K-pop melds together the worst of both worlds: stan/fanboy culture and cancel culture. Both are built on intolerance. Both stifle free thought and criticism; thereby it has no use for free speech. Instead it promotes and perpetuates internet fanaticism: internet mania being confused with genuine cultural response. If this was merely the dysfunction of phone-texting kids who always fell asleep during junior high English class (where they supposedly were introduced to art and judgment), it wouldn't matter much; but what's troubling is the rush to non-judgment and hype (in fanboy culture) and open hostility (in cancel culture).
They cause these fans of K-pop to trumpet commercial products when they themselves don't hold much value in these products even at the moment of trumpeting. This leads to extreme reactions on both the sayers and naysayers, and also the K-pop fans who haven't yet heard or seen the product. These camps lack the patience for a reasoned response, the inhale/exhale process of a healthy cultural response-- so amateur fanaticism has taken the place of criticism.
So shaming and ostracizing is the obvious next maneuver as contempt breeds. The more online shame cycles you observe, most especially here on allkpop.com news page, the more obvious the pattern becomes: Everyone comes up with a principled-sounding pretext that serves as a barrier against admitting to themselves that, in fact, all they really have done is joined a mob.
