Do you gatekeep your favorites?

Quote from YamaChwan

Fair enough. I actually agree with majority of what you said.

I just thought your original stance was that you actively don't want your favorite groups/idols to make it big, because of the potential negative consequences of mass popularity and a big fandom.

Not wanting a group to be too successful is just an atypical mindset in K-Pop. I get it though.

But I'm with you. I fell in love with Mamamoo literally two years before they finally became a top group, and I would've followed them until the end, even if they never did.

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To add to this, I feel like most "day 1" fans share this sentimental mindset. It's not that they don't want the group to be successful. They're supporting as they always have since the beginning. They'll make sure it counts for charting position and all.

It's honestly just a sentimental, maybe bittersweet, feeling that many fans have due to the nature of K-pop. You know... Parasocial relationship and all, if you want to bring that up. For instance, I find that it's common for fans to say they have post-concert depression due to missing their favorites after seeing them in person.

Another factor to this, as I mentioned before, is that fandoms have to deal with much less toxicity in the beginning. There's less drama coming their group's way, so they don't feel the need to defend or sometimes even escalate situations. It's all chill.

I think it's good to be open and honest about these thoughts as K-pop fans. We might want to think of ourselves as "too cool" for the rest of K-pop fans, claiming we don't get sentimental or emotional, but at the end of the day, there's a reason why we're so invested in this genre.

Quote from desdesdes

Yep. Me at some point are even don't want for IVE to be that big. Things before love dive becoming viral amongst youtube and the kpop flex is so precious. I still cherish their season 1 of 123 ive, their 1theK contents, the 1 or 2 year old youtube edits, their genuine reaction that eleven is charting, etc.

But then seeing their desire to grow bigger and do concert/fanmeeting in many place if this earth, I can't help but to feel like a parents who see their kids is on their way to growing up..

(Like hell, I don't even have a kid yet. But I do had many younger siblings and now they are all not a lil kids anymore )

Maybe this is the parasocial things that people talked about..

Sometimes I do think "meh, users on akp won't appreciate it anyway so why bother?"

But I'm not always 100% gatekeeping it since I do want to share things that I enjoy, just in case there will be 1 people who found it enjoyable too!

I also had said for once that, stanning nugus or mid groups will make every growths and things that the group achieved felt more precious. It really makes you appreciate the value and not just seeing it as a mere statistical number

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Thanks for being so honest and transparent about this. You understand how I feel.

Trust me. It's more of a tongue-in-cheek ordeal when I talk about gatekeeping. I don't actually want to gatekeep them. It's more like trying to hold onto their underground, close-to-home vibe for as long as I can before embracing the next chapter of their career.

I'm not going to pretend to be some tough guy about this. If we only liked our faves for the music, we'd just listen to the music and keep it at that instead of having idols as our profile pictures, buying multiple copies of their albums, collecting photocards, watching their variety show appearances, and such.

You and I are both being vulnerable by sharing all of this, but it's needed. I respect you for appreciating it for what it is instead of reducing it to statistics.