Take BLACKPINK, arguably the biggest girl group in the world today, with millions upon millions of singles sold and music videos that have been watched billions of times on YouTube. Take BLACKPINK, arguably the biggest girl group in the world today, with millions upon millions of singles sold and music videos that have been watched billions of times on YouTube.
Earlier this month, fans of the group sent a small convoy of “protest trucks” decked out with LED hoardings to the headquarters of YG Entertainment – BLACKPINK’s agency – to complain about the way it supposedly treats Jisoo, one of the group’s four members.
“Treat Jisoo fairly”, one of the messages on the six trucks said in giant red and yellow text, while others exhorted YG to “look out for [Jisoo’s] rights and interests” and show less “indifference towards Jisoo’s promotions and marketing in China”.
The trucks were sent by a group of Chinese fans calling themselves China Jisoo Bar, who seemed upset at their favourite BLACKPINK member’s apparent lack of screen time and vocal parts in the group’s music videos and songs – if a fan-made spreadsheet shared online detailing the exact percentage of each girl’s contribution was anything to go by.
For YG, the experience will have been a familiar one. This month alone, fans of Jennie and Lisa – two other BLACKPINK members – have sent trucks to the agency’s offices to protest their alleged mistreatment, with the latter group also issuing a page-long ultimatum threatening to withdraw their support for the girl group if changes were not made to Lisa’s styling, commercially available photos and the quality of her internet connection – important for her live-streamed contributions to the Chinese talent show Youth With You 3.
Such K-pop fan activism is hardly new. Back in 2017, fans of the boy band iKON – also under YG Entertainment – threatened a boycott of all official merchandise unless their favourite band was given more promotion within
South Korea. YG later issued a statement to reassure fans that more Korean iKON promotions were already in the pipeline.
#RespectLisa: why BLACKPINK fans think Lisa is being mistreated by YG
YG has yet to respond to the latest BLACKPINK protests, but Kwon Joon-won, a professor of entertainment management at South Korea’s Dong-ah Institute of Media and Arts (DIMA) who was previously the head of an agency himself, said “entertainment agencies can’t afford to ignore the voices of demanding fans even though their requests and criticisms have increasingly become more aggressive and burdensome with time”.
“The fans know all too well that they are the major source of profits for K-pop groups,” he said, adding that organised active fandoms have been a part of K-pop since the modern genre’s birth in the 1990s when groups such as H.O.T. and Sech Kies inspired a generation of young fans to create catchy chants and wear matching colours to show their support.
“If fans of H.O.T. were just whining and grumbling in the past, fans are now making their displeasure known in a systematic and calculated way,” Kwon said. “These specific requests and demands may give entertainment agencies a strategic look into what the fans want, but it also creates havoc on their management side.”
Active fandoms have undoubtedly played a major role in helping promote K-pop globally. Earlier this week, Suga of BTS – the world’s biggest boy band, and poster child of the genre – attributed the group’s success in breaking into the
United States market in 2017 to their huge fan base, known as the “BTS Army”.
“Fans sent song requests and flowers to a radio station in America, and that’s when we could go to America,” he said on popular Korean TV show You Quiz on the Block.
Kwon said the dawn of social media and live-streaming had also made it easier for avid K-pop fans to feel closer than ever to their favourite acts, with many now under the impression that they know more about their idols than the agencies that manage them.
This three-year-old has gone viral for her BLACKPINK love
Hong Eun-young, a 22-year-old fan of K-pop group The Boyz who is studying artist management at DIMA, said she had taken part in online activism in the past, which sees fans work together to get an entertainment agency’s attention by making a hashtag trend on
Twitter.
But she said she draws the line at “publicly shaming or attacking the agency [as this] only harms the image of the group and the fans themselves”.
“I think making your opinions heard as a concerned fan is fine,” she said. “Many of the workers at entertainment agencies are people who used to be in fandoms themselves. But, in truth, I think that Korean girls are really excessive when it comes to prioritising their favourite K-pop group over anything else in their lives.”
