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bebestay · 5 years

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Why I was scared to admit I liked KPOP

The following passage is just something I had to get off my chest as KPOP fan. If this does not interest you, please feel free to scroll past.

When KPOP started to become more mainstream in the US, I was happy and excited. However, even though I wanted to discover more groups, I seemed to only find the toxic fans at every corner of the internet. There are certain fanbases that I actively avoided because of the actions I saw. Like, I didn’t even want to listen to the group and that sucks because I know that all of the groups are talented.

I don’t think some people understand that if the public mostly knows the fanbase for being negative and annoying, you give the the very thing you support a bad reputation. If 1 out of 10 fans are toxic or immature or just plain rude, imagine that ratio on a much larger scale. If all the public knows is the negative percentage of the fanbase, imagine how the group feels about it. They love their fans, but to hear that their fans are becoming the bad guys could be heartbreaking.

I know that due to groups being in companies, there are some things they can’t address or acknowledge because the company said so. They’ll make a passing comment about the situation and hope the hint is taken. So when all they get is pressure from “fans” to talk about whatever it is or getting “cancelled,” it seems like these “fans” don’t care that this is an actual human being on the other side of the screen. People will scream until their face is blue about how the idol should take all the blame when, in reality, that small group blew everything out of proportion and they would rather tear apart a person’s dreams than admit that they were wrong.

I know not all of you are like this. I know that some people just jump on the hate train for attention because I don’t remember seeing them EVER talk about the group.

When it comes to international coverage of KPOP, some places either accidentally or purposely make comments about the group that sets off a wildfire on social media. With such a large social media presence, some fanbases are terrifying but sending threats [especially death threats] is going too far. I know that you want proper representation for your favs, but going at it with pitchforks and torches is a little much.

By creating a bad cloud over the fanbase, that’s all people will talk about and that’s all people may find. You don’t want that. When it came to the whole ARMY situation, Halsey had probably the best statement about the whole thing.

Don’t become someone you would cringe at or want to avoid.

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Throughout 2018, I kept quiet about liking KPOP as people seemed to look down on it and I enjoyed it in quiet. I would see people complaining about [insert group name here] because it was taking over the internet and their timelines/dashboards.

I enjoyed listening to EXID, TWICE, and Stray Kids in the solidarity of my room and avoided reblogging or posting anything KPOP related on my main blog as I had friends from my life following me. They were very vocal about their disapproval on the KPOP takeover, and I couldn’t help but sit there and suffer in silence.

It wasn’t until I met a couple people here on tumblr that I started to accept the fact that, yes, I listen to KPOP. I’m still quiet about it in my everyday life, but I’m happy to have friends that enjoy the same thing I do. They let me know that not everyone in the fanbase is not toxic or rude, and gave me confidence to learn more about groups I once avoided.

I’ve only been a KPOP fan for three years, but I only listened to one group for two years because I was scared to look for more groups. Now that I’ve become more comfortable with the fact that there will always be a toxic percent of any fanbase, I’ve found lot of groups that I absolutely adore.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to send me a message or an ask if anything needs to be cleared up.

#word from missy

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