[theqoo] THE LOW HUMAN RIGHTS TO KPOP FANGIRLS WILL EARN YOU MONEY

Idol fan signing event underwear inspection

This is not an mere “happening” caused by security concerns.

K-pop influences the way fans live and think.

It has a huge impact

It leads to violent trauma, sometimes humiliation

Regarding this incident, K-pop fans raised their voices saying that it was clear SH and that legal punishment was needed, but the agency dismissed it, saying that there was no SH, and issued an apology claiming it was “body check” rather than SH. If SH is a ‘body check’, is grabbing someone by the collar a ‘free hug’?

It is a typical secondary victimization tactic to treat an incident that clearly occurred while leveraging on the fear and humiliation felt by the fans to pretend as if nothing happened. While K-pop has been revered as a promising industry and agency buildings have grown like the Tower of Babel, the treatment of fans has declined rather than improved from the days when idol music was looked down on as a sub-genre of ‘dance music’.

The first generation of female idol fans were discriminated against as daughters of the patriarchal system who were supposed to be educated but rather were immersed in low-class culture without studying as they were told to. Now that 4th generation idols have become the mainstream of the industry, they are discriminated against even though the age range of fans has expanded to include all generations and the status of the genre has become incomparably higher.

This is because the low human rights of female fans make money.

The underwear inspection incident at an idol’s fansign event was not a mere “happening” that occurred due to security reasons. This is a negative effect that occurred as the K-pop industry became extremely capitalized and drooled over more money as its body grew, and even areas that were part of the human interaction between fans and singers inadvertently suffered from it.

In a similar case, subscription-type communication services such as Bubble and Weverse DMs are becoming common, is causing complaints from fans due to the nature that the systems collect subscription money from the fans without directly controling the content (of the messages sent by artists). The prices of face-to-face events, such as concerts and fan meetings, have soared to about 1.5 times the pre-pandemic level and are being called ‘spine breakers.’ Fasigns are a promotional method that determines the cut-off point for winning in the order of which fan is able to purchase the most albums. It used to represent the intersect where the agency, which wanted to increase sales, and the fans who wanted to see the idol up close, and the interests were aligned. However, while offline events were halted due to the pandemic, inciting competition among fandoms for first week sales became the center of promotional tactics, fansigns have now become a strict, one-sided atmosphere where inspecting underwear have become common practice for “security” reasons as if fansigns were some type of national secret national event.

This is how K-pop makes money. Ignoring the rights and happiness of female fans who have little political say, and only opening their arms wide to shareholders.