I saw a discussion about voting in MAMA and which fandom was real and which was fake.
For me, it is like a rhetorical question , because all these fandom might just be mirage, only existing in imagination.
When a nonKPopper had the largest concert in K-O-R-E-A in 2022, the fate of KPop was decided; the real number of actual fans might be significantly smaller than it is advertised, just a few super fans buying dozens of albums.
The first million album from K-O-R-E-A- in the KPop era was EXO's Xoxo which had 2 Korean and 2 Chinese editions.
Ever since the types of albums multiplied, while songs nobody listen began to proliferate in Melon.
The emphasis has now moved to spotify, apple music and youtube music. But , acts which sell lots of album sometimes do weak in these venues.
IN addition, as I have said above, those who sell millions of copies of album had concerts in a smaller venue than someone who never sold 500,000 copies in any album.
I watched the concert prep video of the nonKpopper who had the largest concert in K-O-R-E-A this year. Why the authorities allowed her to have the concert is another question, but that concert revealed the true states of many KPop fandoms; while selling a lot more albums than the nonKPopper, they can't bring enough people to outdo the nonKPopper in the same day.
Like the Emperor's new clothes story, the actual fandom of KPop, except for some cases, might be much smaller than it actually is and the very fact that a nonKpopper managed to have the largest concert in K-O-R-E-A does reveal a lot of the weaknesses of the real fandoms of KPop acts.