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Areum Jeong, "K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network. Hi, this is Rebecca Buchanan, host at New Books Network and today I'm here with Aram Jeong who is the author of K Pop Fandom performing Duck hu from the 1990s to today. Did I totally say that right or did I fail on Misery?
- [00:21]
B
You are great. You could run for office in Korea.
- [00:24]
A
I don't know about that, but we'll pretend, right? So can you talk about how this book came to be? Why did you want to write about K Pop and K Pop fandom?
- [00:34]
B
So I'm going to have to talk a little bit about myself. I am a hardcore K Pop fan and I've always been a K Pop fan since I was a very little girl. And that was a time when the word K Pop didn't even exist. We just called it Daejungayo, which means, which literally means Korean popular music. And then later, fast forward like a decade or two, the term K Pop emerged and now everybody calls it K Pop. But back when I was growing up in the 90s in South Korea, that term didn't even exist. But I was a huge fan of all these musicians. And there was also a time when social media and also widespread Internet usage wasn't available. And so everything was very, I guess pre digital, the analog era. You just watch stuff on tv, you listen to the radios and, and those are some of the, I guess my most cherished experiences. But it's also not often documented in Eng language scholarship today. And I thought it's important to kind of show, kind of show, I guess the lineage of K Pop fandom history from a time when, you know, social media Internet usage wasn't widespread up to today when everything is just so hyper connected and networked and just so intricately tied together. So that's kind of like I guess my personal story, but also funny story. I actually have a PhD in theater and performance studies, not in, you know, East Asian Studies or Korean Studies as you might assume. And when I was teaching courses in Korean pop culture around like the mid 2010s, that was roughly when, you know, a lot of scholars in North America was learning about K Pop because that was a little, a little bit after Size Gangnam Style, the horsey dance and everything craze was, you know, being widespread and you know, people were reading and writing more about K Pop. There was definitely more student interest in learning more about Korean content and that kind of stuff. And while I was looking for all these materials to assign in my classes, there was so many good work on like globalization or Government policies. But I couldn't really find a lot of sources that I wanted to assign on the topic of fan culture. And I think that really just comes from, I guess my personal experience is because I'm so deep into the fandom, I'm looking from the inside to the outside. Whereas I think a lot of folks who just started learning and researching about fandom was looking at it from the outside to the inside. So there could be differences in our perspectives. And I really wanted to assign something that really captured the fan experience and could really deliver what it's like to be a K pop fan. And then, and then eventually I thought, well, I guess I should just write what I want to assign in my classes. And so I started writing in 2018. And fast forward, how many years has it been? Like almost like seven years of writing, copy editing, proofreading, all that labor. The book will now be out next week. Is it next week? The 16th?
- [04:02]
A
Yes. Yeah, I know it's coming up, I have to say. So One of the things that drew me to this is I have a 15 year old who is very steeped in K pop. Like she, she really wanted me last year. G Dragon, who is her in her favorite band. Yes. Like she loves Big Bang. Right? Like we watch squid games and she's like, he was in Big Bang, blah blah, blah, blah blah. And I'm like, okay. But she wanted me to fly her to Las Vegas. Cause he was in Vegas for like two nights. I'm like, that is. We're not, we can't fly to Vegas. I'm really sorry, but, but like so wanting to know. I mean, I love that she has this fandom. She's really into pop music and I will listen to some and I'll be like, her first love was like Michael Jackson. And I'm like, this reminds me of that. So like wanting to hear more about like what this fandom. And so for people who don't know, can you talk a little bit about some of that history? Because K Pop, it is not like you say, like are now learning about it, but it's been around for a while. And you talk about this idea that there have been kind of sort of three, I don't know, generation, but there has been a number of iterations of K Pop. So yeah. What is K Pop? Just a little background into it for folks.
- [05:15]
B
Yeah, sure. And I'm so happy that your daughter is a K pop fan. And I know she's young, she's not financially independent, but I'm going to give her some hope and encouragement and tell her that when I was her age, I couldn't go to anything either because I was also like 15, 16, and I was just living on my pocket money. But once you become an adult, once you become financially independent, you can spend all of your salary on K Pop and just don't tell your mother she does it then.
- [05:46]
A
Well.
- [05:47]
B
And so to answer your question, a lot of people have very different definitions about K Pop. I think that's one of the great things about K Pop is that you can define K Pop in your own terms. And for me, I define it largely in three ways. First, it's a cultural product. A lot of people don't want to see it as a product because there are people involved, there are artists involved. But at the end of the day, it is a product generated by entertainment agencies which are embedded in this neoliberal capitalist environment. So it is a product at the end of the day. And second, K Pop is a receptive phenomenon. I get a lot of requests from journalists who want to know more about K Pop and one of their main question is, did the South Korean government really pour in billions and billions of dollars to create this cultural propaganda machine? And that couldn't be further from the truth because I looked at the data about how much money the South Korean government pours into the arts and culture from their annual budget. And if you look at it, it's actually significantly lower than what other big, you know, OECD countries pour into the arts and culture. And also if you think about it, arts and culture is a very big term. You know, in that term there's, you know, literature, film, tv, webtoons, esports, you know, like games. And actually music comes at the very bottom. So actually the Korean music industry doesn't really receive much financial support from the Korean government. So by saying that K Pop is a receptive phenomenon, I mean that the people who like it, like your daughter, will tell their friends and family, and then the people who listen to it will also tell their friends and family. So it spreads because the people who like it wants to tell other people. And so there still is this, you know, I think, misconception about K pop becoming this, like being this, you know, government instrumented machine. And I think that kind of misconception comes because a lot of people don't know about the history of K Pop. But if you, you know, read about it, there's like almost 30 plus years of K pop and fan practices that stem from the 90s up to today. And I think, yeah, that's where the misconception comes. So yes, it's a receptive phenomenon. And third, it's a community held together by fans and their labor. And so that's how I define K Pop. And so in first gen, roughly I divide K Pop fandom, K Pop generations in four generations. There is talk about a fifth generation. I don't really buy into that because I think in order to distinguish one generation from the other, there has to be some kind of paradigmatic shift from this generation to this generation. But I don't really see a huge difference between 4th gen and what they call 5th gen. So I'm going to ignore that 5th gen because I just think it's a marketing ploy. I just think they're. They don't want their new 5th gen, you know, groups to compete with the slightly older 4th gen groups because, you know, there's a lot of competition these days. And so I think it's a marketing ploy. But I'm going to distinguish it into four generations. And a lot of people think, oh, but you know, for example, you know, this group paved the way, or this group initiated this. Yes, maybe. But the way I see it, there's this historical continuity you see in all these four generations. And so I would like to argue that fan practices starting from first gen, from the 90s, that really paved the way into what we see today. I mean, today when we go to K pop concerts, we see these bright light sticks that fans are waving as they chant along. Now, in the 90s, we didn't have those light sticks, but we had balloons. We had different colored balloons for each fan club. We also had slogans that, you know, we made ourselves with, you know, hardboard and construction paper and stuff. And so, you know, there's a bit of, you know, change and adapting along the way as we have more digital media and technology. But I will say that a lot of the fan practices that we see today stem, they all have, you know, their originals in the first generation in the 90s. And you see that evolving with societal changes, with political changes, and also with changes in digital media and technology.
- [10:20]
A
Yeah, I will say, like, instead of going to CG Dragon, she got a light stick, which is super cool. I'm like, that thing is really, it's really awesome.
- [10:28]
B
It is awesome. Yes.
- [10:30]
A
I'm like, it turns colors, it does different things. I'm like, no wonder you wanted the light stick. So, yeah, so it's a flower light stick. So yeah, totally. Is it one of the things, like, for this book, you interviewed fans A number of fans in Korea. And one of the arguments you make too is that western sort of fan cultural studies does not, is not really able to fully define what is happening with K pop. So can you talk a little bit about that and who you interview like who you talk to, who you did like. Part of this is sort of auto ethnographic but also sort of a deep dive into fans and fandom.
- [11:07]
B
Yeah, yeah, sure. I've also read on a lot of other music industries around the world and one of the things I noticed was that K pop is in a way a bit peculiar. It's a bit special in that they have their own set of very, I guess special or peculiar phenomenon such as there's very high premium placed on the idea of authenticity. So the idols that the stars have to be not just, you know, beautiful people, talented singers and dancers, but they have to be good people. Meaning they have to be, you know, obedient to their elders, good to their juniors, nice friends, nice neighbors and pay their tax as well. They should not commit any kind of crime. They should not, according to a lot of Korean fans, go drinking or date publicly or even, you know, getting married. They, they have this kind of idea, an image of what the K pop idol should be and how this person should act. And so there's this very high premium place on the idea of authenticity on the idol side. And also this good idol, this authentic idol, should also be able to perform fan service in a very intimate way. And I don't think this is something that we see a lot, especially here today in North American music. I mean, Taylor Swift is not going to tell me what she ate for lunch and dinner. But K pop idols will, they will tell you what they did today, what they ate for lunch and dinner, what they're thinking about through all these platforms, social media, but there's also these other digital platforms where you're chatting with the K pop idols one on one. I mean of course it's a group chat, but the interface looks like a one on one chat. So it feels like you're having a one on one conversation with your favorite K pop idol. And so this is what I mean by it feels intimate. Of course fans are not delusional. They know that it's a group chat. But this kind of felt experience I think is something that's very unique in the K pop industry. And so that's why I think because of all these phenomenons, it's difficult to actually theorize K pop only through western centric frameworks. And so during My research, like you said, I interviewed a variety of fans, but mainly Korean women because I think they play a major role in creating fan practices in K pop and also helping them, you know, spread it to other regions, to other fans and other demographics. And also because I am, and I was a hardcore fan for like 30 years, I think at some, at, you know, at some point, it put a lot of fans at ease because some of them confided that they don't really feel comfortable talking about their fan practices, what they're really thinking or feeling to, you know, older researchers, because they would feel judged. I mean, if I were to tell you that I spent this amount of money on K pop concerts last year, yes, I would also feel judged. I might feel like, oh, my God, this person is going to think I'm crazy. But I think because these fans that I was interviewing know that I'm a fan of, I have a social media platform or I also upload all of my fan activities in addition to my academic activities, I think they felt more comfortable confiding what they were really thinking and doing because they know that I would not judge them because I'm crazier than they are. And so this kind of, you know, participating while also witnessing was one of the main strategies I used while I was researching and interviewing for this book.
- [14:53]
A
Yeah, so you kind of have four chapters that you look at and maybe so like visual. What do you do? Digital video, sort of archiving and then sort of exiting and this idea of. Now hopefully I say it right, right. Daku. Right. Or like, can you talk sort of about what that, like that idea and then maybe we can talk a little bit about sort of that digital practice. And so the online labor. Because a lot of what you about is the labor fans do and the importance of that labor in this sort of in this fandom and subculture.
- [15:30]
B
Sure. So the book starts with fan activities that require relatively less labor and less time and less cost. So these could be activities that you might start when you become a K pop band. Or maybe you're not even a fan yet. You don't even know you're a fan yet, but you're interested in this, this song or this K pop idol. What would be the first thing you do? You might open, you know, the YouTube page. You might search this person's name, start listening to their songs on Apple Music or Spotify. And so I start with some of the most, I guess, relatively easiest fan activities, and then each chapter moves on to a fan activity that requires a bit more effort A bit more time and maybe even cost and maybe even courage. Because sometimes you're putting yourself out there in front of other fans and also maybe in front of your favorite K pop idol. And then of course there's also a time when you fall out of the fandom. There could be a variety of reasons. You might feel unhappy with your favorite idol or maybe you, you're unhappy with the fandom or maybe there's some catastrophic scandal that just emerged that you just learned about and you feel that you cannot support this person anymore. So there are all these, you know, reasons why people fall out of K populated. And of course it's not a linear trajectory. For some people it could be linear, but for some people it could also be, you know, kind of like a cycle, kind of like a circle of life. And so I look at how these fan practices kind of emerged in a very, I guess, organic, natural way. Becoming a fan and then you know, you become more engaged with K pop and with the fandom, with the activities. And then you kind of also formulate, you kind of have a subjectivity, subjectivity as you participate in these repeated acts of fan practices. And then you might fall out of love. And so I look at all these different activities and also how a lot of them, while they are enmeshed in the neoliberal capitalist industry, there's also fan activities just for fans. And so you know, I, I'm not going to say that these are completely cut off from capitalism, but they, because they still are connected in some way. But there are also activities that are just meant for fans. And you know, the, the idol or the management agency might have no clue about these activities. So these are just really fan activities that center fans values. And so I look at all these kind of different activities. They could be connected with the capitalist industry, but they might not be. And they could also be something where fans want to, you know, generate criticism about the industry or even try to, you know, change society in some way.
- [18:16]
A
Yeah. So can you talk a little bit? One thing I thought was really interesting was how you kind of redefined the idea of parasocial relationships. Right. And, and looking at that and looking at it through this lens. So can you talk a little bit about that and kind of how you see that play out in K pop and in sort of this history of K pop?
- [18:38]
B
Sure. So I think traditionally a lot of media studies scholars define parasocial relationships as a one way relationship between the audience and the media figure. It could be a real person, it could be an imaginary person like Harry Potter or Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings. But you would feel as if you know this person and you recognize his or her characteristics or traits. And I would say this was pretty much the way it was during first gen K pop in the 90s because the idea of being co present with your favorite idol was very, very limited back then because we didn't have social media, we didn't have widespread usage of Internet. The only way you could actually feel like you're in the time same time or maybe in that same city with your idol would be when they're performing on TV live or when they're, you know, talking on the radio live. So there'll be very limited instances where you feel a kind of co presence with your favorite idol. But that really change changed starting from the 2000s, especially in the mid-2010s with all these social media platforms. Twitter, Instagram, YouTube v live vlive is like YouTube for K pop Idols, but it discontinued, but it was very, very popular. And through these kind of, you know, live streamings or interactions with fans and idols, I saw how it's no longer an entirely one way relationship. But and I wouldn't say it flows, you know, greatly in two ways, but I would say it's a more asymmetric two way relationship. And there are these different kind of power dynamics and unequal flows. But I would argue against the idea of parasocial relationships as an entirely one way relationship because today we do see, for example, K pop idols reading out comments that they see on, you know, their live stream or the chat or they respond to specific chats on these digital apps that's catering to fans. And so in a way I do think it's kind of an asymmetric two way relationship.
- [20:45]
A
Yeah. And one thing kind of that comes up throughout is how Covid has impacted some of these fandoms and fan relationships. Right. And even being able to video chat. So yeah, can you talk a little bit about that? Like some of these kind of like the fans using fan videos and like in reading it it often reminded me of like a comic con where you can go and you can meet the fan, you know, you can get your picture taken or get an autograph or whatever. But it seems like with K Pop there's even more ways in which fans engage in those practices. Yeah, can you talk about that and kind of.
- [21:21]
B
Yeah, sure, yeah. I mean Covid was, it was a horrible time, but it was such a big boon for the K pop industry because I do think the industry was a Bit confused and startled at first, like, oh my God, it's the pandemic. What do we do? We have all these concerts and events lined up, but they very swiftly adapted to online platforms. So for a while, instead of in person concerts, we had online concerts and all the in person autograph signings that we used to have. We call them fan signs in K Pop, they all turned into online fan signs. So video calls. And even after the pandemic restrictions were lifted in South Korea and other countries, K Pop companies actually continued to, you know, pursue this idea of online events, online concerts, online fan signs in kind of a hybrid format. So for example, you could go to an in person concert today, but if you know you're busy, you're strapped for time and cost. You could also just stay at home and watch the online version at the same time. And so in a way, I think the pandemic has motivated companies to heighten more effective labor out of fans through these in person and online fan events. So for example, during the pandemic, one of the things that really heightened was the number of fan videos on YouTube and social media platforms. Because fans couldn't gather together and talk about their favorite stars or share their experiences. What did they do? They all flocked to social media. They all posted their thoughts, their recollections, and the carefully edited fan videos of their conversations with the K Pop stars on video calls. Or even when they're just, they just purchased an album and they're unboxing it, they took videos of that. And also when they're decorating their photo card sleeves or their binders or their scrapbooks. And also these are, I think some of the, I think experiences that also center fan specific vantages and values. But they're also not cut completely from the industry because these kind of activities also do motivate other fans to, you know, kind of do the same. I mean, they aren't but events engaging with digital and video practices. And also to. In a way, I think it was, it was a time when they use these kind of practices to, to acknowledge that there was a community out there during this pandemic.
- [24:02]
A
Yeah. You know, and you talk about, and through here you talk about things like the photo cards and all these. And one thing I really loved because with my daughter, you know, and this gets into this sort of curating and practices is that there's so much ephemera that comes with. Right. You don't just. And I do work on zine, so it kind of reminds me, you don't just buy the album. Like you have photo cards in there. Like she has her little sleeves for her photo, right? And I can't tell you how many McDonald's we had to go to to look for the beat, like. And I learned that I could just go and say, I don't want a Happy Meal, I just want to buy the toy. And then we needed like you know, the SEC first and the all the BTs and there was a Jake somebody. RM maybe she couldn't find all the R. She wanted the RMS and like that was the only one she couldn't like. You talk about the bias kind of, right, the fans. But yeah, can you talk about that sort of this, this idea of archiving and curating your fan? Because it's, I mean we see this in other. But I thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [25:05]
B
And so I talked a bit about, you know, the digital practices like streaming music, watching stuff on YouTube, uploading your videos and your thoughts on social media. But that's, you know, kind of like directly feeding into the capitalist industry. But what you mentioned, you know, creating your own fanzine, Creating. Create Something is I think a space that's really just meant for fans. So in K pop, one of the most popular things that fans do is when it's an idol's birthday or the debut date, you know, kind of like an anniversary, they would have these cup sleep events in coffee shops. So you know, you might have seen this in your local city or somewhere else, but you could be walking into a coffee shop and they would, you know, hand you a cup of coffee and it has a little cookie sleep with the idol's face and some lettering like Happy Birthday J Hope or something. And of course the idols, the management agencies have no idea about this because this is strictly a fan organized, fan curated event. And in some coffee shops they also have a little corner where they will exhibit photos of the idols. So there's a little photo exhibition. And then there's also a lot of fans nowadays who are writing memoirs. And of course a lot of these memoirs are not published through mainstream Korean presses. There's a lot of, I think there still is, I think a lot of gatekeeping, especially around K pop and literature. But because fans now have new avenues, they found venues through independent publishing to publish their memoirs. These are also very popular among fans. And these writers, they will advertise what they're writing about and what they're trying to do through their social media. And they could also crowdsource funds. And in this way they're actually kind of, of knowing who Their reader is. Their readership is. And so they know that it's for, you know, the fandom. And they could also guarantee, you know, a number of books that will be sold and sent off to. And so I look at these different kind of activities where fans, you know, hold authorship and also curation to, you know, write about what you said. Ephemeral experience is something that, you know, could be very fleeting, but they're transformed into these images and text through photo exhibitions, cup sleep events and also memoirs through independent publishing.
- [27:27]
A
Yeah, I loved, I think it was at one point like the Korean government sort of said, don't go to these places in the. Because there's like three birthdays or something happening at the same time. So it's going to be crazy. Don't go out and go, yes, it.
- [27:40]
B
Was like November 17th or something.
- [27:43]
A
But you also. So you're like, your final sort of chapter is on this idea of like disengagement, leaving, you know, in some ways even fans kind of protesting or coming together. So can you talk about that too? That practice of sort of pushing back or frustrate. I don't know if frustration is the right word, but yeah, with some of it, yeah.
- [28:04]
B
I think every industry has, you know, a dark side and then there's, you know, the bright side. And I don't think it's a secret that there is the dark side of K Pop. There's been a lot of journalists who speculate and also write very orientalist articles about this. I'm not trying to sugarcoat any of these issues because I do think they're very, very serious issues, especially gender crimes. But I also, in that chapter wanted to highlight how fans deal with it. And so starting from first gen, you know, we. We oftentimes see fans, maybe if they're displeased with idols behavior, they would protest. And nowadays with there are all these, you know, hashtag, I guess, protests and more kind of collective mobilized efforts. And especially with the revelation of all these gender crimes that K Pop idols have committed in the past several years, the ways in which fans get together, call these idols out for accountability and also try to change the industry, I think comes from. They care for each other because they. They don't just care about the idols, they also care about the larger fan community and the industry. And they're in K Pop not just because they love the idols, but also because they love the other fans and they want the industry to do better. And so I look at how these kind of, I guess, protests, these collective mobilizations come Comes from, you know, their sentiments of the performances of care.
- [29:37]
A
So you've written this book about K pop, you are a fan. I mean, it's the kind of the first manuscript, like the first book length piece on K pop and K pop fandom. So like, what are you hoping that comes from this? What do you really want people to start to know, to start to think about? Around K pop it has become, like you mentioned, it's becoming more of sort of a global phenomenon. I can't get BTS tickets to save my life. Right. Because somebody buys, you know, also. And you talk about this here, like bots, buy them all up and then sell them for, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about what you hope this sort of brings people?
- [30:18]
B
Yeah. So actually there's been a number of academic monographs centering on K pop. Some of them is on the idea of liveness, or some of them is on the idea of relationship with western music culture. But like you said, I think my book is the first one that looks at fans and their labor. So I think even up to today, when we know that fans are central to K pop's popularity, we're still very far from a systematic understanding of what they do and what their labor does. Because so much of their labor is so invisible. And it only mostly happens through social media, digital spaces. And if you're not in that space, you don't see it. And so because, you know, a lot of people don't see their invisible labor, they don't get to recognize how their labor actually materializes into economic goods and value. And so this, through this book, I'm hoping that people are able to understand what fans do, how their labor actually materializes into something that profits the K pop industry. And also because my book is mostly centered towards Korean women, I'm hoping that junior scholars, future scholars, will be motivated to write about what other fans do in other regions and how their labor transforms their society.
- [31:48]
A
So my final question, we've been talking for a while and it could probably talk, I mean, you know, way more than I do, but we could probably talk about many of this. But the book comes out February 16th, I think you said. So anything with this book that you want to promote or anything else you're working on yet, like self promotion?
- [32:07]
B
Yeah. Thank you so much. I think the best thing about this book and also thank you to the University of Michigan Press, is that it will be available open access. So you don't necessarily have to buy the paperback or the hard copy. Maybe I should not say this. I don't think the press would be happy. But the main reason that I really wanted it to be open access is because I wanted it to be available to a lot of undergrad students around the world. And that's also why I tried very hard to write in a very easy, accessible way that is free from jargon. Of course there is a bit of jargon in theory, but I tried really hard so that that undergrads who want to learn more about Korean pop culture and K pop and idols and fans could access this book in a free available way. And so disclosure, while I was writing it, I also had my students in my Korean pop culture class as beta readers and I would email them a chapter once in a while and ask them. So let me know if there's anything confusing, any big words that I don't expect. Explain. Well, just let me know what you would like me to do in this chapter. And they were so engaged in reading one chapter after the another because. Because they're young folks and they know what I'm talking about. They were like, yeah, I totally get what you mean. Yeah, I totally resonate with this part. And so, yeah, I'm hoping that not just my students, but also our undergrads around the world will be motivated to read this through the open, open access version.
- [33:41]
A
Awesome. And I think too, like, I will just say that I love open access for many reasons, but also like, it's great because you can all like, I feel like your chapters are ones where you can read the whole book or you can be like, let's, you know, pick a chapter and really focus on that chapter and it really gives you some insight into K pop fandom and, and certain experiences in the fandom.
- [34:03]
B
So definitely, definitely. It's also, I think, a way of giving back to, you know, society.
- [34:08]
A
So thank you so much for talking with me on New Books Network again. Aram Jung, who's the author of K Pop Fandom Performing Duck who from the 1990s to today. Thank you for being on New Book Network.
- [34:22]
B
Thank you so much, Rebecca. I'm very honored to be here and thank you for having me today. Sam.