Minami

[koganbot]

warthoginrome writes:

I don't know if you had the chance to run into this news, so I wanted to point it out, because the topic is common to the entire asian pop scene

Comments

[sub_divided]

Even international fans who "know better" than to expect that the idols they like are really single can get caught up in the dating restriction insanity. I've seen people say that they know the stars they like are probably sexually active, but they don't want to "know" about it, so it's up to the stars to be "discrete" ie to cover it up. But then people - sometimes the same people! - will react badly to "scandals" because they were "lied to" and are insulted by the attempts to cover it up.

The expectation of virginity hurts coming and going, in other words: you are expected to lie to maintain the image, but then you're on the line for "betraying" the fans when the truth comes out. (K-netizens at this point would probably say that the solution is to not be a slut in the first place, but anyway.) Like Sabina said, it's a sick and self-reinforcing system. Idol image control in Korea is pretty thorough and there are plenty of people who believe it. "There's no way I'd have time to date" is honestly just another tactic of image control - no time for a traditional relationship maybe, but there's always time for hookups. And established stars tend to have a bit more time and leeway.

That's all Kpop stuff, though. I'm honestly surprised that a Jpop idol is under the same kind of pressure to be pure... there's a well-established dating culture in Japan, it's a freer society in many ways, in Japanese slang "third base" is sex and "homebase" is pregnancy, famous pop stars have been getting shotgun married for ages without it sinking their careers (although the need to get "shotgun married" is its own kind of restriction), etc etc. Maybe it's what anhhh says above, AK48's otaku core audience being mostly otaku. 2chan is a really conservative message board, there's a lot of nationalistic fervor and anti-Korea, anti-China rhetoric on that board.

As far as why these purity restrictions are so important... people says it's about the importance of maintaining the fantasy of availability, but I really don't think that's the best explanation. Maybe for a minority of truly delusional fans. (Which, to be fair: when lots of delusional fans gather together in one place, like an internet message board, they can reinforce each other's delusions and the delusional way of thinking can become the "new normal" - something that does seem to happen with Kpop and some Jpop groups.) But honestly, I don't think most fans are that delusional, particularly casual fans.

For most fans, purity is more about maintaining a connection with the audience. Teen middle school girls are expected to be too busy studying for high school entrace exams to have time to date. Otaku boys are frustrated because they aren't seeing any action, either. Or sometimes otaku boys are into sublimating their sexual desires because they are deemed inappropriate, and preferring gentler fantasies instead. Good Korean girls aren't supposed to have sex before they are married. The entertainment world is impossibly removed from everyday society, in Korea it's a small international progressive enclave inside a largely conservative society, like Istanbul in Turkey. Dating restrictions on idols make them more relateable , not more available.

But then their are also sexist double standards imposed on male versus female idols, and you can only go back to sexist double-standards in society.

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And the companies will do whatever helps sales. SM entertainment is notorious for encouraging stalking - or at least not taking the appropriate steps to prevent it - because the stalkers set a fervent tone for the rest of the fanbase, provide "normal" fans with a yardstick to measure themselves against ("I might be obsessed but at least I'm not as crazy as those people"), and buy tons of merchandise. They're good for business.

I think a lot of this is changing as everyone's standards of living improves and as more talent enters the idol field. You see less "so and so is lucky even to have a job, I have nothing and there are hundreds of pretty faces to replace her" then.

The really crazy thing is that the idol industry has only been around for - what? - 30 years in Japan, 20 years in Korea? Before that it was pretty much expected that "female singer" was barely a step up from "female prostitute" and that all the entertainment companies were run by gangsters (which, of course, many if not most still are).

[arbitrary_greay]

The really crazy thing is that the idol industry has only been around for - what? - 30 years in Japan, 20 years in Korea?

Actually, Japan had Golden Age of Cinema-style idols since the 50s.

[sub_divided]

Ah, thanks for that. So there's at least a precedent for the Japanese system... even if it's a precedent from 60 years ago...