BTS for BLM: K-pop, Race, and Transcultural Fandom

“We Are Bulletproof”: The Transcultural Power of Fandom in #StopAsianHate

“…The values that inform the fan-artist relationship between ARMY and BTS lead to a particularly unique form of fan-celebrity intimacy that offers the potential for increased engagement beyond a digital space (Cho 2022). Recent studies looking at BTS' role as drivers of social change (Chang, Pham, and Ferrara 2021;Cho 2022;Jin 2021;Lee and Kao 2021;Rooks 2022;Youn 2023) and ARMY's affective ties (McLaren and Jin 2020) emphasize the importance of fandom in propagating and sustaining online movement activities. With ARMY encompassing people across all genders, races, and ages in addition to geographic diversity, their investments and interests in movements are broad but generally progressive.…”

“…Despite BTS' widespread influence in the West, including five Grammy nominations (no other K‐pop group has any), the group has frequently been the target of both casual and intentional acts of discrimination that target their masculinity, their race, or both (Lee 2022). Although Western media highlighted the group as they became popular, they were represented “as an exotic, foreign act, rather than…[a] reflect[ion of] the influence of American pop aesthetics and youth cultural ethos across the Asian Pacific” (Cho 2022:271). BTS' racial positioning in the West places suspicion on their ability to become one of the biggest musical acts in the world—the ways that the group is widely celebrated while concurrently victimized through processes of racialization emulates the ways that Asians/Asian Americans broadly are “simultaneously rejected and embraced” in a new media environment (Lopez 2016:16).…”

“…Our results prompt an investigation of digital activism vis‐à‐vis fandom, particularly across transcultural boundaries and considering the universality of anti‐Asian racism and its corresponding countermovements. Accordingly, this study interrogates fandom's contributions to combating anti‐Asian sentiment, builds on existing literature exploring the potential for fandoms to advocate for social justice (Brough and Shresthova 2012; Cho 2022; Gray, Sandvoss, and Harrington 2020; Lee et al. 2022; Lopez 2016; McLaren and Jin 2020; Morimoto and Chin 2017), and argues that the transculturality of BTS, ARMY, and their affective ties represent an opportunity for accessible global discourse about anti‐Asian racism.…”

Between universes: Fan positionalities in the transnational circulation of K-pop

“…Like Maya, most White fans interviewed for this research interacted with fans of Asian heritage in online and offline contexts and, in so doing, became aware of the dominant Whiteness and racial hierarchies. Indeed, K-pop can function as a cultural resource for fans to reflexively engage with and challenge racist discourse (often in cyberspace), which would otherwise be invisible to them (Cho, 2022;W. Lee & Kao, 2021), and potentially help White fans to be aware of their privilege (K. Yoon, 2019).…”

“…K-pop fans' immersion in the virtual universe, which is filled with the narrative of community and togetherness, may help enhance awareness of the existing social divisions that the world is facing. As demonstrated by BTS fandom's track record, some K-pop groups and their global fans have actively participated in anti-racist, social justice campaigns and charity work (Cho, 2022). However, the utopian and cosmopolitan K-pop universe may, to some extent, function to hide, rather than reveal, the still-existing racial and national tensions between different audience groups.…”