The Politics of Being a K-Pop Fan: Korean Fandom and the “Cancel the Japan Tour” Protest

Authors

  • Jennifer M. Kang Queensland University of Technology

Keywords:

K-pop, Korean Wave, fans, nationalism, globalization

Abstract

This article focuses on the online protest by Korean K-pop fans during the 2019 trade dispute between Korea and Japan. Several fandoms demanded that entertainment agencies cancel upcoming concerts in Japan as part of a nationwide boycott of Japanese brands in Korea. An analysis of the tweets under the hashtag #Cancel_Japan_Concert indicates that the Korean fans challenged the dominant discourses surrounding K-pop by (1) evoking the Korean-ness of the entertainment agencies that manage the K-pop groups by arguing that they should cancel the concerts because of the heightened domestic anti-Japanese sentiment, (2) emphasizing their role as moral caregivers by criticizing the agencies for treating K-pop idols as commodities, and (3) pointing to the lack of a “real” world tour in the idols’ concert schedules. These findings reveal that K-pop functions as a space in which Korean fans imagine alternative identities that transcend their popular image as embodying a collective nationalistic attitude toward the genre.

Author Biography

Jennifer M. Kang, Queensland University of Technology

Jennifer Kang is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. She previously worked at DePauw University and received her doctorate degree from the Department of Radio-Television-Film (RTF) at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests are global media, television studies, media industries, and the Korean Wave. Her work has appeared in the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Media, Culture, and Society and Celebrity Studies.

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Published

2023-01-26

Issue

Vol. 17 (2023)

Section

Articles

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