So.... I kind of want to talk about this situation because I think some of the takes I've seen have been very interesting. So I want to start off by saying I'm not a huge ZB1 fan mainly because after the original Purdue series with the OG IOI girls it made me realize how much I'm not billed for temporary groups. So while I might enjoy some of their songs occasionally here and there I am not actively part of the fandoms and I don't normally actively buy albums.
That being said because I am a BND fan I am more aware of this group and then I normally would be for tomorrow show groups.
The thing is I understand some people who are like oh you know idols have favorites when it comes to their fans or sometimes if they see a pretty fan Etc they might do some dumb shit my whole thing is first off there is video evidence of this girl and him talking days before this Lucky draw thing was supposed to happen and she told him what her number was she told him it was a 10.
Now technically there's nothing wrong with this but I do think it's interesting because yeah she's a fan site but some people are overlooking the fact that he might have also just found her attractive like as crazy as that sounds I think people need to understand that people idols are still celebrities. There have been quite a few people idols who have at some point dated people who are considered fans of theirs I'm pretty sure I remember there being one or two cases of this like coming to light at one point for some of them and people not knowing how to feel about it because again there's a power Dynamic there regardless of if you realize it or not.
But the second thing is it feels like everyone lacks empathy here because all the people I've seen who are like yeah I can never spend that much money to go to these things and do x y and z it feels like you're lacking empathy because it didn't happen to you. So many people being like Oh I feel like that's what you get when you want to go to and it's like no. First off let's not normalize this. Him basically cheating grabbing a different number and then saying 10 instead before quickly trying to get rid of the piece of paper before anyone could tell what the hell it says is just fucked up. Second off the fact that he kept denying it when multiple fans there were asking him did you cheat did you cheat because they clearly saw that he cheated because the light from behind him was enough for them to see through the damn paper and him going no no until finally someone sat there and told him we have it on video footage and he went oh sorry.
And that's not to even talk about the footage afterwards or the alleged footage afterwards. For those who are in the world I'm talking about there's also a short clip after this family or whatever of the members getting into the car and then I guess them arriving either at the company or their dorms I'm assuming it's the company and a couple of fans that were near there that taking pictures and he looked genuinely freaking upset while he was getting in and out of the car like he was pissed off that he got called out for that or maybe got chewed out by like their manager or something for getting caught and that was wild because then his apology was a nothing burger. I found out about this because of the apology I was like what the fuck is happening read it and I was still so confused what is this apology for and then of course you had his fans and the fans of zb1 talking about how disappointed they were about the situation but it's like the fact that even when he was apologizing they made it so vague that most people wouldn't know what the fuck it was about which is what got people talking about it more.
And I always want to talk about when situations like this happen why Parasol's relationships are two-way street and why favoritism for certain fans is fucked up.
I feel like I constantly talk about BTS because I was a fan of theirs for such a long time all of my teams and a good chunk of my early twenties. But I know for a fact that each of the members have at least two main fan sites that you will find going to other concerts I've had the opportunity of meeting a v and a JK fan site a few times when I've gone to quite a few of their concerts in America and one in asia. And they were nice people like neither one of them had ever crossed the line they had boundaries and stuff but it was so weird because like this was their job.
They were a fan but both of them took pictures like high quality pictures of them in concerts that they go to around the world they normally go to multiple concerts if not every single one of their stops in world tours take amazing photos and videos and then sell them like that's their whole job they'll make photo albums high quality photo albums of the specific member throughout that tour and they normally like break it up so it's not like you're getting one photo album that has like 50 million pictures you're getting like a photo album of the US leg of the tour a photo album of the Asia leg of the tour a photo album of the European leg of the tour they go to Latin America they normally do North / Latin America in one book a couple hundred pages with hundreds of photos high quality nice as hell looking I'm aware of this because my uncle at one point had bought one of the v photo books for my aunt because she's a huge fan of BTS and v is her favorite member.
I've also sat there and have seen how sometimes this can go to the Fan's head they can go from being a normal fan to becoming stalkerish. I'm talking I this was one of the few times I splurged and had like really good seats near like the stage every time the members walked by they would notice their fan sites they would wave to them they would smile at them they would purposely stand in front of them to pose for a couple of pictures or allow them to take really good videos of them right. They genuinely recognize these people because they show up so often to all of their shows they show up to multiple fan meetings they like do the whole song and dance of it all.
But I'm also aware that there's one like JK fan site because I remember everyone in the fandom was talking about it. They were known because they were really nice they were kind they didn't cross boundaries with JK or the rest of BTS they just went to like the concerts a couple of families and stuff took the pictures took the videos posted them up and then one day something in them kind of just snapped and they went from a normal fan to stalking him. I'm talking all of a sudden they were putting up pictures and videos and photos because they didn't want other people to know if they weren't already paying the money of him in like private settings following him out with friends at restaurants going to fucking corner stores it was wild cuz people talk about it no one shared the photos because thank God. And it got to the point where there have been a few events where he's seen this fan site that he used to stop and he's way bad and he smiled to and you see him look genuinely like either upset or slightly terrified and he point them out too staff. I remember my aunt talking about it because she had saw one of those like I wouldn't call him behind the scenes videos but one of the videos that brands will post up when an idol goes to like an event and I think JK was at some kind of fashion pop-up of that or whatever and there was a point in it and again I don't think like the fashion people knew about this where he looks at his security guard and manager because he sees someone in the crowd that makes him look very uncomfortable and then he goes up and like points to them while whispering something to his staff's ear and they kind of just like no their heads and you'll notice that the staff keep looking in that direction and paying attention and then it came out later on that it was this particular fan site who started stalking him because again the artist noticed this. Mind you hurt and the other girl because both of them are women have been doing this since the members had they did so like this has been something that they've done for over a decade.
Yet something happened within the last 3 to 4 years while the members were going in and out of the army and all that that made this one specific fan site go from being a fairly normal fan who respected the boundaries of their bias to stalking him.
And technically speaking we can't say this would have never happened but it probably would have been less likely to happen regardless of what made this person snap if they weren't getting such preferential treatment. If they weren't aware of the fact that their favorite that their Idol knew their face would purposely stop in front of them so they can take pictures and videos would interact with them that's why I'm like when you see those cute moments at concerts and it's like the same person who posted it up when they go to multiple stops or if they gone to multiple concerts it is 9 out of 10 times because they genuinely show up every goddamn time to multiple concerts pretty damn consistently to the point where the idol recognizes their face.
One might wonder why did this time it blew up so much that other fandoms are talking about it and what is like the discourse in the conversation?
The answer is apparently this isn't his first rodeo this is like the second or third time Gunwoo I believe his name is has allegedly got caught doing this so either homeboy has the absolute worst fucking luck or would I believe it is. He genuinely does not give a fuck he thinks that his fans are not going to care so he can just sit there and manipulate it so that it's either a fan site or a fan that he might find really pretty that gets to take the Polaroid picture with him or get a hug or whatever the fuck it is.
And as fucked up as that is it makes sense because that's exactly what they're fandom is doing not everyone but a good chunk of the zb1 fandom is literally sitting there going of course he would do that idols probably do this all the time he just got caught. It's no big deal it's disappointing but and that's the issue. I feel like something that a lot of fans especially International fans don't seem to understand is the Asian fans don't like when they do this shit either it's just that the companies aren't going to necessarily listen to them half as much because they're not as big. Like this is something that has happened a few times in the past and if you've ever been on the Asian side of social media or on the Internet especially around the K-pop fans you'll know that they used to complain about this.
But more importantly that they always try to find ways to let the company know that they weren't happy with this shit. But the company just didn't give a fuck so when came about became bigger and more International they genuinely thought with more voices and more people who would call the company out for shit like this. It would change but it feels like it actually became more of an echo chamber and worse because I personally feel like a lot of international fans are upset and jealous that they don't have these opportunities to do things like this so when something bad does happen to the Asian fans for going to a fan meeting or meet and greet or some shit they'll go well that's on you for spending so much money even though it's like pot meet kettle.
Like I'm sorry the amount of international fans especially of the mayonnaise variety that I have seen talking about how this is why you shouldn't spend all this money on an idol. Or this is why it's useless to do all this piss me off for three reasons. One they've clearly never had a hobby in their life you're going to spend time money and energy on a hobby being a K-pop fan for most people is a hobby. It's something that brings them Joy makes life fun gives them something to look forward to they can go to a concert or fan me or buy albums and listen to the songs and watch the videos it gives them some variety and fun in their otherwise pretty mundane life or chaotic life.
Two that's a really stupid take because you're also spending a shit ton of money. Just because you're not spending money to go to Fan sites and fan meetings which again I haven't been in Asia in a while for anything K-pop related so I don't know how they change but when I would visit family and sometimes we would do things like this it wasn't that expensive to go to a fan meet or a meet and greet. Like outside of being part of the fan club which is like more of a mandatory thing in Asia to do these things to actually get like one or two tickets because sometimes they would allow you to get two so you can invite a friend or whatever it wasn't as expensive as people think it is because you're already part of the fan club which you're paying for a bunch of exclusive content and MD and shit once a month. You get like the giant fan club package at the beginning of every year and then you get perks like that like being able to go to Fan meetings and things like that sort and depending on the company a lot of the time it isn't even like a oh you're paying for it it's more of a you could apply and pay a very small fee of like 10 20 bucks to enter a raffle and then they will sit there and randomly fans from the fan club to go to the event.
But also like I said you're spending a shit ton of money being an international fan the amount of money you're spending to go to concerts, by the albums and merchandise. And maybe you're not monetarily doing that but your time and energy is being put into talking about the group online promoting your favorite groups online watching their content streaming their songs you're just as invested if not more so then the Asian fans and they at least get better perks.
And the final point is it's really just jealousy. Because a lot of these people are the same ones who would complain about why is it that they don't do these pop-ups and the fan cafes and all these other things in their country and the thing is first off outside of like official pop-ups and fan meetings everything else they're complaining about is fan-funded.
Some of my favorite memories of visiting specifically my dad and my stepmom and my younger brothers in China was all of the fucking fan funded fan cafes and events that the fans would do for their idols when it's like their birthday or they're having a big comeback. Like that's not the company at all it will be individual fans who would get together and be like okay you're going to go and you're going to have this event at this Cafe here you're going to have it at that cafe there we're going to optimize. I forgot what group it was I was in a fan of this group but one of my cousins were and we basically went Cafe hopping and fucking Shanghai. There was like four or five cafes that this particular fandom had sat there and done a fan Cafe for this group and each of the cafes had different little goodie bags and stuff you can get different photo off walls and for that day custom drinks that were designed specifically for that group right based off of like their favorite drink themselves or their favorite fruit or coffee order cuz with one was a coffee shop Cafe the other one was like more of a pastry place one was where you could get juice so it's like a juice bar. And it had this little stamp card that you would get you can get it any of them and then they would stamp it and then if you went to all five of like the cafes and they were all stamped you got like a special fan bag.
Like the shit was basically a mini adventure in and of itself I was so much fun and then when it hits you that this all was made by fans. They came together they had custom banners made and printed out they had standees of the members that you could sit there and take photos and pictures with, they worked with the cafes to come up with a special drink and menu just for that one day they had to pay to basically rent out these stores because this isn't free you have to make up to the cafe because they're not going to have any regular customers coming in that day because it's all going to be custom drinks and it's going to be fully decked out for this Idol so you're basically paying to rent out the space for either a whole day or for several hours in the day which is expensive, then it was like the goodie bags they had to go and find places to custom make buttons custom photo cards, reusable cup sleeves so that the fans could like keep them for longer quite a few of them are laminated, fake tickets that were created for like The Comeback, some of them had like acrylic keychains and all these other things and it's like again that shit's not inexpensive it cost quite a bit of money.
But the fans will sit there talk about it get together and then they would basically crowd fund to make this happen. You're not going to find people doing that in the states or Europe because one it would be hard as hell to find a cafe or a place that would allow you to rent it out for something like that let alone pay how much money you would have to just get those stuff created and made. Like I've looked into it not for a fan Cafe but me and my friends all have birthdays in the spring/summer so normally we'll get together and have like a giant ass get together / party in fall.
We're still talking about what we wanted to be themed this year but we've all kind of gotten back into or into K-pop and we thought about having it be kind of K-pop themed and just getting 25 custom made cup sleeves printed for our fairly smallish event cuz you'd only be about 20 or so people there would be like almost $100 and that's not even talking about other things that we thought about getting like the cute custom K-pop banners or the nice professionally laminated or even acrylic concert tickets that you can like customize and add whatever you want on it just getting 25 of those things cost anywhere between 100 to like a hundred and fifty dollars and that's for again only 25 of them do you know how many you would have to buy if you were planning on doing a fan cafe. You wouldn't cut it at 25 you wouldn't even cut it at like a hundred just to make sure that if you have that many people show up there's enough for everyone. It would be hell of expensive.
And even if you go on to like Etsy because we looked into that too and there are like a handful of people in there who do this for those do all the custom things or whatever again it's like already 100 plus just for 25 if it's already 100 plus dollars for 25 count and if you go as far up as like 500 or so you're talking about selling over a 1,000 and a few hundred or even a couple of thousand dollars I can understand why some people would be hesitant to do an event like that in the states.
That's not even getting into the logistics of people being able to show up at the place you're doing the event at. Again you somehow have to find a cafe or restaurant that would allow you to rent it out for several hours and have people come in and out paying money to buy drinks and food and get the freebies and stuff that would be there that mind you the person who's running the fan Cafe will not see a dime of that's going directly to the business and probably helping offset the price that they had to pay to rent the space out in the first place and also to get all the custom shit made to decorate and to give out.
And then there's no guarantee that x amount of people will show up. And again the logistics of people just being able to get to these places because America is not built for public gatherings like this like my great grandmother when she was alive lived in the state of New York specifically she lived in this little place called White plains in New York and they had this basically a mall called The galleria that have been open for years it shut down like a year or two ago because apparently they weren't getting enough foot traffic there wasn't enough shops renting out the place anymore and I remember the galleria and it's Hay Day and even near the end of its life but it was still fairly fullish that would have been the perfect place to have a fan Cafe because it's in a building where there's a bunch of other shops you could easily find it there are several buses that take you directly in front of the building.
It would have been the perfect place for a K-pop fan who might live in White plains or near it to be like hey I'm going to do it fan Cafe here I rented out a place whether it was a storefront or they had a conversation with one of the there were so many fucking little food areas outside of just the food court that allowed me to do x y and z for however much money y'all should show up. But again that's a place that shut down is closed it no longer exists and I know for a fact that a lot of places like that don't exist in a lot of freaking States so you really would have to go scouting and trying to find things while in Asia this is such a normal occurrence. That there are certain cafes and restaurants that people just know will allow you to rent it out for several hours to have people come and have this custom menu and all those other shit. They also see it as great advertisement because if these K-pop fans do end up liking the food or drinks there because sometimes they don't even customize the menu in terms of creating something new they'll just pick drinks and food items they already have on the regular menu and just have it renamed for that day or the printed on fome art of like the celebrity. So that is also possibly creating new customers who would like the food and the drink so much that they might actually come back when it's not a fan cafe.
So while I get why some people might be upset because it feels like oh that Asian fans get all the shit A lot of it is paid for and funded by the fans of themselves. There is a handful of relief that I follow on like XiaoHongshu who live in fairly nice but still fairly small shoe box apartments in China and are K-pop fans. I'm talking the girls who go to like the random play dances they go to the dance competition like things that they have all the time over there and they show up to these fan cafes and stuff. There's like one or two of them that actually participate in setting up the fan the group all fans that get together the money from themselves and from other fans and then they go and get all these things like made and shit right one of the girls actually is the one who orders all of the custom things and she gets them to her house where she will then open and inspect it before deciding on whether or not it's good or if they'll have to call the people back and get something fixed and then bring it to the food and Cafe wake up early as hell like sometimes at the ass crack of dawn because they'll have the fan Cafe set up from like early morning till late evening other times the wait until like after the work time so it'll be after work already till late night so fans will actually be able to go to the cafe if they're working or whatever. They go in they decorate they're setting everything up they're the ones assembling the cup sleeves they're the ones hitting them on the cops they're the ones they assembly the goodie bags. They're doing like all this work and it's for free just to show support for their fave Idol or actor or whatever maybe sometimes they do this shit for games LADS or love and deep space has some of the most insane fan cafes and events for the birthdays of these fictional men who aren't real don't even have professional cosplayers these super talented pretty as fuck tall women who will sit there and make themselves look like the characters and then you take a shit ton of pictures and photos and videos with them at these events some of them are official but a lot of them are ran by fans.
You can skip this point I kind of go on a little rant here. But you can skip this until you get to the Hello Kitty divider.
I don't think I ever talked about this but like you can be a professional fan in Asia we're like it's your entire job and you make money off of it. As crazy as that sounds but it's basically the equivalent of being like a social media person a social media personality but instead it's like you're and unofficially paid advertiser.
Like I said you can spend money to go to the concerts to create and make these cafes to go to the fan events and stuff but as long as you're good at what you do which is also getting pictures and videos making those into custom fan-made MD like really good high quality photo books, photo cards or lomo cards, I'm like anything else you can make it into selling like good quality t-shirts sweaters One of a kind things like there's a few fans I know and again like I pay attention more so to like the Chinese fans anyway that have store funds where they'll sell like Dan made season greetings and stuff like that I've seen quite a few of them that people have made for new jeans. Where it's like you can have your own mini photo book it comes with a journal that has like custom pictures and stuff in it and you can still write in it stationary custom pens pencils stickers calendar keychains all this other freaking stuff that you can buy as a fan to show support as a fan but you're not necessarily giving the money to the companies that no offense a lot of the time they like half-ass it.
I think there's only two times I've ever bought official like seasons greetings and it was SM it was wayv because I genuinely had no clue whether or not they were going to disband the group at that point in time cuz it felt like they were neglecting the hell out of them win-win was starting to become non-existent in the group and they were just not being promoted anywhere even in China their promotions were drying up and of course the whole Lucas situation happened and he was kicked out and I was like I want to own at least one fucking season screens by them and it was a good one. It was there ethereal god goddess kingly one aka the 2023 season greetings. I loved it because I really mostly like the photos that came with it that I have laminated myself and put up on my wall. But like outside of that it was like very basic calendar and like that was like it basically didn't come with a lot of other things. Which a lot of these ingredients are like and then I think it was the 2024 or could also been the 2023 NCT dream seasons greetings which had a lot more stuff in it and that was because it was like the dream Hotel so you had the little door hanging things with each of the members you had the A4 sized photos the smaller postcard like photos and then you have the calendar that was like a sign in book for hotel it was really nice. But both of them were also extremely expensive for no goddamn reason. While at the same time my friend had gotten me a black pink fan-made seasons greetings that was significantly less money like 25/50 bucks and it came with an acrylic standee of the group together it came with two keychains a plethora of photos both the bigger ones the A4 size ones and postcard size ones fan made photo cards an entire pack of lomo cards and two calendars on top of a I forgot what you would call it I call them a rip book but basically like the little book you got from if you got the new jeans albums they always came with a book that you could cut out a bunch of double-sided photos from which again I have done and I've laminated them and stuck them onto my wall. But it's like oh shit ton again of more photos and things that you can have you can use it for scrapbooking you can either fuck you want. But you got all of that shit in a fan-made product. And again don't even get me started on like some of the clothing items I went to the maniac tour for stray kids and I got an official t-shirt it was kind of ugly I didn't like it but I wanted to have at least one official MD from there cuz I already had like a light stick. But then I also saw on Etsy someone who made even better looking versions of the shirt in different colors in different styles they had the crop style they had the long sleeve short sleeve the regular size t-shirt. Had better artwork on it that was still Maniac inspired and you could get the member of your choices name on the sleeve. I got a cropped one for Felix who at that point in time was my bias. NCT I did buy their t-shirt that was a collaboration with Sanrio because I like Sanrio and I was going to get a new Sanrio t-shirt anyway it was one of the worst Sanrio t-shirts I got in cuz I'm so boring really small patch in the front it was a renjun one. That said his name and and SM or NCT ask Sanrio teeny tiny just in the front of the shirt the rest of his all white and then in the back was like the little Sanrio character that they chose for him and I think he's like name on the bottom or something this was a few years ago I don't really wear the shirt it looks in the bottom of my drawer. I use it as like a night shirt during the winter slash fall months when I actually want to wear a shirt to bed.
Compare that to Neo culture technology sweatshirt and sweatpants set that I bought off of etsy that look like a legitimate University set super fucking cute and was $25. And it genuinely looks like a university sweater and sweatpants it's also high quality really good for $25 I've had it for like 4 years now as of this year 2026 have consistently worn the bitch yet none of the lettering or wording has come off it hasn't gotten messed up or fucked up while the Sanrio shirt I don't wear as often but even that and the official like stray kids MD that I have has already started having like the wording and stuff start cracking and messing up and it's wild cuz that's never happened with fan-made shit that I bought.
Like the quality for a lot of these are just shit and the collaboration ones should be better but I also feel like the collaboration ones depend on how much money the company is willing to pay their partner in whatever the collaboration is to make sure that they have good quality shit.
And then that's not talking about like the company's we're clearly they've gotten money hungry and greedy as hell like I own one bt21 stuffy and I love stuffies it's I think it's RJ or whichever one on June has and it's like the sleepy time one and the only reason I have it is because it came in a BTS blind box that I bought off of Etsy. Cuz when I looked looked into actually buying something from the bt21 store cuz they have one here and NYC I always check online first I know how stupidly expensive their shit was. Look the only other bt21 stuff I think I have outside of the official MD I've gotten from like a blind box that again came with a shit ton of stuff that also wasn't official MD is their color pop lip glosses that's it. Because I like getting lip glosses and stuff and I was on colourpop mind you I've had these for like 3 years give or take cuz I don't go through the glasses that quickly because I'm constantly switching up what color I have on my lips and I decided to buy like a three pack of like a few of the colors and that's it. And again that's good quality but that's also just because colourpop has good quality lip glosses. They're not my favorites in terms of like colors and stuff when it comes to lip gloss collaborations they've done before but they're good. I also got some of them because hipdot didn't have more of their coolest lip oils which I am obsessed with especially share so I was looking for something else that I can get and I got mighty squad bt21 lip oil from colourpop slightly darker shade of a reddish lip oil but still works. But I wouldn't even have tried it out if I didn't need to replace my clueless lip gloss.
But back on track what I'm getting at is you're spending time energy money on these groups to support them the very least they could do is allow for there to be fairness in a raffle that's supposed to be fair.
I don't think it's a lot to ask that if you're at this event and they're supposed to just randomly pull a paper from a container with a number on it so that that person could take a photo a Polaroid or get a hug or whatever to make it fair so that like any of the fans that are there could get it instead of rigging it.
I also don't agree with people who are saying that the company probably tells the idols keep your Big spenders happy because that's what the companies do. Again these stalkers would not know the schedule of these idols if they weren't getting it from the company and the company is not stupid they know exactly what employees are allegedly "leaking" the information.
Again SM I feel like you could use SME as an example for like 90% of these. Riize legitimately for years have had their fans calling out one of their managers and one of their bodyguards because they have been publicly linked to two of the group's biggest stalkers. I'm pretty sure the manager was the one who admitted yeah I'm friends with that person but like I don't tell them what I'm doing or where I'm going I keep my friendship and my job separate and it's like you can't do that when you're friends follows your client. Either you asked to be reassigned or you stop being friends with them because they keep following them and showing up everywhere and it's more consistent when you're the manager in charge so it kind of feels like you're the one telling your friend oh yeah we're at the airport now we're going to ask my z and this is the hotel we're staying in, want me to book you a flight and room?
Like genuinely this shit's Wild and again people have sent in video picture evidence of this manager while all the job off gallivanting having a legit conversation with this stalker like they're standing there together talking and who knows what the hell they're saying and exchanging and once or twice you've seen that person showing them photos and it's like why are you allowing to show you photos of that they took of the people you're in charge of for your job and what are you doing not telling them to delete it or follow you you're just looking at it nodding talking to them like this is just normal behavior.
Did the company never fired that person matter of fact they were quicker to fire a manager who allegedly was using a company car to drive around their girlfriend and have sex with her in the car then they were to actually sit there and get rid of someone who was actively putting your artist in danger by having a crazed fan follow them around and take very disturbing photos.
If you've been in the Kpop hemisphere for a while you'll also know that there's a rumor that the bigger fan accounts also get like special treatment from the company and I'm telling you they do. Teenage me early 20s me used to run a pretty successful fan account with a friend and yeah the company would legitimately reach out to us via email and shit to let us know ahead of time of like come back some things so that we could talk about and promote it. They would offer and send us free MD so that we would sit there post up about it we wouldn't say that we bought it but we also wouldn't say that we got it for free because they didn't want us to do that they want to look like you were just fans found out about the launch and they'll even have it where they'll be like oh limited edition first come first serve like teaser store whatever the fuck you want to call it where they'll sell it for a short amount of time and then they'll make it for the general public but really they were just sending the shit out to Fan accounts so that they would like post off about it and then when they pitted out and it was like expensive people would just assume that those fan accounts paid that much money for those things and they'll be like oh I wanted to because they talked about how good it was and they were willing to pay money for it.
Mind you i was like doing that for like 4 years. that's why nowadays when I see certain accounts like there's this one girl I don't know her name and she lives in I think is the US it could be Canada I don't remember she's Asian canadian/american fan and it's been quite a few times where she's like shown stuff that she's gotten for En- and I remember when the whole Heesung situation started. She didn't say anything at first and then when she did eventually come and say something it was in support of the company and being like oh this was his decision and I was very unsurprised while some fans apparently were surprised because I think he was apparently one of her favorites but I'm like you can tell if you're on her account that she's clearly bought out by the company. Like last time I checked with the job she claimed to have had at one point I think she was going to college while working like part-time there's no way in fuck Nation especially since she said she wasn't spending her parents money she was able to afford half of the concerts she went to half of the MD that she's got in or any of that shit unless it was courtesy of the company. The company will do that like I thought it was wild when people called out YG for inviting influencers to the black pink concerts when they were in the LA area because I hate to bring you to some of y'all they do that all the time you're just looking for the wrong influencers with YG they were inviting actual like general influencers with these other companies they're inviting K-pop fan influencers. Oh you're big enough you don't talk shit about the company you genuinely kind of just promote the group and you give us free advertisement and you have again a lot of followers hey here's some free concert tickets talk about your time going to the concert and stuff. Hey here's some free MD I know you're such a good fan you'll talk about what really matters right ;-) nudge nudge.
Like babe their company shill their sellouts and honestly I can't even blame them because 9 out of 10 times they go after the teenagers/ college age kids who don't have the money to sit there and have this world win of a K-pop experience. So of course still except shit from the company and technically it's not a paid advertisement it's legitimately just gifts from the company that they gave them no incisive on you should 100% share this and post up about it.
So they can get around that pesky this is an ad posting that they would technically have to do because it's not an ad it was just a gift that they got from the company and were unaware of at the time that it was going to become something the company would be selling. The only time they don't do that is when it is purposely them sending them PR for like a big comeback or something which I have seen several tiktok / YouTube K-pop influencers do where they've received PR for groups like BTS I think also one for En- over one of their comebacks at one point and again it's like if you think this is the first time they've received stuff from the company even with their bad acting oh my God I can't believe this oh the company sent me this is the first time a K-pop company has ever sent me something it's a lie. It's just the first time they've had to disclose that it was sent from the company because it's clearly a PR box and not something that you could actually buy
Anyway the whole thing was very fucked up. Because this is also the type of shit that makes your fandom become smaller this is like I said the third time this man has been caught doing this. I don't like the people who are sharing other groups that allegedly have done this when they've done these type of things and like Korea or Indonesia and I hate it because they're not sharing what groups they are tell me what group does this shit so I don't stan them.
As fucked up as that sounds I think fans have the right to then turn around and be like well I'm no longer going to support you or root for you if I know you have favoritism for certain fans that are willing to basically show up all the damn time and spend money because again you can't guarantee that that fan isn't going to just snap one day and start following you like weird stalker.
Like I'm out here supporting you like a normal person and occasionally deciding to spend extra money to go to a fan meet or some other official schedule event that you're doing. I'm not showing up to every single one because I have a life outside of you. I'm not parasocial in a bad way but because of the fact that I have boundaries with you and I have a life and I refuse to have my world revolve around being your fan my support is viewed as less than.
On top of that cuz I know some people are going to be like well allegedly the number he pulled was for a stalker fan and he recognized her so he didn't want her to win. That argument goes out the window as soon as you know that he talked to the other fan site like a day or two before at a different fan meeting and she told him what number she had and he called out her number. It also goes out the window because that wouldn't have been on him to do that if anything he should have told staff hey that girl whose number I just pulled is a stalker this makes me feel very fucking uncomfortable can I pull again or some shit like that. Mind you it's also on the company because they allowed for the alleged stalker to be there at the fan meet/ Polaroid whatever the fuck it was event in the first place. Meaning that the idols would have been well aware that the company didn't give a fuck I was going to invite some stalkers and that's fucked up as it is they should have been prepared. On top of that it doesn't change anything if anything it kind of makes it worse because you're telling me instead of him calling out any other random ass number again he either pulled out a six or nine if it was a six any new that six was a stalker he should have just said nine if it was a nine and he knew that six was the stalker he should have just said six cuz there's no way in hell you're telling me both of those numbers would have been problematic people also how did he know what any of their numbers were? He did it he only knew number 10 because the girl told him her number was 10. Which means that he most likely had already planned on just calling her out anyway to take the picture with her.
Which does bring me to my next point which is idles are human and they also have a parasocial relationship with their fans.
At the end of the day being an idol is very lonely so if you have a fan who shows up to all your events they're constantly there they're by your side you're going to form some form of a parasocial relationship with them.
And I've had people try to argue that at that point it would be a relationship no it wouldn't be. You have to understand a parasocial relationship is when you have a one-sided relationship with something else because people keep sending their acting like this is only a K-pop thing it's not it's human nature. You had a favorite stuffed animal as a kid you were in a parasocial relationship with it you humanize your pet that's a parasocial relationship. A parasocial relationship is defined psychologically as having some form of a one-sided connection to a character human thing or even a place. It's where you have emotional ties and feelings to something that does not have those feelings back to you.
That one-sided crush you had in high school that was a parasocial relationship it was a form of a parasocial relationship.
The most basic definition is you have feelings for someone or something that does not have feelings back for you or cannot have feelings back for you. That fictional character that's your comfort character a comfort character is just another parasocial relationship.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way yes and idol could have a parasocial relationship with their own fans and fandom. Because they don't personally know these people yeah they're aware of the fact that they support them but that's about it. You can't sit there and take that support and go oh yeah they genuinely care about me and they're like so into me or whatever because you don't really know that you can't guarantee that they're a fan of yours because of you. Their favorite might be another member but they're really nice to you and they're not going to let you know that when they're talking to you in these paid for transactions. Hell they might just be a clout chaser like home girl that I mentioned before En- fangirl I'm pretty sure that she's not even a fan of the members because she's a fan of theirs she's a fan of them because they're popular. Because I'm pretty sure at one point people caught her talking shit about the group before she became a fan and then when she became a fan was around the time of popularity was rising up same with BTS cuz she's also a fan of theirs and I remember her because armies used to talk about how they didn't like her because again she used to talk shit about the members and then all of a sudden it became one of the biggest fans. Best believe there's a lot of clout chasers like that in K-pop because K-pop is cool and certain groups are really popular and people love them so they're going to sit there and be like yeah I'm a fan and then completely 180 their personality from disliking them to oh my God I love this group so much.
Technically some of these fans are in actual relationships IRL they have husbands wives boyfriends girlfriends fiance's the idol is unaware of these things so again it's a parasocial relationship.
And again I'm not a huge fan of this group but from what I can tell from the way people were talking about it allegedly she's one of their like OG boys planet fansites so he's probably very used to seeing her and she's definitely has been around for a long time. There's a possibility that he does have some form of a pair of social relationship with her. He thinks she's attractive she's shown support for so long and allegedly this isn't the first time that she specifically has like one one of these random lottery draw things which is why some people feel like she is a fan that is favorited and again unsurprising but it's still fucked up to do that and take away that possibility from another fan especially since there were fans and they're always are going to be fans where they don't go to every freaking event but they're still out there supporting the hell out of you till the one time they do show up to an event them getting sidelined or having their number pulled and then not being called because you chose to pick the person that you've basically imprinted on is kind of fucked and again I feel like the biggest issue for me was blatantly lying about doing it afterwards over and over again until someone finally told him we got it on camera and then he looked pissed off as he admitted yeah I did it like sir if you don't like it that much that you have to like pick certain people or whatever don't be an idol.
Hell I wouldn't be surprised personally because this has happened before like they're a blind items about K-pop idols too people just don't pay attention to them as much as they do with Western celebrities. But there have been a few blind items of idols dating some of these fan sites that's why they're always at these events and always at these concerts cuz they are literally that person's partner.
I'm not saying that's the case here but I'd be very unsurprised if that was what the case was like this is his girlfriend since this is like the second or third time he's done something like this and this is like the second time or so that this person particularly has one one of these at random. That being his girlfriend or someone that he's dating I could see that. It would also explain why he's so mad so pissed off that he was called out and caught on camera doing it. It would explain why he was so weirdly upset and mad in the videos taken after the event getting into the car and getting out of the car. I want to be surprised if the company is aware of this and they're probably to chew him a new one being like yo make this look less obvious you still have to sell that fantasy of being available.
Anyway that was like my two cents and my thoughts on the situation cuz I've been thinking about it for the past two days because it keeps popping up on my timelines.
Also I might reopen readings but specifically love readings rather than just general readings or I'll only do X amount of certain readings we'll have to see because I do find that that's also something that helps me when I'm in these fucking depressive episodes. But I'll probably post something up about that later today.
