In Erica Vogel’s ethnographic work studying K-pop fandoms in Mexico City, she uncovers the main reason there is such a strong fanbase there: community. While a major incentive for Mexican K-pop fans in performing so much unpaid, affective labor is the media and global recognition, as well as the potential reward from the Korean culture industry, the first and most important reason Vogel finds these fans entering K-pop spaces is for local community.
Vogel writes that local imagined community helps “mitigate feelings of anonymity in an increasing globalizing world” and increasing globalized culture industry (Vogel, 58). K-pop, essentially, makes these people feel less alone on both a local scale and a global scale. Through working with their fellow local fans, they reaffirm their sense of significance in relation to other countries (Peru and the US, for example, which also have massive K-pop fandom communities) and in relation to their own lives.
Vogel goes on to say that “perhaps the most important thing the K-pop machine gave Mexican fans was the ability to find each other…to find a local group where they belonged.” (Vogel, 66-7). K-pop she argues has become the great equalizer for Mexican communities – when you find K-pop, you find instant community, and discovering that community becomes more important than discovering Korea.
Not to relate everything I learn about in this class back to my experience in the One Direction fandom (because as a newbie to K-pop, this is really all I have to go off on, and this is what I’m doing my final project about), but a lot of what Vogel was writing about in relation to community really resonated with me. I was severely bullied all throughout middle school and early high school, so my 1D fandom was an escape.
Yeah the boys were hot and I loved their music (Steal My Girl SLAPS and you can’t deny it), but I still consistently talk to and meet up with people I befriended online in that fandom and in real life. When I moved to a different city at the start of my sophomore year of high school, I made my first friend because I found out she also loved One Direction. When she told me, I literally started crying because I finally (a week into going to that school) found someone that would talk to me for hours on end and not let me sit alone at lunch because of that common interest. Wow, this is getting really sad, sorry.
Anyways, community was the driving force behind going online to scroll through my 1D Tumblr feed all day after school – I couldn’t wait to see what my friends were posting, what fanfictions they were reading or writing, I couldn’t wait to fangirl about 1D with them. It was a community experience at heart, sealed together because of our shared love of a dumb boy band who all had bad tattoos and horrible, everchanging hairdos (see below).
Ultimately, what Vogel is speaking on is not unique to Mexico. She is discussing affective notions of belonging, acceptance, and love that are almost guaranteed upon signing up for those social media spheres (tumblr, twitter) or in person experiences (dance groups, flash mobs, concerts, etc.).
#TBT
The Politics of K-Pop 