So back in 2013, in my first year of being a kpop fan, I saw 2 events which put kpop on display internationally, outside its very small niche.

One was SNSD winning at the YouTube Music Awards, and the other was EXO being nominated for Best Worldwide Act at the MTV EMAs. At the time, I thought these were a huge deal, and I even participated in the EXO-L (or “exotics” as we usually went by back then, I really am showing my age here) vs Directioner fanwar that came about due to the latter.

4 years on – if I see a Western media outlet even talk about kpop – I know better. Now I see BTS fans falling into the same traps and having the same misconceptions I had years ago.

Before I start, I’d like to make clear that this is not about ARMYs specifically, but the kpop fandom as a whole. I like BTS. I’ve liked them since their debut, I own a physical copy of one of their albums and listen to many of their songs regularly, and I even consider Hoseok to be a secondary ult. I am not saying the award they’re nominated for is meaningless, nor am I trying to discredit their overall achievements. I’m just trying to dissuade any false hopes and high expectations the kpop fandom as a whole has when it comes to Western awards in general; I just saw those expectations among the ARMY fandom recently, and it prompted me to write this. I would appeal to all the ARMYs reading to read through my entire post before making any sort of action. At this point I’m expecting a bout of “kys” tweets being thrown my way regardless (as happened with AsianJunkie), but at least read the whole thing before sending me those.

The fact of the matter is, the West does not care about kpop, not in a substantial way anyway. No matter how popular a group may seem to be in Europe or the US, people who actually care about kpop are still a tiny minority. It’s a niche market outside of Asia (and even in Asia to some extent, considering the sheer size of the Japanese and Chinese entertainment industries, and that’s just looking at East Asia).

“But it matters,” people say. “It’s being reported on Korean media!” Yes, and that’s almost exclusively mediaplay. Even SNSD’s YTMA was reported on as an achievement in Korean media, despite that literally being the first YTMA ever held and that it’s only been held again once since (online-only), and being basically irrelevant. Doing well in the West, or at least appearing to do so, gives groups a little more hype to play with for them to build their reputation back in Korea, because they’re seen as Hallyu representatives. That is really what they’re vying for: BigHit has no plans to debut BTS in America, what other purpose could interviews with Western media serve?

Many kpop fans tend to be very passionate, so if they see their faves being talked about by a Western outlet or nominated for a Western award, they want to share it, partly because they’re proud of the group and also for bragging rights. This is fine! However, it’s important to understand that big companies like BuzzFeed and Billboard do not care about your faves. They only care that there is a consumer group that will share mediocre content ad nauseam, as long as it has anything to do with their faves. Clicks and views are money, so the more articles and videos they can put out relating to kpop, the more they can make.

This also relates to YouTube. The utter desperation to get whatever number “___ React to K-Pop” from the FineBros is quite simply baffling to me. Why do you guys care so much about the opinions of people who don’t know shit about the genre or the groups, and have no new outlook (musical, video-wise etc.) to give? In fact many a time the only comments there are along the lines of “they put an English word in!” “there’s so many of them,” “this is South Korea, right,” or the ever-loved “they’re like the Korean [insert Western artist]”.

Even YouTubers React is okay to an extent, because they’re actually well-known channel and a fair amount of fans were introduced to kpop through them. But what about the washed-up viners, or the actual nobodies putting “First Time Reacting to K-Pop” in their 7th video reacting to only the groups popular enough to be clickbait? Please, take a step back for a second and see that these people are using you. They’re not turning around and recommending the songs to their friends, and they sure as hell don’t have a significant enough fanbases outside of kpop fans that they could pool any sort of influence. They want views, and they’ve noticed that young, passionate kpop fans are a prime target to bring in numbers.

Also, to the people unironically calling the kpop writer for Billboard “dad”… please, just stop. He’s a writer, not an idol. Stop making it weird for him and everyone else who has to witness you do that.

Back to the main point. The thing is, the West do not care about kpop groups, but do kpop groups really care about the West? The short answer is no, because they don’t have to. If you think I’m kidding, it was just revealed recently by that same Billboard writer that he invited EXO for an interview and live session while they’re in the States for their tour, and EXO’s side flat out said they were too busy for the live. Why? Because they’re really only there for the tour. As soon as they’re done there they’ll return to pursue their Korean activities, because that’s just more important to them than American publicity.

EXO were nominated for that EMA back in 2013, and despite all the effort that EXO-Ls and Directioners put in, both groups were beaten by the fans of Chris Lee, a Chinese artist. However, does that diminish their success? Of course not. They’re still the 9th highest sold Korean act of all time as I type this, with a huge fandom across East and South East Asia as well as ever-rising public recognition in Korea. As an EXO stan in the UK, I know the continent I live in will never be a priority (they don’t let me forget, what with them constantly ignoring Europe with their tours). But I don’t mind it too much. I don’t need them to be successful in the Western market, they’re doing great in their own, and they’re happy with that (this applies to lots of different groups, including BTS). Trying to branch out might just be spreading themselves too thinly, and I’m satisfied with what they give us already (although a concert here would be nice) . If they don’t care about Western validation, why should I?

Personally, I realised a while ago that no matter how big my faves seem to get in America or wherever, they probably don’t care unless they’re still successful in Korea. The western kpop fandom is a fickle beast, with significant proportions of fandoms uprooting and moving onto a new group as soon as they start getting any sort of buzz. Many of the BTS stans who were already into kpop when they got big were likely fans of either EXO or BAP before that. Many SHINee stans left their group for EXO before that. It’s continuous. This is how things have always been, and how they always will be, because the international kpop fandom itself is so uniquely constructed.

Let me put it this way – if you’re a Beyoncé stan, you’re a Beyoncé stan. Same with Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, whatever. Their stans tend to stick with them longer, and while some multifandom people do exist, many say they only hardcore stan one artist. There is no such thing as a “western pop stan”, in fact the term itself just sounds ridiculous. But “kpop stans” exist – people who would pay to meet and greet multiple different groups, people who stan a whole genre. My theory is, when looking at a foreign industry, the distance means we view it almost as a factory of sorts without realising, many of us hopping to the newest product as soon as it’s released. I wonder if it’s the same the other way around, for the Koreans, or any other group of people with their own dominant music industry, who stan Western artists. Unless I ask one of them I will likely never know, because my life so far means I’ve never seen it any other way.

But this is why kpop groups and their agencies will always value Korean fans, as well as Chinese, Japanese, and to an extent SEA fans, more than international fans. There are enough SECHSKIES fans still invested in them that they can have comebacks and concerts even now – despite being a group that existed for just 3 years back in the 90s, and their fans all being at least 30 at this point. This sort of certainty simply does not exist with international fans, we’re just too fickle as a whole. A group can’t go on world tours forever. As such, to them at least it will always be more important that they’re successful in Korea, because that means once the i-fandom has moved on to the next latest thing or grown out of kpop completely, they’ll have enough of a fanbase back home to sustain themselves.

Does it really matter that a group plays small venues in the States and Europe when they can sell out huge tours in Asia? Is it a problem if they lack in YouTube views when their videos have hundreds of millions of views each on Chinese video portals and/or great public recognition in Korea? Ask A Pink or B2ST, groups with limited popularity outside of Korea; or T-ARA, whose Chinese fandom alone is enough to sustain their lifestyles for the rest of their lives; or just about any idol and they’d give you a resounding no. I even saw some people calling Daesangs “Walmart” compared to BBMAs being “Chanel”. Ask yourselves this: which do you think your faves would care more about, 10 BBMAs or EMAs or any Western music award short of a Grammy, or just 1 of their native music industry’s most prestigious awards? You know deep down what the answer is. Calm down, and stop being so embarrassingly west-centric. If you care so much about your fave winning Western awards just stan a Western artist, they’ll always fare better in that department.

There is just one last point I’d like to touch on: the idea that a kpop act winning a Western award would be “representation for Asians” or that it would be a step towards reducing prejudice. While this is a nice enough sentiment, it’s just… wishful thinking at best, and unrealistic and reductive at worst. If an award was all it took to end racism, things would be a lot simpler. There are constructs in place at institutions like the Grammys and the Oscars, as well as across Hollywood and Western pop as a whole, that prevent minority groups from getting the representation they need, and an award based on fan votes is never going to change that. In fact fandom-fuelled votes bring out atrocious amounts of racism against Asians from Western fandoms – does nobody remember the 1D vs T-ARA fiasco? Or the aforementioned 1D vs EXO mess? Times like these are literally when the slurs start coming out.

It is difficult to make it as an Asian in Western entertainment. The racism different types of Asians face in daily life all around the world may not be comparable to that of black people, but it still exists, and we are significantly less represented in media. This is because of those aforementioned constructs. There’s a reason Ailee, Eric Nam, Jay Park and the plethora of American/Canadian idols came back to Korea to make their careers. They’re talented and yet they still couldn’t break into the American market. Wonder Girls couldn’t do it at the height of their fame, and now CL is struggling to find footing despite having big names on her side. And those are idols who speak fluent English – to expect entire groups who aren’t fully fluent to do so is foolish. The majority of people in the West just don’t want to listen to music in other languages – that’s fine, really, as long as they’re not a dick about it to those who do – and these people will just never buy into it.

Here’s a list of just a few kpop idols who have won Western awards:

BIGBANG – MTV EMA Best Worldwide Act 2011

SNSD – YTMA Video of the Year 2012

PSY – BBMA Top Streaming Song (Video) 2013

GOT7 – MTV EMA Best Worldwide Act 2016

They are achievements, and something for fans to be proud of, but not some sort of step towards representation. These awards have changed nothing – any change in America is being brought about by Asian Americans speaking out about it. Kpop groups aren’t going there with the intention of ending whitewashing, that’s just not realistic.

Also, there was this tweet.

All I have to say in reply is this: Asians who love their race are secure enough that they don’t ever feel the need to be validated by white-owned companies. They also aren’t going to be trivialising the struggles of Asians and reducing their daily fight against racism to a petty fandom war. But since you say you care about Asians so much (and I’m assuming you mean all Asians, not just East Asians), I look forward to seeing you actively participating in fighting for our equality in protests and activism.

Additionally, wanting your group to perform their own song at a Western award ceremony may sound 100% positive in theory, but it’s just positioning them to receive racist hate and disrespect from outsiders. I remember when Tiffany went up to collect the award on SNSD’s behalf, and the audience at the event just remained completely silent. They didn’t even have the basic level of decency to applaud an award-winner. And it’s not like they were antis, or even die-hard stans of the other nominees. Just normal Americans. People online afterwards from outside the kpop fandom were also being disrespectful, even people supposedly reporting on it who should have researched better. Do you really think anything’s changed since then? Rap Monster still had his name typo’d as Rat Monster, would that happen with any Western artist? Hell no. But because it’s kpop, Western media simply doesn’t care enough, as long as they still get clicks. You can want the performance, just don’t expect that everyone’s going to be respectful.

When Nickelodeon wanted to make a show about 3 American teens wanting to become kpop idols back in 2014, I remember people being dead against it. I was one of them, and I even wrote that Stop The Drop petition (yes, that was me), and it got over 9k signatures. It didn’t work and the show still aired, but I remembered it recently. It’s a little cringey to read back now just because I think my writing has improved a lot since then, but there are still good points I think I made there, which can be applied here too.

The biggest I’d say is about kpop being insular by nature. When I first got into kpop, I was the only one in my real-life friend group who knew about it. One day I showed some of my friends a few MVs, 2 of them got into it and 1 didn’t. I respected her choice and didn’t force her to watch more. Nowadays unless someone asks me to show them, I don’t even try, hell I often don’t even mention I’m a fan unless I’m asked. Shoving it in someone’s face often leads to people flat-out hating it because they’re either already biased or annoyed because they feel it’s being forced on them. The other problem is people jumping into the fandom without any knowledge of the cultural nuances most (not all) people pick up when they naturally get into it, leading to a whole host of issues such as subtle racism, fetishisation of Asians, and misogyny. This is how koreaboos are born. When people get into kpop naturally and have/make friends in the fandom etc., these things either don’t materialize in the first place or iron themselves out soon enough – you just can’t expect that from people in Western fandoms, who are diving straight into the deep end of a fandom that is so different to theirs. So while it does mean new fans, you have to consider the types of fans that this kind of exposure would attract.

All in all, Western validation doesn’t mean shit, really. It’s cool to be somewhat recognised, but sadly it will more than likely never amount to anything. The sooner we realise that and lower our expectations the better, else we start getting in fandom wars over things that aren’t really worth it. Maybe it’s already too late for that now, but once the fanwars all blow over we’ll see how much has really changed.

I once again apologise for the delay on this post. I started writing it a while back, however my life is very busy right now and I couldn’t get to it. Things are only looking to get busier for me in the next few weeks, and though I will try my hardest to write something within this next month, if I were you I would not keep my hopes too high. Regardless, I hope that this post is enough to tide you over from my side, please keep all comments and discussions with others respectful and I hope you enjoyed the read!