



In an ideal world, Korean fans and international fans would get along perfectly well, respect each other and not even categorize each other as 'K-fans' and 'i-fans' but just simply as 'fans'. Sadly, we don't live in an ideal world, and i-fans and K-fans clash all the time.�Now, before I continue, I know not everyone is like this and I'm just viewing this from a more broad overhead perspective.

When I check Korean news or blog sites and read some of the comments and posts, some of the commentators seem to look down on i-fans. But that's not to say that the condescension is just a one way street. When I look through�Tumblr and Twitter, I see just as much i-fans, if not more, hating on K-fans.�





A recent event I remember happening is when a certain international�EXO�fan went to Korea and filmed EXO fans. In the video�(not the original which was taken down), she was told by a Korean fan (you can barely hear it above the crowd's noise), and then got slapped by a Korean fan in line because she didn't hear / understand what was being asked, and she didn't stop. It was a clash between two people, not between two nationalities, but the comments on the YouTube video quickly made it into a battle between two races. I saw Korean comments claiming that they felt like they were animals in a zoo because a foreigner was filming them, when it clearly had to do more with what goes on in a fandom, not what goes on in a country.







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After that, the most recent clash I saw happening is the stance of different groups on�Super Junior-M�members. At first, I didn't really consider it a difference between i-fans and K-fans, until I started looking through posts on Korean blogs that claimed only i-fans said to accept Zhoumi and�Henry as 'full' Super Junior members, but that they had no right to claim any of these things because they're just i-fans and they don't buy anything.





This personally offended me because for full disclosure, I own pretty much every single official merchandise Super Junior has ever put out. I might sound like a crazy fangirl, but I have different versions of the same album and then buy the repackage (and its different versions) when that comes out. On top of that, I have a Bugs account and I legitimately buy all the music, so I buy the same album 3-4 (sometimes even more) times over. It's not just albums, but just all official merchandise. Perhaps I'm an outlier, but to be told that I'm not allowed to have opinions on how my favorite group does because I don't buy anything... well, that made me a little upset, but it also made me realize that the rift between i-fans and K-fans can sometimes be bigger than I thought it would be.