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welcome

Before you start exploring this work, let’s frame it a bit. Its author has been a fan of KPOP — if you still don’t know South-Korea's massive pop music industry, you should click on that purple link now or Google — for roughly 8 years. She’s not from South-Korea, nor has she ever been, KPOP — idol music —appeared one day as a suggestion on her YouTube algorithm and gradually took more and more space in her life up to the point where all the social and cultural media outlets she uses are now saturated by news from South-Korean musicians and actors.tresses. To this day, she feels drawn to the narratives carried by the music as it resonates on an individual level with her but she also feels attached to her favorite idols as if they were just like any other of her friends connecting from far places. What follows is an inquiry into her own passion, desire and will to understand how she — and many other fans — could feel so closely connected and relate to individuals so far from her socio-cultural reality. There are countless works in Korean and Japanese that describe how the globalization of KPOP has been crafted to favor fans’ attachment to KPOP stars — idols — around the world, but only a few have been translated to English, and even less to other languages. This work stems from a global fan’s perspective and compares different fans' experience of closeness with idols as to analyze the tools used by the KPOP industry in order to reach global audiences and allow proximity to a media persona.

take your time to familiarize yourself with the work — as fans would with idols — it is not a monolithic nor a linear process, phone use is advised

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VIRTUAL

physical and digital bodies intertwine

REALITY

a space where things (co)exist

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what

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It is of the utmost relevance to analyze how the KPOP industry and fans' use of communication media enable new conceptions of closeness in the context of an individual's corporeal absence, because relationships these days are becoming increasingly virtual yet they still don't match the feeling of proximity that comes with a purely physical encounter. In comparison to KPOP, where idols' presence is much more vivid for fans — international and local alike — because they have had to adopt a much looser definition of togetherness in the midst of the geographical, societal and economical barriers preventing them from first-hand meeting their idol. Thus, fans intentionally navigate the blurred lines of the VIRTUAL and create a REALITY in favor of closeness to their favorite idol(s) that inspire to reconsider the design of virtual encounters at large.

︎︎︎ watch me ︎︎︎

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KPOP

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It is the widely used term for Korean pop music. It includes all kinds of genres, but it is best known for its idol music which is a very specific type of pop music that was popularized in South Korea by SM entertainment’s idol group H.O.T.. For a long time, SM, YG and JYP Entertainment, known as the "Big 3", have had the highest recruitment rate in idol training (aidol): the process all artists must go through and succeed in order to debut as an idol/idol group member. During this training, aspiring idols learn not only how to dance and sing, but also how to perform and appeal to their audience to make them into fans. This system is largely influenced by the Japanese idol training method (aidoru), which was developed during Japan's economic boom, known as the "bubble", in the 1980s. Both systems are unique in that they rely on collaboration with media platforms and entertainment companies in order to maximize the investment of fans for the proximity they are allowed to the idols, and thus add to the commercial value of the latter. Ultimately, the proximity, in an idol and its fans relationship, is the most important thing as it ensures the emotional well-being of the fans and their idols, as well as the financial success of the entertainment companies. In the early generations of KPOP, the Big3 owned most of the idol groups and were the only ones benefiting from fans' engagement in the personality driven capitalism generated by the industry. This stranglehold on the entertainment market allowed them to be at the forefront of cultural technology development and to successfully integrate idols' into the lives of their fans around the world. Today, BTS’s company — Hybe — leads the exploration of the many forms of presence that its idols can take thanks to the support from the group’s fandom — A.R.M.Y. — which is the largest community of fans known to date.

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why

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KPOP is one of the few industries that takes advantage of the distance between idols and their fans in all circumstances as it leverages the familiarity people have developed at communicating with others through media and the internalization of communication technologies within virtual relationships in order to recognize the other in oneself. Yet, alternatives designed to counteract the physical absence of idols can only be as strong as fans' desire for proximity towards them. Idols’ virtual presence — the various embodiments of their spirit as experienced remotely by fans — has thus been developing and shifting through KPOP’s industry for several decades as it was responding to an ever growing and diversifying fanbase. Considering how KPOP is now a global phenomenon — some group such as BTS have more than 90 millions fans worldwide — it is surprising how only a few experts — outside of Asia — study the proximity industry created by KPOP as a way to proposes a constant reinvention of co-existence in virtual encounters and new techno-social structures that participates in the dislodging of monopolies long held by the West over media markets.

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how

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In order to fully grasp the tangible implication of idols' virtual realism — or the ways in which they transition from immaterial strangers to embodied significant others — the author analyzed tools used by KPOP’s industry, by idols and by fans that allows to create a network of connection supporting the artist’s virtual embodiment. She also interviewed fans, through various forms of social media; they are friends of friends, family members — not hers — and strangers who answered her DMs. They showed great enthusiasm and generosity as they were asked to dissect the mechanisms at play behind the very special bond they hold with idols and kindly consented to have it — redacted — as part of this work. In order to keep a sense of privacy, they shall remain anonymous. All other related media on this website are sourced from fan-made content, Korean entertainment companies, KPOP and media experts; they demonstrate the many ways in which an idol holds place in its fans’ lives. These examples are not made anonymous for they partake in the redistribution and representation of idols that is crucial to make them exist for fans and as much as they are shared throughout the world, they still are representive of the Western and European context the author writes from.

︎︎︎ explore me ︎︎︎

This map shows the hidden structure behind this website. It highlights the meeting points — virtual realities — facilitated through transmediatic forms of communication tools, fans’ desire for proximity and various key elements that are embedded within KPOP’s international representation. It is a reminder of the interconnectedness of social and technological structures serving the materialization of fans and idols’ relationships which will be discussed in the sections below.

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full interviews

Navigate though a variety of interviews and case studies that exemplify how media and communication technologies are instrumentalized by idols and their fan in order to feel close to one another. Don’t hesitate to click on the purple links, the more you see, the better your understanding of idol’s closeness to their fans and their methods will become to you. Those links might take you to different place, explore them as you wish, you can always make your way back to the virtual reality website later. If you get lost in your this hyperlinked exploration, feel free to come back to the home page. Start a new path and see how it will influence your understanding of idol’s presence even when remote.

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communicational tool kit

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