Korean Idols or Hallyu celebrities caught in situations between sensitive nationalism and domestic observers are described as “‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t, according to Fedorenko (2017,14). Hallyu stars are so heavily pressured in up-keeping the interest of foreign audiences and fulfilling the raging Korean nationalists that they are unable to keep a balance in satisfying their domestic observers and their patriotic Korean fans. It just doesn’t prove to be possible.
If they anger their nationalistic fans by impacting Korea in any negative way then they could lose value in forms of money, stock, advertisement, brand deals, etc. Depending on the severity of the situation they could also lose their status and identity not only as a star but also as a Korean. Take the girl group Kara as an example, when asked about the disputed island issue between Japan and Korea, they chose to stay silent which resulted in criticism from both Japan and Korea. Some critics went as far as saying “Kara, which country are you from?” Or “If you like Japan so much, leave South Korea.” So in addition to impacting Korea in a negative way, if they don’t defend Korea or stay silent over nationalistic conflicts between Korea and other countries, its still considered the same as insulting Korea themselves.
The fame of Hallyu celebrities is the greatest when they are able to command audiences beyond Korea because that also influences their stock, brand deals and much more such as growth as an overall celebrity and tourism in South Korea. In order to up keep the interests of their foreign audiences, it sometimes requires for Hallyu stars to demonstrate respect and participate in international cultures, language, music, etc. This clashes with nationalistic Hallyu’s fans who expect Korean idols to advocate for Korean culture, history, people and entertainment. So achieving both is impossible, because Korean fans would never accept their stars to indulge in anything other than Koran culture and international fans would lose interest quickly unless the stars keep it interesting by trying new things.
In order “to maintain their intimate relation with transnational fans and win positive attention from foreign audiences, Hallyu stars have to be sensitive to their nationalisms, which…, sometimes are irreconcilable with Korean nationalism,” as stated by Fedorenko (2017,13). Since most backlashes towards Hallyu’s stars happen when Korea is at a disagreement with other countries such as China and Japan about unresolved pasts, it seems Korean Idols are unable to keep both sides happy. Unless each side reduces the pressure and demands expected of the idols.
Reference
Fedorenko, Olga. “Korean-Wave celebrities between global capital and regional nationalisms.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, no. 4 (2017) 498-517.
Kiana Iranmahd: 28586584
Asia327 Dean 
Hi Kiana. To strengthen this essay I’d encourage you to divide it into paragraphs. At the end of the first paragraph there should be a clearly stated argument. You also really need to include your bibliographic information from the Fedorenko article. Also please move the in-text citation (2017, 13) to -after- the quotation. It’s possible to put only the year before you discuss their points, but when there is a quotation it has to be at the end.^^ There are a couple other issues, too, but these are big ones. And don’t forget to check to see if it’s 400 words. It looks a little short to me, just eyeballing it.
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Hey Kiana, totally agree with the point that idols are unable to keep a balance in satisfying both their international and Korean fans. For example like how BTS had to cancel their collaboration with Japanese producer Akimoto Yasushi, considering how successful Yasushi is in Japan their Japanese fans probably would have liked the song. But since the producer has a history of making anti-korea productions Korean fans were rightfully outraged in my opinion. I think this even happens with the concepts idols release, for example Hyuna has gotten criticized many times by Korean fans for looking “cheap” but international fans love seeing her sexy and confident stages. Idols are definitely treading on thin ice, constantly having to please two sides that very often have very different opinions. These opinions are not even just limited to nationalistic issues very often they are stuck between conflicting fan cultures. For example in the west fans tend to support and even “ship” their favorite celebrity couples but in Korea idols are condemned for dating. Even though things have become more open in Korea recent years, idols at the height of their popularity will receive extreme backlash for admitting to a relationship. The most recent example would be the Hyuna and E-dawn couple, most western fans congratulated and “ship” their relationship but some Korean fans have even petitioned for E-dawn to be removed from Pentagon. This has led to Cube entertainment stopping Triple H promotions early and halting both of Hyuna and E-dawn’s schedules for the time being. These kind of cultural differences can be critical to these idols who depend on their fans for success. I also agree with you about how both sides should reduce the pressure put on these idols. Fans need to realize that their favorite idols are people just like them and not these perfect “god-like” creatures. That they to can make mistakes and that shouldn’t be the end of the world for them. I also think that nationalistic Korean fans need to understand that even if an idol makes a mistake on the global stage that wouldn’t affect Korea’s overall image.
Julia Zhou, 68628361
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I had initially disagreed and thought that Hallyu stars would just be to pander to the Koreans, as they are their primary audience and where their agency is located. I assumed that foreign audiences would tolerate some nationalistic speech better than Koreans would anti-Korean sentiments and to an extent I still believe that this is true. However, after reading this post I was enlightened on just how much pressure is placed on Hallyu stars by both Koreans and international audiences.
From the perspective of a Canadian, I find it hard to imagine a situation where a K-pop star would act nationalistic enough to cause serious damage to their international image as most people tend to love their country and we don’t tend to take our celebrities’ political positions too seriously. However this is a rather ethnocentric view of the issue as it only considers Koreans and the relatively small western audience rather than the pressures of the primarily East Asian market. I was surprised by the amount of pressure that Koreans place on their own Hallyu stars. The incident with the group Kara was not something I would have expected from the Korean music industry; I did not think that taking a “no comment stance” on a complex territorial dispute would warrant such criticism. It’s unexpected but perhaps not surprising as somewhat similar situations have occurred in the west as well.
As mentioned, I initially thought that foreign interests would always fall second to domestic interests but I came across a surprising controversy involving the Hallyu star Tzuyu in which she had a Taiwanese flag instead of a Chinese flag as her native country flag. This was seen by many Chinese fans as a pro independence stance and was enough to cancel her group Twice’s Chinese performance and to lose her brand deal with Huawei. As brought up by Kiana in her post, these issues usually occur when a Hallyu star cannot satisfy foreign and domestic audiences, but in this instance a star could not satisfy two foreign audiences with the fallout having a noticeable impact on her career and her agency. It would seem (from my limited western resources) that Koreans don’t generally have a dog in this fight yet during this controversy the amount of influence that the foreign markets have was on full display. It really does seem like there is no solution and that one would just have to try and avoid it as much as possible.
Aaron Leong 68460237
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I actually don’t think Tzuyu is a perfect example to support your idea…… Indeed after being considered as a pro-independence stance, she was severely criticized by Chinese Hallyu fans. Even today you can find personal attacks against her under any news of her group. However, the scandal didn’t stop Tzuyu and TWICE from being successful, they actually become the top among the 4th generation girls’ groups.
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Aaron’s example reminds me that although the Hallyu stars are designed to be commodities with exportability and sold to worldwide consumers, they still need to satisfy Korean audiences in the first place. Just see how TWICE become such a big hit even without the Chinese market which is thought to be important with a large number of consumers who would like to spend considerable money on their idols. Another scandal comes to my mind was BlockB’s behaving improperly when they appeared on Thailand TV program when being asked to say something to comfort Thailand fans who had just suffered from a horrific flood. This is definitely a stain on their reputation. However they still become a successful group when their leader Zico got widely recognized as a talented producer and rapper, everyone’s like completely forget about the scandal because it is irrelevant to the Korean audiences.
So I venture to a guess that the reason why Korean idols cannot keep a balance now is not only because of the inevitable nationalism clashes but also the Korean idols, or their agencies to be more accurate, are to some extent ignoring the needs of the international audiences, especially when their needs conflict with local audiences’ expectations. In most cases, winning the local audiences’ hearts means success. If the Korean society needs their idols to be nationalistic, they will be so in order to survive. Even like BTS, who won the international audiences’ hearts firstly and then get the chance to be re-evaluated in their homeland have never let Korean audiences feel left behind.
I completely agree with Kiana that both sides should reduce the pressure and demands expected of the idols, especially the
Korean audiences who bring most of the pressure to bear on them. However with small possibilities that this would come to reality, some ideology just rooted in their mind, East-Asian audiences in particular. But I really think people should not be so harsh on these idols. As Julia mentioned, they condemned idols for dating because they thought idols should be commodities instead of a human being of flesh and blood. Then they damned idols for not showing the “right” personal attitude towards sensitive national issues, they criticized the idols for forgetting about they’re also Korean citizens. Such a self-contradiction.
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Hi Kiana. I think we hold the same view that it is difficult to find an appropriate way to fulfill both domestic Korean fans and international fans.
Nowadays, Hallyu has been a hit, attracting countless fans all over the world. Hallyu and Korean idols are not only a way of entertainment, but they are also considered as a part of Korean culture, the public image of the country, and even used as diplomacy strategies. Fans nowadays do not only pay attention to the skills or talents an idol has, but also their nationalism, opinions towards specific issues. As a result, more and more Hallyu stars are involved with conflicts or scandals associated with sensitive nationalistic issues.
However, I think all global fans will react differently towards different actions Korean idols taken when they are requested to be nationalistic. For example, military service is requested to every single male in Korean. If a celebrity trying to skip the military service, he will be criticised and considered as irresponsible by both Korean and international fandom. Korean fans and international fans usually hold opposite views when their own country is associated with the conflict. Like the example mentioned by Aaron, Hallyu star Tzuyu in which she had a Taiwanese flag instead of a Chinese flag as her native country flag. This unintentional action is amplified by Chinese fandom, and they left thousands of negative words to the Twice’s (the group of Tzuyu) facebook account and even the agency. As a result, Twice is no longer allowed to perform in China, because Tzuyu is considered as a supporter of the independence of Taiwan. In this case, most Korean fans don’t understand why there is a backlash against a young Hallyu star as they only care about Korea’s territorial issues, not China’s.
As Kiana mentioned, “It seems Korean Idols are unable to keep both sides happy unless each side reduces the pressure and demands expected of the idols.” Both Korean and international fandom are unlikely to show less focus on the nationalistic elements. So, there is no best strategy to solve this concern, all Hallyu stars can do is to evaluate profits and loss on both sides. For instance, if the AKB48 member しろま みる wants to promote in Korea as a group from produce48, she has to acknowledge the comfort system used by Japanese. As the JYP official announcement said, it is hard to make a decision between China’s market and Taiwan’s market. It is always difficult for an agency to make one market better off without giving up another market.
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Hi, Kiana. I quite approve of your idea about such jam that Hallyu stars are in. In fact, I think those kind of trouble not only on politics but also on many aspect, like relationship (recently happened Hyuna)，drug trouble(several, the most famous–GD), even their personal career like holding school or restaurants, etc. I feel that Korean fan are really strict with their celebrities.
However, I still have some objection. We can obviously find that the conflict usually happened between Korean and China, and between Japen and Korean. For example, happened in 2016, ChouTzu-yu is in group TWICE which is really famous in Korean. And she was found that insult China and said that Taiwan is not part of China which is really sensitive to Mainland China. So she was seriously criticized by Chinese, and even forbidden to perform in mainland china. Even after her apologize, the public still not forgave her. Then TWICE just abandon Chinese market. Which clearly we can find out that , when facing those kind of trouble, Korean market is still their first choose. So we can conclude that when facing the conflict between two nations, the first choose of Hallyu star is pacify Korean first.
What’s more, I feel that different country have totally different attitude to the Hallyu stars. For instance，사립 학교 급식 is sasaeng fan which is really common in Korean and even some terrible issue happened. They commonly feel that a star usually don’t have much privacy. However, in Japen, there a fan meet a really famous Hallyu star in a restaurant, then took a photo and upload on the instagrams, which is really common in Korean. But, the comment below this post are mostly criticism about invasion of privacy, and told her to delete it. We can see the totally opposite attitudes.
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Hi Kiana. Initially I had thought that Hallyu stars only cared about catering to its domestic fans since they are the main audiences. But after reading your post, I realised how much stress and pressure Hallyu stars need to deal with when trying to satisfy both their domestic and international audiences. I absolutely agree with you that Hallyu stars cannot satisfy the interests of both their international and domestic fans.
As a international fan myself, I do not mind if Hallyu stars show their love for their own country. But it is true that when Korean idols advocate for Korean culture and people, some of the international audiences may start to lose interest. The example of the girl group Kara really surprised me. In that situation, I would have thought that keeping quiet would be the best action to take since you will not be offending the Japanese nor the Korean fans. But instead, Kara received criticism from both the Japanese and Korean audiences. This made me realise that Korean fans are really sensitive and takes nationalistic conflicts between Korea and other countries very seriously. This has undoubtedly placed a lot of pressure on Hallyu stars since they have to worry about their image for both their domestic and international fans. I think another reason as to why Korean fans have these type of standards for their Hallyu stars is because the Korean fans believe that the Hallyu stars represent Korea in a way. The Korean fans are very proud that their K-pop stars are very popular and famous internationally, and that they are like the perfect human being with no flaws at all. This creates a very stressful problem for Hallyu stars because they will have to act the way their audiences perceive them to be. The Hallyu stars will have to be very careful with what they say in public as well as their facial expressions, which is why many Hallyu stars decide to wear face masks in public. If any flaws were to be found, there would be major criticism towards the Hallyu stars, which would harm their reputation and image.
I believe that nationalistic fans should not be so strict on the Korean idols and criticise them for any small mistakes they make. Everyone makes mistakes and if the Korean idols make any mistakes, it should not affect Korea’s image in any way. Just like what you have stated, I agree that both sides should lessen the amount of pressure put on these Korean idols. Both the Korean and International fans should understand that it is very difficult for their idols to satisfy both their interests and needs since there is only so much that they can do.
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You had a very strong and emotional introduction that solidifies your stance on this issue, and I very
much appreciated that. Instead of sitting on the fence between how K-pop idols may or may not juggle
their domestic and international fandoms, you were very straightforward, and provided a very relevant
example with KARA. I am curious to see how you might respond to your groupmates’ or peers’ comments
about how K-pop stars could balance their nationalistic expectations and the international fandom. Good job!
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