We all understand that without fans, there would be no stars — but how much power do fans really have? Discuss the power of a fan/consumer and what this could entail (how much impact do we have)?
Nowadays, the success of an idol group is largely dependent on the support of their fans. As the K-pop industry gradually transitions into a B2B industry, fans become an integral and direct contributor to their income and fame. This is largely in part due to their presence on social media platforms, where the fans are contributing to “free market research, marketing and advertising” (Lee 2016, 202). With the increased exposure to idols, fans have helped K-pop establish a dominating presence domestically and on the international stage.
Fans play a fundamental part in an idol’s group success because they provide accessibility to another avenue of promotion that cannot easily be penetrated by money alone – social media. By “actively [utilizing] user-generated international social networking sites and video sharing sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to promote [their favourite bias] and disseminate K-pop” (Jung 2006, 81) within their network, K-pop fans are providing another form of advertisement and exposure at little to no cost. Netizens avidly follow and comment on their bias’ latest music video on YouTube, generating revenue for their recording companies and bringing their content into the social spotlight. Fans also show their support through the making of dancing and singing cover videos. There are vast amounts of dance videos of fans replicating popular K-pop music videos, with “popular ones [being] instantly acknowledged by the K-pop idols… quickly generating even greater circulation” (Jung 2006, 81). Through the use of social media, fans have helped “promote, circulate, appropriate, re-create, and recirculate media contents” (Jung 2006, 84) to directly contribute to the success of idol groups.
Fans also have the power to determine the success or failure of an idol group internationally. It is important for idol groups to attract the attention of overseas fan if they hope to become successful internationally, as there are “a tremendous volume of popular cultural texts from … Korea [which are] mediated and widely circulated online via fan networks” (Lee 2016, 198). Netizens upload translations of their favourite Korean programs and songs from their bias, which help remove the language and culture barrier between K-pop idol groups and their foreign fans. In an article published on Forbes magazine, K-pop groups debuting in the States vastly outperformed their American counterparts due to their focus in keeping up their social media engagement. By recognizing “the more data savvy and proactive [their] fans are, the more power they have to impact [international music] charts” (Emily Blake, “The Strength of K-pop Fandom, By The Numbers,” Forbes, April 4, 2018, accessed October 16, 2018), which are a good indication of their popularity overseas.
In an increasingly technology-driven world, where social media plays a vital role in our everyday lives, “fans work as both gate-opener and gate-keeper via choosing, mediating, circulating and promoting [media content]” (Lee 2016, 201). Therefore, recording companies, idol groups and businesses must cater to the interest of their fans and consumers.
Author: Cathy Leung
Bibliography:
Jung, Eun-Young. “New Wave Formations K-Pop Idols, Social Media, and the Remaking of the Korean Wave”. In Hallyu 2.0: The Korean Wave in the Age of Social Media, edited by Lee, Sangjoon, Nornes, Abé Markus, 73-89. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015.
Lee, Hye-Kyung. “Transnational Cultural Fandom”. In The Ashgate Research Companion to Fan Cultures, 195-207.
Blake, Emily. “The Strength Of K-Pop Fandom, By The Numbers.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 4 Apr. 2018, http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilyblake1/2018/04/04/k-pop-numbers/#3a58852f48ab (accessed October 15, 2018).
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Cathy this is very well done. When I see this kind of essay, I am already sure your final exam essays will be top notch.
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Thank you!
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One thing, though, you should put the Forbes article in the biblio^^
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I agree with you that as the K-pop industry transitions into a business to business industry, consumers play an essential role. How the business to business industry generally works is one business pays the other to enter their market. For example, automobile advertisements with popular celebrities from the K-pop industry may appear in Youtube videos before a K-pop music video. If the K-pop industry did not have a large amount of consumers, then other businesses would not pay them because they have no market to advertise. How I see the long term progression of business to business markets is that businesses are together in one category, and are working together competitively to try to attract as many consumers as possible from different markets in order to create a self-sustainable ecosystem. How dedicated fans are to a certain business also plays an important role to how much one business is willing to invest in another. For example, a C-pop company would be willing to invest much less into a K-pop company that did not have dedicated fans because it would seem easier to pull the traction over. On the other hand, if fans were very loyal to a certain K-pop group, a C-pop company may pay more to be associated with that group and earn the exposure from that set of fans. I think you are correct in saying that social media platforms are providing another form of advertisement and exposure with little to no cost. Nowadays we are entering an era where data collection is worth more than simply good products. With businesses all being so accomplished now, the ones that can get ahead must predict what the future market wants. To do so, data must be collected from a niche such as K-pop fans to predict the products and events that will generate the highest income. Stars in the K-pop industry are mainly money making machines for the companies. Every successful business needs consumers, rather it be fans or other businesses. In the K-pop industry, the celebrities are the product and the first line of consumers are the fans, then the second line of consumers are businesses that want to access those fans. Therefore if the fans did not want these stars, then other businesses would not be interested in a market without consumers and K-pop companies would not be a sustainable.
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