The World of K-Pop: When ‘Love’ Becomes A Money-Making Machine

In 2012, the world of K-Pop fans was outraged when it was published that a female fan wrote a love note to her idol, Taecyeon, in her menstrual blood. The words, “You can’t live without me!”, was traced on the letter, and the fan subsequently posted it online to demonstrate her deep ‘love’ for her idol. Eventually, the fan wrote a note of apology on her blog, but there was no subsequent consequence after.

While this might seem like an act of psychosis, such incidents are not new to the world of K-Pop. These fans are known as “sasaeng”. They pride themselves on knowing the celebrities’ lives to an intimate level. Private information such as the celebrities’ handphone numbers, addresses, schedules, etc., are curated for a fee and used to stalk the idols. Social media has enabled them to create a wide network across the world, using apps like Discord, Twitter, and other private channels.

Sasaeng’s are known to have a bad reputation, and the blatant intrusion of privacy has led to reports on threats of celebrities’ safety and idols being driven into mental health issues. So why has such a toxic culture and clear intrusions into privacy, not led to any criminal consequences on these fans?

‘Love Makes The World Go Round

K-Pop thrives because these fans are willing to spend money on fan merchandise. BTS, a famous group of Korean male singers, has a merchandise store that sells a graphic lyric series for 74.99 USD. In Singapore, dozens of young entrepreneurial fans have also started selling self-designed badges of BTS members to the international market. The love for one’s favorite K-Pop group drives tons of young fans into buying merchandise that allows them to keep visual symbols of their idols within hand’s reach. BTS’s popularity and ability to drive merchandise sales spurred their management label, Big Hit Entertainment, to break into Korea’s stock market and made headlines for becoming an IPO in 2020.

Such unhealthy obsessions with these celebrities drive the biggest sales. Fans are willing to go to great lengths to support their idols, even if it means spending tons of money to do so. An infamous sasaeng, Josh1994, has even traveled all the way from Germany to track down the ‘love of his life’, Nayeon.

Producers and management labels are thus unwilling to pursue legal action against these fans for fear of driving down sales and the popularity of the idols. After all, isn’t it cruel to take legal action towards a person who is hopelessly in love?

New Marketing Strategies Propel Infatuation

Thanks to the emergence of new social media apps, Korean marketing strategists have encouraged idols to engage fans on Instagram, TikTok, and other live-streaming platforms. Such engagements give fans a sense of synthetic closeness as if the idols are their close friends. This phenomenon has been termed, Parasocial Relationship. Fans believe they have a close bond with their idol, but such a relationship is one-sided.

It is hard to blame sasaeng’s entirely for their idea of ‘love’ when these marketing tactics are deployed. Having access to conversations and sneak peeks into the celebrities’ private lives — their homes, their bedrooms, their private thoughts — in your very own bedroom, fuels this sense of closeness that can make fans forget that these are completely synthetic and one-sided.

When the Love For Money Trumps Self

Why do sasaengs continue to exist and why has South Korea not taken any action to protect their idols? In a world driven by money, it is difficult to hold on to clear moral boundaries when blurring such lines can rake in billions of dollars. Celebrities themselves need the money to keep up with their glamorous lifestyle. It doesn’t help especially when many of them give up their entire youth to train, audition and practice in order to achieve this level of fame. In a recent documentary of BlackPink produced by Netflix, “BlackPink: Light Up The Sky”, we learn that the members had to leave their homes to move to Korea to train and learn to live together with other trainees. Such rigorous training also meant that some did not see their families for an entire year. If giving up so much of your life to achieve your dream means having to give up personal boundaries and privacy, these idols would probably think twice about taking legal and criminal action against sasaengs.

Consequences

Unfortunately, the lack of action against sasaengs leads to the formation and continuation of a toxic culture surrounding K-Pop in South Korea. Apart from the more obvious consequences on the safety and mental health of the idols, I wonder if South Korean society is aware of the more subtle consequences of not taking strong action against such behavior. In doing nothing, youth are led to believe that:

1. Infatuation and love are the same things. If you ‘love’ someone, it is perfectly fine to cross boundaries, launch into persistent professions of love, and infringe on privacy. These beliefs will go on to shape their romantic and platonic relationships, and I shudder to think about what society might be like in the future.
2. Positive self-representation is more important than your own beliefs and mental health. Through the examples of the K-Pop Idols, youth learn that one’s carefully-shaped identity online has proven to be financially beneficial. It is no wonder that many around the world invest so much time and money to build up a perfect self-image on Instagram, sometimes at the cost of their own mental health. I can only imagine that this will fuel South Korea’s already booming plastic surgery industry, and the pressure and stress on youth to fit a very specific mold of what it means to be beautiful and liked, can lead to greater mental health issues.
3. There is no right and wrong. Everything is relative. Infringing on one’s privacy is not wrong, it is love. Harassing a person you like is not wrong, it is showing passion. Leaving notes written in menstrual blood is not wrong, it is the ultimate show of intimacy. These messages are harmful. It teaches youth that as long as an action can be justified by ‘love’, all their acts are right. There is no wrong.

Conclusion: How can we move forward as a society?

Although the example of sasaeng’s is primarily focused on the South Korean culture, such acts and inclinations are not unique to the country. Across the world, we have seen snippets of such behavior in youth and adults alike. How then can we move forward as a society to ensure that youth grow up with clarity between right and wrong, love and infatuation, and respecting people’s (and their own) boundaries?

This is where I believe education and parenting play a very big role in instilling these values. Although it is important for students to achieve good grades, it is even more important to help them discover a sense of self outside of the virtual world, to understand that there are clear boundaries between right and wrong, and the importance of respecting boundaries. Educators and parents will need to work hand-in-hand to teach these values so that our children will be able to live in a safer, more empathetic, and authentic society.

Author’s note: I would like to credit my student, Sei Lin Xiu, for educating me about Sasaeng Fans and exploring the consequences of this perennial lack of accountability against Sasaengs who perform such actions.