A. Group Members
Our team is consists of three SNU students who interests in subculture ; especially ‘Super fan of famous stars’. To introduce our members : Choo Joon Ho (Majoring in Geographic Education), An Min Sook (Majoring in Liberal studies), Lee Seung Woo (Majoring in Liberal studies)
B. Project Topic : Super fans of famous stars
Our group is focused on researching super fans, especially of famous stars. In Korean, it is common to find teenagers or young guys/girls who really like certain stars. They are even sometimes frantic about their singers, movie stars, etc,. Some run online fan sites, see off their stars at the airport, and post them on the internet. Still, in real life, their identities are often hidden not being revealed - because of several stereotypes that common people have. Our group decided to research them, interview them to try to understand as they are.
C. Common Stereotypes & Labels about Super fans of Idols
1) Super fans have difficulties in conducting their daily routines (e.g. studying) because of supporting stars.
2) Super fans spend too much money that they sometimes cannot afford, to support stars.
3) Super fans remembers the anniversaries of their stars more than themselves' family birthdays or anniversaries.
4) Super fans get indirect happiness or pleasure though their stars, or they do.
5) Super fans often feel shameful to reveal that they are super fans of som stars.
6) Super fans are actually those people who have lack of affection from deep in the mind and they are craving to feel love by doing activities for stars.
7) Super fans hate the other stars who are competitive or rivals of their stars, without proper reasons.
8) Super fans are keen to know every schedule of their stars' schedule, even though it's private.
9) Super fans' social activities are concentrated on participating in the gathering of the fan club members.
10) Super fans admire their stars abnormally or even worship them.
E. Preliminary Research
1)
(33mins ~ 44mins)
: The evolution of fandom. (Exo’s extreme fan and fandom’s characteristics nowadays)
-This video shows the evolution of fandom. Nowadays, many super fans want to be assimilated with Stars. For examples in the video, superfans want to experience same time which their stars had experienced. Moreover, they want to commemorate their stars by doing some social donation. It seems that every superfan is not that negative. But, it is quite sure that superfan’s life is effected by their stars.
2)
-It is the Dictionary definition of ‘Sasaeng fan’ : The superfan who is highly obsessed with their stars, almost like stalker.
3)
-This article shows the emergence of new trend ‘Madonna wannabe’ ; the person who wants to dress like ‘Madonna’.
4)
-Many superfans lose their life’s balance cause of their stars. They lose lots of money and time to follow their fans. So, they sometimes commit a crime for their survive. In that case, it is confused that do we have to concede that they are the fans of stars? Or just a ‘Stalker’?
F. Our Plan
We are going to find some super fans of stars at least two to interview and we will also find at least one or two who are acquainces of super fans as their family member or friend. In two weeks(the second week of October), our interview must be finished then. In three weeks(the third week of October), we will conduct additional interview if necessary or tidy up informations we get from the previous interview. Then we will have our presentation in our class. We will try to keep objective viewpoint when we carry interviews with super fans. We hope it to be useful and interesting experience for all of our classmates.
I loved reading and watching your group's articles and videos in the blog. In the preliminary research you did, I especially thought the one with the 'sasaeng fan' was the most interesting fact.Before reading it, I thought that when a fan likes their idol for a long time, sometimes the fan will naturally become a sasaeng fan. So I just thought sasaeng fan as sort of a serious fan. I even had stereotypes about super fans because I thought they would mostly act like sasaeng fans. But according to the fact in this blog, sasaeng fans were not even considered as fans. From this research, I learn to divide superfans and sasaeng fans apart which was a big development for my prejudices about the superfans.
ReplyDeleteWithout sounding too judgmental, purely from my point of view as an individual reader, the plans for your research and your topic of 'superfans' was easy to grasp thanks to the well-organized nature of your layout. It has helped arouse a curiosity about a topic which was of absolutely no interest to me until visiting this blog. Your post about the concept of 'madonna wannabe' was interesting in that it pointed out the fact that 'superfans' are or at least were not limited to Asian culture. I still hold the notion that 'superfans' and the culture of taking fandom to an obsessive level are trends quite unique to Asia. I would personally find it interesting to explore the reasons for this trend developing in East Asia more so than anywhere else in the world. Structural and functional social factors would surely be of relevance I believe.
ReplyDeleteWithout sounding too judgmental, purely from my point of view as an individual reader, the plans for your research and your topic of 'superfans' was easy to grasp thanks to the well-organized nature of your layout. It has helped arouse a curiosity about a topic which was of absolutely no interest to me until visiting this blog. Your post about the concept of 'madonna wannabe' was interesting in that it pointed out the fact that 'superfans' are or at least were not limited to Asian culture. I still hold the notion that 'superfans' and the culture of taking fandom to an obsessive level are trends quite unique to Asia. I would personally find it interesting to explore the reasons for this trend developing in East Asia more so than anywhere else in the world. Structural and functional social factors would surely be of relevance I believe.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your group's wonderful articles and video in the blog. Super fan is absolutely interesting topic to me, because my 13-year-old sister often talked about her middle school friends who are crazy about idol groups such as EXO or Block-B. K-Pop is tremendously influential not only to fans in Korea, but also to fans over the world. I was surprised to see some stories about stalking from the wikipedia site that described term 'Sasaeng fan'. What some fans did in the article obviously infringe upon celebrities' life, so I thought that most of idols must have concerned about their privacy a lot.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, It was also interesting to read that the origin of the 'madonna wannabe'. After I read this article, I realized one of that my hidden bias that only ordinary person can be super fan. Even celebrities like Lady Gaga can be super fan of someone, in this case Madonna.
Lastly, I just wonder whether there is a clear standard to judge someone as a super fan, and I do see that there are plenty of stereotypes about super fans. Your group limited to super fans of famous stars, and I think it was a good choice since the concept of super fan itself is broad and somewhat vague. I'm excited to have a discussion soon.
I didn't know that superfans are doing great things like planting trees under name of their stars. It's a favorable behavior and good to know. Also, however, it's a little scary that some of them don't have a job and all they do is just stalking their stars. It would be nicer that if every fan loves their stars by enhancing the star's reputation like planting. I want them to love themselves more and not to give themselves and their life up.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the stereotypes you had written as a list, especially the sentence that ' Super fans hate the other stars who are competitive or rivals of their stars, without proper reasons.' Also, I think that there are also many cases that super fans hate the other stars who are linked to love each other in the TV shows such as young idol girls because they envy them.
ReplyDeleteI understand that if super fans likes stars so much, then they would like to know them closely and hope that the stars also get to know them, but it feels not so good that love can change to addiction and even can be harmful not only to other people but also to the stars and the fans themselves.
As a former super fan of the K-pop idol group, TVXQ, I found all of your readings really interesting. They reminded me of the days I was obsessed with the group, and actually made myself reflect upon those days. Because I too, was a super fan I could not agree quite well with some of the stereotypes that were written on this page and even had the urge to refute on them:)
ReplyDeleteOne thing that caught my eye was the article on Sasaeng fans. TVXQ, which is the name of the idol group that I was obsessed about a few years ago, has gone through several near-death experiences regarding Sasaeng taxis, so I was always aware of this problem. However what shocked me was that despite the fact that the accidents regarding Sasaeng fans have been continuing on for a decade, nothing has been done to stop this problem. Sasaeng fans are more like serious stalkers than actual fans, and they should be punished by the law in a way that stalkers are punished. I believe that it is time we take out the word ‘fan’ in ‘Sasaeng fan’, and treat them as they should be treated.
I'm Hye Jin, Woo.. haha
DeleteI wonder if there is no positive superfan. What positive superfan means is... a superfan who helps the famous star he/she is frantic for to get more popularity. I read your post about Sasaeng Fan, but it is limited to a superfan who stalks or invades the star. I have seen and heard about the story of Sinhwachangjo(?) which is fan club consisting of fans who love gruop SinHwa many times from various media. It's surprising that although they are actually considered as superfans, they are seemed to have good relationship with their star, SinHwa. I don't know what a real relationship is, but it is often seen and heard. Like this, I think there is a group of superfans who are real fnatics but love their fan peacefully and further, contribute to the society.
ReplyDeleteDong Ju Han
ReplyDeleteI found your topic very interesting and sentences are short and clear so that people could easily understand. However, I guess your researches focus on too narrow subjects. Wikipedia pages are way too simple to have a deeper understaing for superfans. It would have been better if your researches contain interpretation of superfan culture itself.
Topic Superfan actually surprised me and I believe it will be an interesting topic. I am also hoping that you also mention some cases where superstars(mostly K-pop idols) experienced invasion of privacy by some Superfans. I've noticed that most Superfans are viewed negatively, and I hope this could be a chance to break our stereotypes!
ReplyDeleteIt is very interesting to see their various activities. I realized that I was in stereotype that superfans would buy only albums or cosmetics products featuring their favorite stars. However, they also donate in society and even in other countries!!
ReplyDeleteIt is very helpful to all the people , I thinks. Maybe I believe that this change comes from some kind of self - reflection. In the past, many people have cold-eyes on superfans and it also has negative effects on their favorite stars. On the other hand, their dontations are also good to their stars. It's very smart and good, I belive.