Why are men so insecure to even the bare minimum of listening to bgs?

I think it is fragile masculinity

This would only apply to male fans who genuinely like bg music but for psychological or social reasons feel ashamed if others knew.

In most cases it just seems bg music isn't pleasant or interesting to those who don't listen to it. I don't like country music or polka, doesn't mean I hate the South or Czech people.

I've legit seen more women than men say they listen to no bg music and that it sucks. Most guy gg stans I've seen have at least a few tracks from bgs they like.

Most bg music just isn't for me.

I like some bg music that veers towards more aggressive, bombastic, harder hip hop stuff, like Mic Drop, J-hopes album or some Stray Kids. I like Zombie by Day 6 (which to me sounds a bit more "band" style and even J-band style). I like some other solo stuff like some of Jungkooks. Like many male kpop fans, a lot of Big Bangs stuff is good listenin'

But I've never been into the type of music that constitutes most boy group fare. I really dislike most RnB. Harmony driven stuff and ballads send me to sleep. I can't get into the more pop driven group style songs, but it's ok when solo.

Quote from icyruios

You make it sound like when guys listen to a single note made by a male idol they are going go crazy or something

we are supposed to let them know when we listen to their song otherwise they wont know we listened to it. so we are now insecure!

It's all based on Concept and Kpop Companies target the female demographic so Kpop Companies need to cater for the Male demographic

Quote from superyeah

Men care way too much about what other men think. A lot of us literally date women to impress other men, not because we actually want to date women. I could do a whole deep dive into this.

The kind of pressure we put on ourselves is extremely toxic.

Needless to say, it trickles down into affecting smaller decisions such as what music we listen to, which men we idolize, or even what food we eat.

I get your point, and there are cultural aspects that very much impact some of this but...

At least in Australian male culture, being a straight, white male who is openly into Kpop of ANY type, an unabashed Swifty, an obsession with karaoke (in particular Disney songs and Taylor songs) and interest in some fasion... that in itself is enough to "not impress" many other men. If you're open about being into those things, being open about boy group fanning isn't a huge stretch (when I first tell people who MIGHT know kpop that I like kpop, they assume BTS anyway).

Mind you there are members of my family, and some work colleagues, that are deeply convinced I'm gay or not 100% straight because of my likes.

Quote from superyeah

It's so liberating to say "screw it" to all of that and be open to new things.

Funnily enough my descent into kpop fandom is what made me decide to rip this band aid off. I let my flags fly now and fuck what others think. Especially the family members, most of the ones who cast dispersions on me because of my interests are the most base, low cultured bogans imaginable. It's not like their judgements have any worth.

It's funny to mention culture though. I'm not in a position, obviously, to know the experiences from men from other cultural backgrounds, but I kind of suspect the "judgement" from others, like family, peers, colleagues and friends would be different depending on that. But that may be a big, and fraught, conversation.

After looking at the listeners demography of groups on Melon I think koreans make a very small distinction about whether they are listening to BGs or GGs. What inflates BG female demography is their fandom which is mostly females, understandable by the way they are marketed

Aside of that GG music is just more catchy and GP friendly, they release more hit songs but when a BG release a hit song the audience is the same as GG songs

International fans are a bit different. Most of us are fans, not only random people listening local music. The parasocial component is way to strong here. Guys will not find stanning male idols appealing. LGBT guys may find male idols hot and stylish, but even LGBT guys can't look at male idols at think "This is easily my role model". GG have an image many girls can relate and identity with. BGs hardly have concepts and image men (either gay or straight) can relate to

I wish I could develop better but I'm feeling half asleep now, so I did my best

Idk I feel like a good amount of guys do listen to these groups but they just dont talk about it

Quote from superyeah

Yup. I actually edited my post to elaborate on this.

Liking K-pop in general, regardless of whether you stan a girl group or a boy group, gets your masculinity questioned by others. Even if you express that you're straight, the fact that you're into this form of entertainment, whether it be pop in general or K-pop, makes people think you're "soft."

So essentially, there are tiers to this. It's very possible for men to like K-pop, be judged for it, and get ostracized for it, yet still have an aversion to boy groups due to internalized homophobia.

The funniest thing is even if you're into rap and shit you'll still get called gay BY THE RAPPERS THEMSELVES LMAOO like pop smoke had a whole verse talking about how his fans are gay for praising him under his posts. At that point nobody should gaf about masculinity being questioned and do whatever they want. Its like a prison of one's own making

Well my brother is the opposite. He plays song by Jungkook, BTS, NCT Dream, and Treasure but I've never heard him play girl group songs..

I also think the parasocial aspects of kpop fandom play a big part in this. Like it or not, almost every fan of kpop exhibits some degree of parasocial attachment to their faces and groups.

You don't just enjoy a group, you get deep into the group and get "attached" to all or some members of the group. By it's very nature kpop encourages this, it's what drives sales and profits.

It's also what makes fans more passionate about the groups they like.

I think, for males especially, it's harder to form parasocial bonds with BG's.

I don't think this is necessarily internalised homophobia. I think this is more to do with male culture in general and the way we form bonds with other males. I rarely have deep and meaningfuls with my male best friends, we rarely share our feelings with each other (not "feelings" but just how we're feeling in general), we can talk about deep issues but rarely our issues. It's not as common for males to really show a super deep interest in the deeper lives of even their best friends. There's the old joke about guys getting together, doing something shallow like gaming, playing sport or watchong sport and calling it male bonding. But I have female friends who I don't consider "best friends" that I am much more comfortable sharing deep feelings with.

But the thing is, even if it sounds toxic, for many guys this kind of relationship with other guys is fine. It's how it is. If I'm feeling depressed and dark, just sharing a beer with mates while doing something dumb is enough.

Because many male-male relationships are this "shallow" (they aren't really, there is a deeper complexity to it all), male kpop fans don't really see the need to get "parasocial" with BG's, and hence don't really feel that deeper bond to the group and therefore don't really see the need to openly stan and promote the group, even if we like some of their music.

I think back to some of the celebrity males I've really liked over the years. Almost idolised. Eminem, Rahul Kohli, Brad Pitt once, Donald Glover, Metallica. I've never felt the need to "stan" them. To get deep parasocial. Ill admit to absolutely loving their work but I don't need to go deeper. Like our male friendships, just them existing is kind of... Enough?

Quote from superyeah

Men care way too much about what other men think. A lot of us literally date women to impress other men, not because we actually want to date women. I could do a whole deep dive into this.

The kind of pressure many of us put on ourselves is extremely toxic.

Needless to say, it trickles down into affecting smaller decisions such as what music we listen to, which men we idolize, or even what food we eat. It all comes from the fear of being outcasted and having masculinity questioned by other men. K-pop (or pop music in general) gets the unfair stigma of being catered to the female demographic, so put two and two together... This is what happens. Heck, non-K-pop fans judge men who only like girl groups because it's "too girly."

It's so liberating to say "screw it" to all of that and be open to new things.

I don't think things will change on a mainstream level any time soon, but at least there are open conversations about it now.

With that said, there are K-pop fans regardless of gender who only listen to girl groups due to preference in music and concept.

Display More

The main reason we don't listen to BG isn't all this bullshit it's because 99.999% of male idols are geared and catered almost exclusively to women almost every song is something about his girl. Most fan chants and anything related to fandom is geared towards women almost to the point that most male idols don't acknowledge they have male fans unless they actually physically saw them in person. You can watch every live or even fanmeet where they address their fans almost always they say something along the lines of my noonas or any female related pronouns etc. Kpop fans find it hard enough to like someone if they feel like they are excluded and seems like they are unwanted as most bgs exclusively cater to their fandoms not the GP. Now if a kpop fan feels they don't belong there what do you think a casual listener= the GP would feel? You have your answer the only male group that made everyone feel like they belonged there was BigBang hence why they held gp forever.

Dude here. My motto has always been to like what you like and own it. Unfortunately, most men are incredibly image-conscious, and so would cave under pressure when pressed about any so-called "feminine" interests (pop music, ballet, etc).

Its a mindset especially common in subcultures like heavy metal (Literally took me years of deprogramming just to say "fuck it" and began broadening my horizons). At the end of the day you're your own person. Someone who's secure in their own tastes will always be more of a gigachad to me than someone constantly straining for approval.

Quote from YupinaHeart

Its a mindset especially common in subcultures like heavy metal (Literally took me years of deprogramming just to say "fuck it" and began broadening my horizons).

Funnily, my current friendship group are a bunch of metalheads. We go to a metal pub every Wednesday to do trivia. They are constantly at concerts and festivals like Knotfest. All are much more inked than me and pierced etc. And really the only group I'm into that they are is Ghost.

Yet out of most of the people I know they are the coolest with me being into kpop. They give me the occasional bit of shit about it, as an Aussie is duty bound to do to each other, but they otherwise just don't care what I'm into (helps that a question about twice came up in triv night one night and my team was the only to get it).

If anything, them being so open about what they like and love has helped me be more open about it as well.

Quote from dummi

Idk I feel like a good amount of guys do listen to these groups but they just dont talk about it

exactly this.

I’m a male and in general I’ve always preferred the female voice and harmonies over males. If I listen to music with males it’s typically very heavy or hip hop (not often).

Quote from ThePhantomThief

If anything, them being so open about what they like and love has helped me be more open about it as well.

That's awesome dude. I would love to meet more open-minded metalheads IRL but, alas, such breed is hard to come by unfortunately (at least in my neck of the woods that is). Don't know anyone else who's into Kpop as much as I am either. But I suppose that's the price one pays when navigating two cultural spheres

I dunno

different strokes for different gendered folks???

Mmmm. You are talking about male koreans, right?

Quote from dummi

Idk I feel like a good amount of guys do listen to these groups but they just dont talk about it

This for me. 30-40% of my library are BGs. Occasionally people might see me post about it in music specific threads but most the time I just don't.

Is it that hard to belive when 99% of what bgs do today is geared towards woman with evertything they do? What exactly is there to draw the typical heterosexual men to discover or listen to them, if the music isnt doing it alone?

Add on that men in general are much less likely to hardcore fan any single group/artist. Theres a reason girlgroups today are also targeted towards women. In general, they treat it as a hobby and spend more money and time on it.

Same is true for western pop hardcore fans, majority of the hardcore fans are not exactly heterosexual males.

Metal would probably be the genre that have closest male equivialent to the typcial kpop fandoms, but most of the time they are in it for the genre in general and not so much a specific group or two. They spend money on albums (bulk buying isnt really a thing tho) , merch and concerts, but based on the metalheads i know, its mostly just an excuse to hang out with similar minded people, go to festivals/concerts and get drunk.

Quote from superyeah

There’s that as well. I’m not counting it out. The parasocial dynamic plays a role in this.

But this isn't really the parasocial . This would be like say women's basketball or something like that. It maybe sports but are you invested in it? No because that thing actively makes you think that you don't belong there so as a result you don't frequent it. This is what happens with BG in kpop entire demographics are all but outright disregarded

it's because BG music, for the most part, sucks.

Not all men, i'm the most secure dude on here. Look at this shit i still love to this day, this was called emo, gay, queer or even f*g music but i didnt care lol.

And my non Kpop collection of CDs and MP3 files is like 66 percent dude

But for some reason, i cant get into Kpop BG music except for a select few songs every year. If i had to do a top 30 song list each year, maybe 3-5 BG songs would make it at most.

Quote from icyruios

You make it sound like when guys listen to a single note made by a male idol they are going go crazy or something

Quite a few men actually behave exactly like that.

This has been a thing since before Kpop.

Quote from Fansamy

Quite a few men actually behave exactly like that.

This has been a thing since before Kpop.

I have a cousin, or second cousin or whatever... that REFUSES to ever hold his wifes handbag/purse in public because it "makes him look gay" or some stupid shit like that. Like even for but a moment while she picks something up or checks on their kids.

For some men, it runs DEEP

Quote from icyruios

You make it sound like when guys listen to a single note made by a male idol they are going go crazy or something

Its true, Last time i listened to bts butter i ended up vomiting, collapsed to the ground with a throbbing pain in my kidneys and experienced explosive diarrhoea for the entire week. Thats why now im a bts hater.

I feel like it's ultimately different for everyone and there's no one specific reason.

For me personally, I listen to less BGs due to a combo of what others above have mentioned. I prefer female voices singing, there's certain types of BG music that just don't appeal to me, and I just don't bother to talk what I do listen to. There's plenty of songs that I like and listen to by the likes of SKZ, NCT, Exo, BTS, Got7, Shinhwa, BTOB etc.

There's also truth about some guys feeling ashamed to publicly like kpop, but I couldn't care less. Even my colleagues at work know I listen to it. Guess it depends on the people around you and your own insecurities.

Quote from ThePhantomThief

I have a cousin, or second cousin or whatever... that REFUSES to ever hold his wifes handbag/purse in public because it "makes him look gay" or some stupid shit like that. Like even for but a moment while she picks something up or checks on their kids.

For some men, it runs DEEP

Yeah this

A friend of mine used to refuse holding or bringing any bags, but then started buying books and other kinds of stuff that he then wanted me to keep in my bag as we walked around the city.

I stopped that after the first time.

Kpop has something called stan culture. When it comes to which groups to be a stan of, music is not the only criterion. And after taking everything into account, male stans preferably lean towards girl groups, because of parasocial relationships and all that jazz.

But at the end of the day, the discussion is not really relevant anyway, because the average joe doesn't stan any kpop group. And when he does, I'm not even convinced he does it for an extended period of time. Just based on my own experience, my gg stan days are already over.

The criticism I don't get is when people blame men for not stanning bg's then acknowledge that bg's are targeted towards a female audience. If bg's are not for men by design, why should men go out of their way to appreciate them?

It's true that many men use to shit on anything they don't like personally. But it has nothing to do with genders. The same behavior can be observed within male dominated areas, like video games, comic books, etc.