K-pop Fans and Performative Activism when it comes to Racism

Thread

If there's one thing this Giselle scandal has taught me, it's this.

As much as K-pop fans say they care about racism, surprisingly little comes out of it besides clapped nicknames and fuel for later fanwars. People literally call Lisa "AAVE queen" and Soyeon "CA queen"...like, bro, yall are not fooling me.

These CA "scandals" are literally used as fanwar bait after all is said and done; look no further than shit BTS did in 2013-14 that people STILL use against them in 2021! They're clearly not the same people, but god forbid people actually improve…

MassiveKpopFan

Oct 25th 2021

I made this thread 6 days ago discussing my thoughts about international K-pop fans and how they approach racism. I wanted to touch upon it again but from a slightly different angle. Please read it if you want to understand my position.

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International K-pop stans are absolutely using racism as fanwar bait by being performative. And what does being performative mean?

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Pay attention to the "increase one's social capital" part, because this is how K-pop fans move on Tiktok, IG, and Twitter. They will say some of the most off-the-wall shit in order to demonize idols for their actions all for likes (and the irony is not lost on me that people will react to this post by giving me interaction, whether negative or positive. But that's the way of social media unless you disable interaction).

K-pop fans, especially ones from America and Europe, are so quick to judge kpop idols for the shit they pull but are willingly blind to the crap that's in their own country's entertainment industries. The only difference is that you're accustomed to it or just ignore it. And then you place your own values on South Korea, which has proven to be extremely colorist and outright racist.

If you read my prior thread, I did mention that people would be using Giselle's controversy against her, all it would take is time. And sure enough, I watched and in less than a week there are already people are using Giselle herself as a drag against aespa and SM as a whole. I'm not an SM stan or a MY, but that's gross. You are showing your ass in plain view. You say you care about racism, but then you turn around and make memes out of it.

Now what can international fans do about the rampant colorist prejudice in Korean society? That's a topic for another day, but I wanted to bring this up in order to shed light on the hypocrisy of the K-pop community. It's real and not going away as long as people stand to gain social clout. Keep that in mind.

Quote from tomorrowxtiana

I've been saying this for a while now.

If you really cared about racism, you wouldn't ignore it when it happens around you and you wouldn't use it for clout. I literally can't trust anyone on the internet.

Racism is no way shape or form a joke

i feel like I should make a video essay on this, Kpop fans have been acting the same way in regards to racism for years.

It’s a fucking circle at this point

Quote from dryheat

All I know is it's annoying when I try to bring up a point and someone claims it's cause I don't like that person over actually having an issue with something that person does or did.

So while I do agree with you on there being people that blow things way out of proportion to drag unnecessarily....there's also people making legit points that get accused of just doing it for fanwars.

And for the people that are always like but so and so did it. PLEASE STFU AND STAY ON TOPIC. If you cared that much that so and so did something then make a thread, otherwise you just being petty and pathetic.

You definitely have a good point, some people are accused of being antis or whatnot just because they don’t like something. They don’t go overboard and start shitting on the group, company or even the idol. They have a simple grievance.

This is not a kpop fan issue though, this is endemic to all social circles. Someone says something innocuous about disagreeing with an action or person, and then they get ratioed in the comments.

To your last point, i literally cannot stand these types of people. That’s textbook deflecting and shows they want to shift blame or make you feel bad for supporting your faves. Most people know if their faves have done something problematic, and if they’re still a fan they either don’t care, forgave them, or were not offended in the first place.

Quote from Ves

It's the last day of October. You couldn't wait one more day for November?! I DEMAND A REMAKE

Hypocritical to make this for a thread of the month submission.

Quote from BlackpinkHouse

So many things wrong with Kpop fandoms weaponizing racism and deploying CA fiction to attack other groups.

RIght now, what's really triggering are fandoms that love to use any scandal or incident to bash their rivals, but then get super defensive and bust out all the excuses when these other fandoms clap back at them for the problematic actions of their own faves. Like, if you're gonna throw stones, prepare to get a few of them thrown back and just accept it as the price you pay for attacking others.

Honestly, if you're going to "attack" someone online, call THEM out for their opinions. Using their favorite artist as a strawman argument is proving you're unwilling or unable to actually address the real problem at hand.

Quote from MissBehave

I do think that some people use scandals as a weapon against groups they don't like or for other selfish purposes, but I think what happens far more often is that fans will try to defend their faves by accusing anyone who has a legitimate grievance of having bad motives. Or they will try to deflect by using whataboutism as if you aren't allowed to care about one issue or incident if you haven't marched against all the other incidents that have ever happened. It's like the people who try to shift the focus from unfair police actions against African-Americans by saying, "well, way more black folks die by eachother's hands in Chicago so you should be worrying about that instead". I mean, I don't see people telling me that I shouldn't raise money for breast cancer if I'm not going to raise money for colon cancer too. Whether I personally am doing something about both doesn't make either one less bad or make me not allowed to care when someone dies of breast cancer.

Also, I think this should be in the dumpster fire section with the other racism threads.

You bring up great points, thanks for contributing. I especially like the point about black-on-black crime in America being used as a weapon, that will never not piss me off. The biggest issue is still police violence, not gun violence in our own communities. Both are relevant issues, but when non-black people use that as a way to one-up black people, that shows how immature they are.

Also, this thread isn't a dumpster fire. I'm very clear in my intentions about open and respectful discussions unlike the threads in that section where people just post the info and don't interact further. They got their akorn and hit thread while being a coward.

Quote from sailorvelvet

I agree some people use the issue to fuel fan wars but I disagree that we don’t call it out in our own countries at least not in America. We’re the face of the “cancel era”. Camilla Cabello was getting jumped when she used bad AAVE and had a dancer that appeared in black face and used the 👩🏽 Emoji when he posted a picture from the performance. On the other hand you might be talking about just Kpop stans which I can’t agree or disagree with because I stay mostly on the western side of Twitter and TikTok and follow a small number of black armys and reveluvs and I’m inactive so I really don’t see the big picture. I honestly think if black fans were treated a nicer when trying to educate people wouldn’t see it as a fan war opportunity but because any kind of call out is seen as an attack it gets treated as such. I mean I personally feel drained every time I see something anti black happen in out of Kpop. It just feels like a reminder of how anti black the world is and how much work has to be put in to undo it.

I was mainly talking about Kpop stans, yes. But you said a word about the "cancel" era, I'm jaded pertaining to that topic. Some people deserved to be called out, some don't.

There's a very fine line between appreciation, appropriation, and racism, but social media trends just jumps on the opinion that everyone famous is a culture vulture without educating themselves first and foremost (context can save like 50% of these scandals from even blowing up) or giving the celebrity the benefit of the doubt.

I get that we live in the internet age and info on pretty much anything is just a few clicks away, but if we want our justice systems to reflect "innocent until proven guilty", we should treat others in everyday life the same way.

Quote from sailorvelvet

I mean I personally feel drained every time I see something anti black happen in out of Kpop. It just feels like a reminder of how anti black the world is and how much work has to be put in to undo it.

Same here, I don't even react with outrage anymore; it's just a constant now. fucking awful

The world as a whole I don't think is anti-black or anti-POC, there's far more POC in the world than there are white/Caucasians. However, colorism is a cancer within POC cultures. That is something I will compromise on in regards to your opinion.

Quote from MissBehave

I was just confused when you said that you moved ones that had the *potential* to turn bad and that it didn't matter that the poster didn't have bad intentions or not and that you wanted a place that sensitive users could ignore triggering subjects. It made it sound like those topics would be put there regardless. I understand that you will judge them individually now based on potential offensiveness.

In my threads, I don't take bullshit. If someone wants to discuss with me, sure. If you start being a prick, I report you. I don't want my time wasted by assholes trying to pick a fight with me. I am not the one.

Quote from MissBehave

I don't understand the context?

I'm telling you why my threads rarely turn into "dumpster fire" material.

Quote from alexS

Mate I think you are using way too big words for some of the players to understand.

Google is free. And I wasn't using big words at all lol. I even showed the definition for performative.

Quote from alexS

Just an observation made over years that I've been haunting these forums, and life in general.

People are stupid, and the more stupid they are, they tend to follow the same trend.

This is also true.

Quote from sailorvelvet

Honestly I don’t believe in cancel culture. I rarely see people actually get cancelled. I mean R.Kelly still has fans and people streaming his music. I agree people should be given a chance to redeem and educate themselves because that’s the only way we’ll see progress but in many cases when it comes to celebrities outside sources cause more anger to be aimed at the accuse then when you confront someone in real life. In real life it’s just a conversation between 2-3 people on the internet it’s thousands of people speaking for and against the person. People will even make fake screenshots or scenarios without the celebrity knowing. It’s a shitstorm until the situation is addressed. It’s the culture of the internet. In my opinion the quicker it’s addressed the better so the person being accused can control the narrative. But I also understand why some don’t because it can get swept under rug and they can still remain relevant.

To summarize it’s the internet culture we created where facts aren’t properly stated and drama creates engagement that messes it up for everyone in my opinion. If people understood clearly what the problem was and how to solve it then people who were trying to breed hate wouldn’t have any credibility. I hope I’m not coming off as rude or dismissive I understand your point and frustration but I see it differently. I also hope I’m making sense. I had little bit of wine or maybe a lot

I don't believe in cancel culture either, maybe that wasn't clear in my previous response lol. Your summary of how the internet works is exactly why I don't believe in cancel culture. People wanna call others on their shit but I guarantee if their past was exposed for others to anonymously judge, some of them would be scared shitless.

Most people don't want to understand the systemic problems behind the scandals, which is a systemic problem in and of itself. Most people want drama and those fake edits to fan the flames prove it.

Quote from MissBehave

Or they could just honestly disagree. That's quite possible too. There's no reason to insult people.

We've already discussed the people who have legitimate concerns, Alex is talking about people who just cancel to be a part of the trend until it's no longer what the internet is talking about.