accounts for several years. They have begun the activity to provide Korean-to-English translational services for international fans who want to read news and articles. Unfortunately, they reveal their experiences of receiving intense hate comments from their followers when they did not cover something or translate something in a way that fandom disagrees with. They talk about the hardships that they have gone through while running their accounts, which shows the difficulties of managing the accounts where countless audiences are watching. However, there is a passion left for their fan activities. They still enjoy promoting their favorite idols to other users of Twitter and helping other fans to know what is happening in the industry through their translation works. Even though get face criticism from their followers sometimes, they continue to run the accounts. They mention that they are unsure when they will stop supporting K-pop, but they wish to remain members of their fandom at least for now.

Besides the complexity of various events, the K-pop digital fan community fosters positive social networks among the supporters. They energetically produce and spread information about their favorite celebrities by creating content such as fan fiction, videos, art, social movements, and more (Saraswati & Nurbaity, 2020). There are various engaging fan activities that they can join to express their love and support. By participating in those activities with other people from the same fan community, solid human connections develop. Their strong networks bring a sense of belonging and acceptance, which makes Twitter a safe haven where they can freely express their love for K-pop and share positive feelings with their online friends who share the same interests. In their community, geographical boundaries do not matter to support K-pop together. They can use features of Twitter such as uploading replies, hitting likes, sending Direct Messages, or having live audio conversations with a Space to talk to each other. The platform helps them to meet other fans from different countries. The global connectivity among them treats individual fans as a precious member of the community, supporting each other.

Furthermore, humanitarian-oriented actions supported by K-pop fans positively influence not only their fan community but also the society beyond Twitter. The BTS fan community has facilitated meaningful campaigns like “#LoveYourself”, “#SpeakYourself”, and “#BlackLivesMatter”, as well as fundraising projects to support humanitarian causes (Pawening, 2023). Other fandoms have done donation projects, too, Jacob (2022) says that the fans of ATEEZ donated nearly $30,000 to the Polished Man Campaign which provides trauma intervention and recovery programs to children. The fans of Monsta X raised funds for saving koalas during the 2019 and 2020 bushfire season in Australia and donated the money to an Australian Koala hospital. These stories reveal the positive impacts that the networks of K-pop lovers bring. They have a passion for raising the reputation of their favorite K- pop idols, and promoting positive fan culture to the public to fight against negative stereotypes about K-pop. However, the greater motivation for them to combine forces for humanitarian-oriented actions is their genuine enjoyment in contributing to meaningful causes with people who share solidarity with them, the fans of the same community. The positive influences coming from the global K-pop community on Twitter are strong, transforming both individual fans and the world for the better.

On the other hand, the cancel culture in the K-pop community is overt online aggression that contributes to a toxic atmosphere on Twitter. According to McGay (2021), cancel culture is an online phenomenon where problematic celebrities or fans get shamed or ostracized by other internet users. She claims that K-pop fans are particularly active in this regard, they frequently cancel both idols and fans. In extreme cases, they send death threats over disagreements about songs or launch massive attacks on personal opinions. One of the examples of this phenomenon occurred when Lucas from NCT was canceled on Twitter. He was accused by Korean and Chinese women of gaslighting and cheating on them in 2021, then he eventually left his group after his two-year hiatus (Allen, 2023). Even though there were his fans waiting for his return to NCT, he did not come back. Perhaps, he could not come back. Canceling a person on the internet with a massive group of others is not a criticism, but an intense form of violence. This emotionally damages both the person who gets canceled and fans or other people involved in the incident. In addition, it discourages redemption, taking away the opportunity to learn from the problematic behavior in the past. Consequently, this dark side of Twitter culture among K-pop fans highlights the risks associated with open communication and the vulnerability of maintaining a healthy environment on the platform.

Similarly, fan war is another form of intense aggression on Twitter that emerges from rivalries between different fan groups. Barnes (2023) says that it is a phenomenon when different fandoms argue against each other about which fandom is better. It has such a long history in the K-pop industry and it continues to occur frequently nowadays. She talks about the ongoing huge fan war between the fans of Blackpink and the fans of BTS, they upload outrageous posts to attack each other. Especially, the fans of Blackpink spread hate speech and horrible rape jokes about BTS members. Although not all members of the fan communities engage in this brutal activity, the war diminishes the reputation of the entire fandom. There might be people who support both groups or who are not interested in the war at all. Maros and Basek (2022) mention that cyber identity makes people fearless about what they say on the internet, particularly when trying to defend their favorite idols or prioritizing their fandom above other fandoms. Attacking others behind the screen has become effortless with the expansion of Twitter. And the K-pop community vividly exemplifies this toxic trend. No matter whether they win or lose from the fan wars, they become entangled in acts of violence. The harsh conflict between the different fan communities reveals the importance of raising awareness of Twitter’s toxicity and the responsibility of users to promote a healthy environment on the platform.

Twitter is a hub for the expression of love and support for K-pop. Its popularity is not only a domestic trend anymore, it is a global trend that influences a large number of people across the globe. It connects K-pop and its international fans, helping them to actively check news on the industry and have conversations with other fans. Individual fans engage in Twitter with different fan activities. This diverse digital culture built with global fans is linked to the variety of events happening on the platform, bringing mixed consequences. Certain events yield outcomes that are open to the interpretation of individual fans, depending on the different perspectives they have. Thus, the fans have different opinions about activities like streaming and running a fan account. Conversely, there are events with clearly positive or negative impacts. Forming an online fan community and conducting humanitarian-based projects positively influence both fans and the world, while toxic culture and fan war hurt not only celebrities but also all the fans exposed to such incidents. This duality emphasizes the need for borders that people should not cross when social interactions occur on Twitter, as it facilitates the effortless exchange of both constructive and detrimental influences among them. The activation of K-pop fan culture on the platform serves as a cornerstone in shaping global social media trends. So, there is a responsibility to cultivate a healthy digital environment that fosters positive outcomes, thereby elevating international culture through the transformative influences of K-pop.

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