K-pop "fans" and all that entails

[eri]

And I say this as someone with major personal baggage re: racism between Koreans, Japanese, and the holier-than-though all-colored-Americans but it isn't about being offended. Things will stand out more obviously when you're personally hurt about it but phrasing it as such tends to reduce the problem to one individual's personal and emotional response. Thus, anything is bad/wrong if someone is hurt about it = stupid. The problem I have with this thread is how our casual discussions are starting to replicate and naturalize the sort of terrible stereotyping that contributes to more awful things in life.



[quote name='DarkRidley' post='85776' date='Sep 25 2010, 03:14 PM']Some Korean K-pop fans really seem to hate the idea of Japanese artists debuting and I wondered why that hate was so pronounced. If it isn't national pride, it isn't national pride, but I was just entertaining the notion.[/quote]



It is true that nationalism runs very strong in S. Korea compared to places like Japan. However this is because of the on-going and unresolved issues spun from Japanese colonialism, including an entire psuedo-science and sociological legacy of Japanese racial superiority over other Asians that lives on today (Koreans are violent! Koreans, Chinese, and black Americans cause all the crime in Japan!) and the poor treatment of Korean-Japanese. Korean nationalism also is very strong because of the brutal civil war that completely divided the country based on some self-defining ideology and continues to be experienced every day because of NKorea's batshit weirdness.



So there are 3 points I want to finally make.

First, there are deep historical and factual reasons why Korean nationalism is so strong. None of these things seem to enter into people's minds when they see something stupid like an SNDS/S/mileage comparison. I really like that our board members are generally smarter than the average netizen (ha! I said it!) but this thread is running dangerously close to theories of "Korean culture" bullshit ("culture" being a pretty code word for stereotyping now that vulgar racism is declasse). We can talk about crazy behavior or racism held by those anti-fans without replicating their problems.



Second, your comment in particular is mapping these countries on some weird level of "progress." Unintentionally, you have resurrected the age old formula to denigrate people and places that are "socially behind" as being overly emotional, irrational, etc. Militant feminazis who just need to get laid, angry black people who can't let go, irrational immigrants like those fiery and religious latinos, the poor that lack self restraint, the drunken Irish, the barbaric and childlike Africans...they just need our guidance and wisdom, you know? And DarkRidley, I'm not calling YOU out as someone who has these beliefs but your wording really easily falls into these tropes of domination <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':puppyeyes:' />



Thirdly, we're taking a very small subset of a fan base -- and our understanding of this fanbase is selectively screened through mostly US-based fan sites -- as some indicator of what might be "wrong" with an entire country of people. I'm not trying to discount AEUG's experience with that shithead store owner, but I can't understand how an American immigrant's cold reaction to a customer who cannot speak or understand Korean (can you?) and is not his usual customer base has much to do with the insanity of jealous 12 year old anti-fans in South Korea. The only thing that relates the two scenarios is that both include 1) Korean people and 2) Korean people who are bitchy. This is just stereotyping. That is why I cobbled together an alternative scenario based on my own experience. It should have seemed silly and racist to use my bad experience with this Nordstrom's guy AND random youtube comments as some evidence for the mystery of "White people." Doesn't mean this guy wasn't a jerk. Doesn't mean youtube commenters aren't insane. But the relationships being drawn on these tenuous examples are very unsound.



And in case I get a lot of butthurt defensive replies of "but my best friend is Korean OMG," there is a big difference between straight up racism and the kind of racializations/stereotype thinking that happens on a daily level. Both of them suck, but I'm not sitting here screaming:

[DarkRidley]

So there are 3 points I want to finally make.

First, there are deep historical and factual reasons why Korean nationalism is so strong. None of these things seem to enter into people's minds when they see something stupid like an SNDS/S/mileage comparison. I really like that our board members are generally smarter than the average netizen (ha! I said it!) but this thread is running dangerously close to theories of "Korean culture" bullshit ("culture" being a pretty code word for stereotyping now that vulgar racism is declasse). We can talk about crazy behavior or racism held by those anti-fans without replicating their problems.

I suppose I'm just thinking too hard about it. I should have known better than to invoke the "n" word, considering that I have such a interest in Korea's modern history.

Second, your comment in particular is mapping these countries on some weird level of "progress." Unintentionally, you have resurrected the age old formula to denigrate people and places that are "socially behind" as being overly emotional, irrational, etc. Militant feminazis who just need to get laid, angry black people who can't let go, irrational immigrants like those fiery and religious latinos, the poor that lack self restraint, the drunken Irish, the barbaric and childlike Africans...they just need our guidance and wisdom, you know? And DarkRidley, I'm not calling YOU out as someone who has these beliefs but your wording really easily falls into these tropes of domination <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':puppyeyes:' />

My god, I didn't mean it to come across like that at all! I'll happily retract my statement if it was so implicitly imperialistic. It was out of line.

[Special Needs Tricycle]

Are we really turning this thread into another racism shitfest. Post more crazy K-Pop fans please. You guys remember SNSD at the dream concert?

[AEUGNewtype]

So there are 3 points I want to finally make.

First, there are deep historical and factual reasons why Korean nationalism is so strong. None of these things seem to enter into people's minds when they see something stupid like an SNDS/S/mileage comparison. I really like that our board members are generally smarter than the average netizen (ha! I said it!) but this thread is running dangerously close to theories of "Korean culture" bullshit ("culture" being a pretty code word for stereotyping now that vulgar racism is declasse). We can talk about crazy behavior or racism held by those anti-fans without replicating their problems.

So what would you call the history, learnings, and traditions of a certain nationality or country if "culture" is now too vulgar for you?

Thirdly, we're taking a very small subset of a fan base -- and our understanding of this fanbase is selectively screened through mostly US-based fan sites -- as some indicator of what might be "wrong" with an entire country of people. I'm not trying to discount AEUG's experience with that shithead store owner, but I can't understand how an American immigrant's cold reaction to a customer who cannot speak or understand Korean (can you?) and is not his usual customer base has much to do with the insanity of jealous 12 year old anti-fans in South Korea. The only thing that relates the two scenarios is that both include 1) Korean people and 2) Korean people who are bitchy. This is just stereotyping. That is why I cobbled together an alternative scenario based on my own experience. It should have seemed silly and racist to use my bad experience with this Nordstrom's guy AND random youtube comments as some evidence for the mystery of "White people." Doesn't mean this guy wasn't a jerk. Doesn't mean youtube commenters aren't insane. But the relationships being drawn on these tenuous examples are very unsound.

First, yes, I do understand Korean, I wasn't just saying that to get a raise out of him or something.



And second, I do see what you mean that the lines linking our personal experiences with one or a few people of a certain race/nationality/whatever to that of the entire group of people may be pretty blurry, but I'm not going to say they're completely unrelated or completely related, they're probably somewhere in between and it's honestly pretty hard not to link a personally emotional experience to a certain happenstance when something like that happens. Once you think about it logically for a minute, of course it doesn't make any sense, but the human brain instantly triggers a response based on what you've felt with experiences surrounding that type of event . Say if some old white guy with long hair, a beard and glasses started harassing me one day and really pissed me off. Say a couple weeks later I run into a guy who looks, acts and talks like him, my brain is going to instantly think "here we go again..." even when the second guy could be the nicest guy around. And any decent person wouldn't instantly use that to hold some kind of hateful bias before even talking to them, but its something that we go through when you've had a bad experience. I did write my original post about the incident pretty quickly without thinking about it too much, which was a bad idea, I didn't mean it to sound so ridiculous, but it came out a little more emotionally than it would've if I had thought about it for a minute and let the feeling die down.



We could be encountering a small sector of people from that group who have those same overly nationalistic and closed-minded mindsets when the whole rest of the population is completely the opposite of them. This has to be true, either way to some extent since, even with as cliche as it sounds (like you mentioned before) I have a number of Korean friends who are the nicest, most open-minded people I've known, and even had a girlfriend who was an exchange student from Korea, so obviously she didn't have a problem with white people. I guess shithead store owners and shithead Kpop fans are just in the same boat after all; just plain shitheads, which can come from any race and anywhere in the world.

[ayaya chan]

[quote name='Special Needs Tricycle' post='85807' date='Sep 26 2010, 06:29 PM']Are we really turning this thread into another racism shitfest. Post more crazy K-Pop fans please. You guys remember SNSD at the dream concert?[/quote]



The one where Super Junior and DBSK fans chanted Wondergirls name when SNSD performed because their fans apparently ripped SJ banner?

That was epic <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... popper.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':puppyeyes:' />

[Special Needs Tricycle]

[quote name='ayaya chan' post='85856' date='Sep 28 2010, 03:47 AM'][quote name='Special Needs Tricycle' post='85807' date='Sep 26 2010, 06:29 PM']Are we really turning this thread into another racism shitfest. Post more crazy K-Pop fans please. You guys remember SNSD at the dream concert?[/quote]



The one where Super Junior and DBSK fans chanted Wondergirls name when SNSD performed because their fans apparently ripped SJ banner?

That was epic <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... popper.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':puppyeyes:' />

[/quote]

YES. And there were huge ESSAYS about how SNSD is just a bunch of rude bitches because Tiffany didn't bow 90 degrees to one of her seniors or some shit. I understand there's cultural values and w/e but GOD DAMN.



HAHAHAHA I FOUND IT http://shenyuepop.com/2008/06/11/why-did-it-happen/



Yes, let's compare mad cow disease and genocide to Tiffany not bowing fully.

[tsukinobyouin]

[quote name='Special Needs Tricycle' post='85860' date='Sep 28 2010, 06:02 AM']HAHAHAHA I FOUND IT http://shenyuepop.com/2008/06/11/why-did-it-happen/



Yes, let's compare mad cow disease and genocide to Tiffany not bowing fully.[/quote]



Oh man, I just KNEW somehow all of this ridiculous anti-fan behavior had to come back to the root of all evil, George W. Bush. It all makes sense now. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... #>/doh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':cryalot:' />

[Arichii]

[quote name='Special Needs Tricycle' post='85860' date='Sep 28 2010, 03:02 AM']r:

YES. And there were huge ESSAYS about how SNSD is just a bunch of rude bitches because Tiffany didn't bow 90 degrees to one of her seniors or some shit. I understand there's cultural values and w/e but GOD DAMN.[/quote]



Haha, you know if that gets to you a few anti-fans made SNSD their own anti-forum. O_o The anti-forum isn't like OMG I HATE SNSD THEY'RE SO UGLY!! . But it's still really interesting how people make enough time to write full in depth analyses of how SNSD is bad and so forth.

[fpd]

[quote name='Arichii' post='85880' date='Sep 28 2010, 11:09 PM'][quote name='Special Needs Tricycle' post='85860' date='Sep 28 2010, 03:02 AM']r:

YES. And there were huge ESSAYS about how SNSD is just a bunch of rude bitches because Tiffany didn't bow 90 degrees to one of her seniors or some shit. I understand there's cultural values and w/e but GOD DAMN.[/quote]



Haha, you know if that gets to you a few anti-fans made SNSD their own anti-forum. O_o The anti-forum isn't like OMG I HATE SNSD THEY'RE SO UGLY!! . But it's still really interesting how people make enough time to write full in depth analyses of how SNSD is bad and so forth.

[/quote]

Awesome, I hadn't read about that Jpop covers cd anywhere else, that's awesome! lol

[surasshu]

Unless they really blew the marketing on that one (by giving it the same exact name), that's just a compilation album, they're not actually covering the songs. They released that 2 or so years ago in Korea, and the names just show who picked what song. Not to stray from the topic too much, but I can't help but feel that Universal/SM Town are just milking the Japanese fans. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':cryalot:' />



I guess it's not too surprising that a forum full of antis is misinformed. They have already proven themselves to be petty and stupid, after all.

[showraniy]

[quote name='Special Needs Tricycle' post='85860' date='Sep 28 2010, 06:02 AM']HAHAHAHA I FOUND IT http://shenyuepop.com/2008/06/11/why-did-it-happen/



Yes, let's compare mad cow disease and genocide to Tiffany not bowing fully.[/quote]



Wow, that article is horribly written... Either the argument is horribly organized and presented or the argument itself is just horrid. Probably both. I could see why fans would complain of their articles not being researched properly since a lot of it is (ridiculous) conjecture based entirely on the writer's opinion. D:



But hey, if fans rioting over Tiffany not bowing 90 degrees and Taeyeon calling Kangin an idiot has a legitimate link to coping with South Korea's political affairs, then so be it. I guess similar links could be made to instances in the West of entertainers getting the brunt of the public's issues with other problems. I understand the cultural difference of respect and how it's portrayed in Korea, but I still can't help but feel that the fans making a big deal out of all of these cases are blowing things out of proportion, and the only reason I can think of is that they have too little to do outside of those things. Paying money annually to have cards or whatever legitimizing what official fanclubs they belong to, waging wars with fans of other artists, and attending any small event an artist from their favorite group attends just to stand around and watch them do... whatever... All of it seems like the entirety of that person's energy is going towards hanging around this particular artist or group, and with that much invested in something, it's hard not to imagine intense fights and hate happening between. The artists seem like they only get caught in the crossfire of fanclub wars, I guess.