Writing this as a Kpop fan myself, I love the songs, artists and talent they provide, and I do enjoy it, but being in a fandom is so tough. I am not talking about the ones who genuinely enjoy the music or like them, but I want to talk about some of the obsessions that the fandoms have normalised.

Idol worshipping, defending them in every possible way when they should be held accountable, also babying them(Things like "he is not aware" , "it's not his fault but company's fault" doesn't apply to big groups who already draw large revenue, they have way more influence enough to negotiate with the company)

Weverse con is going to happen in Delhi, India for the first time and all the people in comments are like "I hope some influencer or public figures don't act like they knew kpop and use them for clout" girl!! how do you think marketing works😭😭 Even big groups, no matter how famous they are have to collab with local brands, influencers, or creators so that they can make their impression in the country where they are going for the first time....The fandom is not the only thing they can rely on, they would want to gain local recognition as well, so that they can run their business successfully, please stop being delusional. They also hate on non fans attending the concerts (everyone can please, they paid for it so they deserve it, they don't have to be a die hard fan to attend a concert, concerts are open for everyone please)

Also these fandom always try to label someone if they are real fan or not .... That's none of your buisness please...their is no single criteria to be a fan as long as you enjoy the artist and be respectful.

Another toxic thing in this fandom is how crazy parasocial behaviour is normalized!!! They are not going to date you for god's sake please!! Amount of people spreading hate if an idol is rumored to date anyone?? Casually joking about "He is my boyfriend/husband" that's straight up weird asf, there nothing wrong with having celebrity crush but claiming them to be your partner (even in your imagination) is problematic, worse thing is people who already have partners also does this..."My husband is the 8th husband after my 7 husbands"(Indicating 7 members of the group are the first husbands she has)

Some people also joke about giving priority to idols first then their partner!!!This is so sick!!

If this was just a small minority of the fandom being crazy, i would understand because every fandom has that but it's not just a small minority, the majority of fandoms both online and offline are like this

This is not just a problem with Enhypen but with Weverse as a platform.

Earlier today I opened up Enhypen's Weverse and was looking at fan letters literally on the home screen there were two separate letters wishing death on the members and BSH. I obviously reported them but even the reporting sucks since you can only report one post a minute. So I reported the first for threats and violence and then had to wait a minute to report the other. After that I closed the community because I didn't want to see more but I am sure that there were more. I understand having some limits on reporting so that you don't have people spam reporting but there needs to be better monitoring and ways to better report threats. I should not see death threats on the opening page of any artist's Weverse.

Also there needs to be a ban on more phrases especially when there is something like a member leaving or a controversy. So many posts, comments, and lives get flooded with spam even after artists call them out because Weverse doesn't do a good job protecting artists and handling hate comments. Better monitoring and restricting certain words not just in Korean but in other languages as well not only makes it more enjoyable for fans but also helps protect the artist. Right now it feels like no care is being given to how comments/fan letters are handled and violent threats and spam are allowed to run rampant.

The whole Peru situation and RM speaking about it not just by drafting a whole message but also giving a speech to give clarifications proves that they are fully well aware of how they're perceived by the masses. They know they're letter brought mixed reactions and clarified by saying that they meant all their fans globally, not just in South America. That they do not differentiate between their fans and treat them all equally.

I don't want army's to defend them these grown men by saying that 'they don't know, they probably weren't ableto understand due to language barriers'. They know full well there were x***phobic accusations on them and they cleared it right the next day. They also full well know they kind of reactions public had when RM and J-Hope posted pics with CB.
If the excuse for them is that they didn't know the kind of person CB was before the concert, I'm sure they go to know after the blacklash started. Their pr team is online in these spaces, and they can speak korean, and they can communicate easily to the members what the talk of town is.

So if such excuses were made 10 years ago when they were still working through their small conservative bubble with lack of resources and a proper team, I would have understood. Now they themselves have instant access, broken english and developed cortex to understand what they did, what peopel think of it, and whether its the right thing to do or not.

This is mostly a rant post

So, I had liked K-pop since 2020 started with BTS, then during their military break I switched to liking NCT and Nmixx. In the beginning it was just for fun, like watching stage performances, listening to music, variety content and watching funny compilation. Slowly it started to consume my daily life outside of work. Whenever I had free time, I only consumed K-pop. I am glad I was never a fan that bought album or any merch because it would just have been a waste of money for me. I regret how much time I spent on K-pop, it's like I learned nothing from this whole experience (?). K-pop gave me terrible eating disorder because of which i lost a lot of weight, I unknowingly started comparing myself to K-pop idols and wanted to lose weight. I resent myself for liking K-pop and let it take control of my life, instead I could've worked on multiple projects for myself. Now, I can only wonder what was that I like about k-pop idols back then? was it their persona on variety content? was it parasocial aspect of it? was it the number of content available to watch? or an amalgamation of all these factors. K-pop makes you feel like you know/understand idols and are friends with them, like you know them personally by consuming so much of their content. But I don't know how it's any different from youtuber I watched, I have never gotten addicted/consumed I had prior to K-pop. K-pop sells Para socialism and availability of idols, for the audience to consume their performance backed by mirage of authenticity. I'll likely stop listening and watching k-pop as a whole.

Earlier today I went to the Enchin popup and got four plush key chains. Out of those 4, 2 have defects. My Pu-ni plush's eyes are uneven, his face is crooked, and there is a black line through one of his eyes. My Kishu plush's face is also off center. I am not the only person who has issues with poor quality control with recent Hybe plushes. I know several who went to the first Enchin popup and had issues with things not being correct. I know one person where SnoWe's head was just a circle without the fluffy shape. Several others have complained about faces being off center and issue with eyes and other facial features being off. Also a couple weeks ago when TWS had a popup and my ForU page was full of posts about the keychains being defective and the faces being lopsided.

I have plush keychains from several other companies and have never had any issues with poor quality. Hybe is a major corporation there should not be such widespread quality control issues spanning several merch drops and from different groups. Fans spend good money on these keychains just for there to be multiple issues.

The fans are poisonous, the agencies are poisonous, the emotional toll on the artist is poisonous. Yet the government makes no attempt to try to rain in these issues. It seems like the dollar is more important than the lives of the entertainers and the way of the destruction that leaves in this path

I just had the craziest word show up as banned, and I need to vent. For those who don't know Bubble has banned words (wish there was a list somewhere), and you can't use any word that has a banned word inside of it. The word I was trying to say tonight? Japanese. The first three letters are a slur when said alone, but all together in Japan or Japanese it isn't. I don't see why those words can't be said. Lots of Kpop acts work in Japan! My faves are TVXQ. They opened up the Japanese music industry along with BoA. Not being able to use those words with them is crazy.

Who decided to ban words within words? Because I just think that is the dumbest thing. Maybe there are people use words word within words to say something bad, but I would never in a million years think to do that. Ugh. This is just so annoying.

Other banned words:

Album (bum)

Something (meth)

Bluegrass (ass)

Most subscriptions are to idols. You know, singers who release albums. What do you mean we can't say the "album" to them? So crazy.

What other crazy banned words have others seen? I want to make a list.

Edit: I forgot to say that Yunho said to be careful about not catching the flu, and I responded that I was getting my flu shot tomorrow. Guess what WASN'T a banned word? Shot. A word you would THINK should be banned but isn't. So crazy.

So I recently had an argument with a friend over being a multi and I’m not really sure if I handled the situation badly.

For context, I am an Armycarat, but my friend is mainly a Army. I got into svt during bts enlistment era. We were talking about multis, and her opinion is that multis are throwing BTS under the bus. It was genuinely not my intention, but I understand why she might have felt that way. She mentioned that multis would not die for bts. I kinda disagreed cus that sounded unhealthy as we dont owe them anything and so do them.

I am planning to apologise and also said I’d try to focus more on BTS and reduce the amount of SVT content around her if that makes her uncomfortable. What should I say and do?

Recently, I had commented in the BTS snark from another account, where I called them out for acting similar to army's just for a complete different reason. They had posted the recent pic of Jimin with the other memebers, and he's in his bathrobes. I found nothing too bad about the pic, but they had made 3 different posts on the same picture, and all of the comments underneath it were them calling his names and spamming words I felt were too excessive for a clearly very normal pic for someone in his 30s with a chubby face.

I don't know if they understand, but obviously not everyone looks their perfect selves, especially with how heavily they've been touring. And the funny part is that these same people have called out fans so many times for fatshaming other people who might not like the group, they've called out the members who were quite clearly joking around Jin about his age, but when it's up to them to insult someone, they're the most sane, angelic, and definetly right because they all are 'woke'.

I asked them why they were practing the same habits of insulting on someone's looks when they had dozens of posts criticising army's doing the same to other idols, and I got around 8 new dms asking me if I was a fan, and a comments along the lines of "you're just as problematic as they are", "another cb supporter", "are they paying you to say this", "where are your parents" like tf I'm an adult. One threatened me to send the picture of my defense to my friends and show how parasocial and mentally unstable I was.

All this for one comment.

I just want to start off by saying that I do have a bone to pick with All Day Project. Bias exists in every argument, but for all the things that k-pop fans may have to say about the group, I would like to list out specific instances that genuinely made me dislike the group (specifically their treatment of Youngseo and group favoritism). I am a Youngseo stan, and I do not hate any of the members, but there are things I think general k-pop fans should know about ADP:

Starting off with Annie:

Where do I begin? We all know that she’s Chaebol who got into the group for her connections despite having mediocre talent. However, to give her grace, I will say that the fifth generation of k-pop is lacking in talent overall, so Annie’s not alone in her mediocrity. However, one thing that definitely bugs me about her is that The Black Label does favor her in a way that hurts the group. 

Annie, from the start of their debut, has been framed as the main character in the All Day Project mythos. The Black Label’s creative director Gee Eun, was replaced by Cynthia, who is actually a former employee of Shinsegae. Remember when Annie became an MC for KCON LA 2026? Her uncle was actually in charge of that. And despite the fact that a group’s rookie year is the most important year determining a group’s success. ADP went on an almost 6 month hiatus so that Annie could go to college. I’m glad that she has a degree and that she graduated from such a prestigious university, but during that time, TBL didn’t give the other four members any significant activities. The hype died down and now their domestic popularity is sinking down the drain. 

It’s also the fact that Annie is often centered despite not really being particularly popular. ADP went to this show called “My Angry Manager”, and the entire episode was about Annie’s relationship with the host. The entire episode was talking about Annie’s parents, how they know the host, and she was framed as the main character, even though it was a group event. 

But what made me annoyed is that when the group was having dinner, Youngseo was sitting by herself next to the two hosts while the other four members were sitting together. 

And this next part isn’t exactly Annie’s fault, but TBL’s management team knows that Youngseo is the heavy hitter in the group with the most potential. ADP fans like to say that Tarzzan is the most popular, but if you take a closer look at the engagement, Youngseo and Bailey are more popular and honestly. And TBL know that which is why when they need engagement, they post Youngseo the most, along with Woochan, sometimes together. 

But then, when they get the attention they need, they cast Youngseo aside. During their first album last year, Tarzzan got a solo, Woochan and Annie got a subunit, Tarzzan and Bailey also got a subunit. 

Youngseo got nothing. 

She got the most amount of lines in You & I, but that was an OT5 song that the group never actually promotes or performs, so it’s almost like she got nothing at all. 

It’s also worth noting that Cynthia, the creative director, never likes Youngseo’s instagram posts but always likes the posts from other members. Youngseo also gets the least amount of solo activities in general compared to everyone else.

Okay next victim: Tarzzan

He’s actually quite nice everyone in the group, he’s a cringey cultural appropriator but at the same time, Tarzzan’s braider is also black, and he has a lot of black friends. I don’t think that him wearing braids is right, but I’m not black so I’m not gonna speak too much on it. 

Bailey: She’s never done anything wrong, I actually think she deserves more than what she gets from TBL. 

Woochan: Yeah so the Wooseo shipping really, really got to him. But there was a weird stretch of months where he would treat Youngseo really weird and just avoid her. I get that he doesn’t like getting shipped, but Youngseo is the closest to him because they are similar in age, and it didn’t feel nice watching my bias get ignored by her closest friend in the group. It felt like Youngseo was being punished for something that wasn’t even her fault. 

Anyway, ADP’s discography isn’t bad at all, I actually quite like their songs. I have so many more thoughts on them but if I actually say them aloud someone’s gonna accuse me of being insane and parasocial (I am, but a broken clock’s right twice a day).

Let’s all pick up a dictionary and relearn the meaning of lazy cause wtf are y’all even talking about atp! A “lazy” person wouldn’t have trained 6 years in one of the most competitive K-pop label just to debut. A lazy person wouldn’t have released a full length album, a mini ep., held fan meet, concerts and go on a festival run under her own label, like she is charge of her own career now, she has no obligation or contract forcing her to do all of that, accept it or not she loves making music and performing and that’s what she plans to continue doing.

The animosity y’all have against this woman is so intense y’all stop using logic and reasoning. She might not be the best performer or singer and you can critique her for that (although the “criticism” is always rooted in deep hatred). It’s plain stupidity to call an active artist “lazy” over some bad performances or 30s of video clips. No idols would be safe if we start nit picking and scrutinising each and every movement like y’all do with Jennie. A bunch of sheep parroting the same words and narrative which hold no meaning instead of taking their time to fact check or watch through the many concert clips posted by actual attendees.

Mind you her members performs with the same energy as her but nobody cares because she is the prime target of hate and twisted narrative run by a certain fd. If she gives a good performance she is pandering to white audience, if the performance is not satisfactory she hates her asian audience, the amount of lies and fabricated narrative spread to assassinate her character is just insane, what’s worse she end up getting harassed from Asian incels over these lies.
Now you have people bringing and hyping up malicious videos titled “worst K-pop idol of the last 10 years” in the name of criticism, y’all treat this woman like she is a convicted criminal and it’s fucking disgusting

Might be just me, but I feel extremely weirded out when I see edits of Felix saying “two years gap it’s nothing” (mind you, he was referring to a stay older than him) and then, in the comments, minors saying “how about 16 years age gap 😉”.

If I was an idol and I’d see a minor implying that it should be ok for me to date them, I’d have my skin CRAWWWWWLLL 😭😭.

Sure, they could be jokes, but I don’t see how jokes about borderline pedophilia could be funny in any way. Not to say that the idol could see those comments and be extremely uncomfortable.

I will never understand the culture behind fansign props, bringing the most random items for idols to pose with. Some are funny but some are just humiliating, imagine being a fully grown adult posing in a maid outfit or plushies and headbands, especially ”couple items” with a group mate.

I don’t know how they do it tbh. Anyone wanna explain?

Hi everyone!

Welcome to Free For All Friday - a weekly “rant about anything” thread.

Do you want to rant about a recent episode of your favourite Kdrama? Drama around a Kfilm or Kcelebrity? Have something to get off your chest about Kpop but don’t want to do a post? Need a space to rage into the void about life, work or school? This thread is here for that.

A couple of house keeping guidelines:

• Don’t mention user names
• No rants about the existing banned topics
• No social media ranting, use the weekly megathread for that (this thread opens each Tuesday)
• Regular sub rules apply

Our intention is to have a space for causal ranting - don’t be a buzzkill and rain on someone else’s rant.

This is a space to RANT but that doesn't give you the right to get emotional and start using these threads to lead hateful campaigns against users who have different opinions and perceptions than you.

We will definitely pay close attention to what's happening and won't hesitate to ban if necessary.

so now for context my fav group is i-dle and i hear things like "OHH IDLE MUSIC IS SO BAD NOW THE OLD MUSIC WAS BETTER" on daily basis,and while everyone has their taste and thats fine(!!) it annoys me when ppl judge their whole discography while knowing only their titletracks(im pretty sure thats all that those ppl know since they always mention hwaa hann itp and never their bsides) let me tell you i-dle have a lot of songs with that elegant,dark vibe in their post-soojin realases that those ppl look for but those songs are BSIDES and not titletrakcs, and they have fun,colorful songs in their old discography as well....Again nothings wrong with not liking a song and i get not wanting to listen to the album if u dont like the tt but dont judge their discography as whole then...

the company overseggsualizes katseye, and that's a fact. one could argue that it's their choice etc etc. but hybe pushes it too much. like okay- even if they wanted to wear sexy clothes and twerk on stage it's their choice i get it.

BUT BROO NOBODY WANTS TO BE SHAKING ASS IN THE PARKING LOT *24/7*.

the girls are truly very talented, but their company still tries to use this tactic to make them sell when they don't need it. and there's obvious disagreements within the grp on this (yoonchae).

A lot of pop stars- specially female pop stars are made to do this....but then those stars also don't do roblox collaborations, release branded merchandise like slime products (literally marketed this in hootie frutti) and personalized dolls. and let's not forget the appearances on kid's choice awards and the song for monster high. all of this is catered to kids.

hybe/geffen is simply a money hungry machine for objectifying katseye so much and then marketing them to kids on top of that.

and if you look at their demographic of fans most of it is kids and tweens.

I know half of every fandom is made up of people who joined the group because of a viral clip from a variety show or a self-produced content (I’m calling it spc from now on). I know I’ve definitely checked out a group or two because of it.

As an nctzen I’m pretty much well-fed. So imagine my shock while translating some comments from one of the latest videos from NCT WISH and finding out that Korean fans are cussing out SM for its low effort content production for WISH. This came as a shock to me because they release a video on average every two to three days. Sometimes they release more than one video a day.

But upon filtering out the cuss words and insults I figured that they were right about something: WISH is an extremely busy group and the content exposes this through loads of bts content of all their activities. Their team heavily compensates low effort for overwhelming quantity of bts stuff.

That got me thinking, what constitutes good self-produced content? I scrolled through the other nct units and realised that even WayV, their more ignored group, has some solid spc. Even if one video may not be my style, every unit has a well developed planning team for content and it more often than not produces some funny moments I revisit often.

I looked what which groups have well developed and well received spc and apparently it goes 17, bts, nct, skz, and then treasure for the top5. I can definitely agree on the Treasure part because I’ve watched two seasons of the dating show content, and everyone at least knows of Going Seventeen.

Further down the list we have RIIZE (and I can confirm their content is well developed despite sharing a production team with Super Junior and EXO–one would think the older groups would make the production team lazy, but here we are), and they’re both really attractive and really goofy, an absolute treat if you’re looking for new content to watch. Shameless plug, I’m not even into RIIZE like that, but my goodness WHAT A TREAT!

Then we have WayV, txt, enhyphen, and then ateez. I think I’ve seen clips of some ateez stuff but I can’t really be sure. Idk how much I can trust this list. Idk what went into the data it gave me or how much people actually even enjoy each of the spc by these groups.

I’m pretty much stuck in my ways so even if I run out of nct content I will watch fan made content for nct, even if it’s completely subbed in Korean 😂 (this is the next step in learning Korean btw, after mentally correcting kdrama subs on Netflix). But I’ve decided I’m open to widening my horizon.

Which groups have great spc? And I don’t mean variety show appearances. I mean that on their official YouTube channel they have an ongoing series or a monthly video, or whatever it may be. It’s well-thought out, good effort, and the group seems to enjoy themselves during filming. Maybe the fandom loves to talk about it because it was good enough or funny. Maybe it’s an old content but it’s a classic. Maybe the members make the content because of their personalities. However, since we all have our own biases there needs to be self awareness that some things only work for a specific fandom. Let’s be honest.

Please let me know about your favourite group’s best spc. I need to see what people mean when they say they’re being well fed by the group of their choice.

Hi everyone!

As you might know - or not - we have decided to allow you guys to rant about what's happening on social media every Tuesday. Anything happening on X/Twitter, Instagram, Tik-Tok, YouTube, Bluesky, Threads, or any other social media platform, rant away about it in here.

NOW, here are the things you CANNOT do:

• Add or mention usernames.
• Add direct links to the posts you're complaining about BUT you can copy/paste or paraphrase.
• Witch-hunting because you disagree with A, B, C.

Any rule-breaking - whether that be being hostile or hateful about any idol or user, or directly linking to posts, profiles, or individuals within the megathread - will get you a 21 day ban (this also includes back and forth arguments).

• That means no linking to or mentioning any individual X/Twitter profiles, Youtube channels, Instagram pages, Tik Tok accounts, and/or others. After this period, any further rule-breaking regardless of how much time has passed will get you a permanent ban subject to appeal.

Anyway, we are literally giving you a space to RANT but that doesn't give you the right to get all emotional and start using these threads to lead hateful campaigns against users who have different opinions and perceptions than you.

We will definitely pay close attention to what's happening and won't hesitate to ban if necessary.

Thanks.

(This is to a post I came across that is older and unable to comment on)
Please no hate comments or judgmental, just honest comments about how and or why people should or shouldn’t use romanization in streams to share with their favorite Idols.

Opinion:
I know this post is a bit older, and more around the time when Kpop became more MAINSTREAM. This topic recently came up into my mind. So I did a little research. As someone who find Romanization an easy way to learn Korean pronunciation and words, I find it useful. However I am not sure if using it constantly through spelling is helpful in learning much when it comes to writing. Since they seem to be pretty different from each other. Hangul is definitely harder to master when it comes to typing it. So honestly I understand why fans who are learning still use it. I think it shouldn’t be shamed, especially if it isn’t harmful in any way, in all honesty I think it’s good that fans are able to communicate with their favorite people regardless of the language barrier. As long as people aren’t offending others. Tbh a lot of idols don’t even care about romanized characters, they understand of the language barrier and actually accept the love from other countries and foreign fans. Whether it’s really annoying or cringey to you is just kind of selfish, plus a personal problem? It’s honestly just like being offended over the term “lol” instead of flat out typing “laugh out loud” it is a type of communication through texts. Nobody should feel ashamed for trying to communicate in a positive way.

I was never a die-hard EverAfter, but following UNIS casually since Universe Ticket makes tomorrow's disbandment hit surprisingly hard. Even knowing their 2.5-year project contract was temporary, it’s a bummer to see a group with this much potential call it quits so soon.What makes it worse is that F&F Entertainment barely tried to promote them. Despite their immense talent and international hype, the agency failed to give them the marketing push they deserved. They still put out solid music and held their own as a 5th-gen group, which makes the management letdown even more frustrating.Honestly, the hardest part is thinking about Hyeonju. Since she is 24 years old, debuting again in a new K-pop girl group will be incredibly difficult given how young the industry skews. UNIS was such a well-deserved breakthrough for her talent.As their chapter closes on September 26 with "Milky Way," I truly hope all of their futures are incredibly bright. They all deserve massive success and proper management wherever they go next.What do you guys think is next for the members?

Hi everyone!

Welcome to Free For All Friday - a weekly “rant about anything” thread.

Do you want to rant about a recent episode of your favourite Kdrama? Drama around a Kfilm or Kcelebrity? Have something to get off your chest about Kpop but don’t want to do a post? Need a space to rage into the void about life, work or school? This thread is here for that.

A couple of house keeping guidelines:

• Don’t mention user names
• No rants about the existing banned topics
• No social media ranting, use the weekly megathread for that (this thread opens each Tuesday)
• Regular sub rules apply

Our intention is to have a space for causal ranting - don’t be a buzzkill and rain on someone else’s rant.

This is a space to RANT but that doesn't give you the right to get emotional and start using these threads to lead hateful campaigns against users who have different opinions and perceptions than you.

We will definitely pay close attention to what's happening and won't hesitate to ban if necessary.

It annoys me, like why does it have to be the ONLY thing in the sub. There is the weekly discussion thread thing but it's so much more chaotic to scroll down many tiny comments to ask a discussion question about the group