a strange confluence of events
I gotta say, it's been a few years since I've been active in kpop, but sometimes it crops up in the strangest places. The international political conflict between Taiwan and China, for instance, centering around 16-year-old kpop star Tzuyu of JYP group TWICE. She's Taiwanese, but China refuses to recognize that as a nationality, and her innocently waving a Taiwan and a Korean flag on some Korean TV show sparked accusations of her being an independent Taiwan activist...which led to a huge backlash from not only fans in China, but actual celebrities and media personalities/groups. Some have attacked on her on Weibo and others have banned her and dropped sponsorship deals. JYP reacted to the potential of losing its huge Chinese fanbase (i.e., revenue stream) by suspending all of Tzuyu's activities in China. But JYP stock kept dropping, the Chinese backlash kept growing, so then JYP forced this poor 16-year-old girl (who probably has no real sense of who she is at this much less be trying to start an international conflict) give a video apology -- somberly dressed, sober in expression, but reading off a sheet. Chinese netizens felt the apology was staged and insincere.
And now Taiwan has just elected a new pro-independent Taiwan president, Tsai Ing-Wen, who will be the first female president, and both she and her Nationalist opponent have commented on this kpop scandal and what it represents in terms of China and Taiwan's international relations.
This has been all over my Facebook courtesy of a law school friend who is both Taiwanese (and fiercely proud of that), and also kind a...uncle fan of Korean girl groups, to put it charitably. He's made roughly 10-15 posts about this issue in the past 24 hours.
It's also made the Washington Post, which I discovered while scrolling through my Twitter feed.
And then I'm browsing /r/relationships and this thread pops up, of a poor American girl whose boyfriend has gone off the deep end following this scandal, dropping his grad school work duties to stay up to date on this scandal and "be there" for his poor Tzuyu.
Even at the peak of our kpop fandom, none of my friends managed this kind of overinvestment. And I say this as someone who had way too many feelings about Qmi and Donghae. The /r/relationship commentators clearly don't get the obsessive culture of kpop fandom (and how it's encouraged by the companies because merch and concert sales!), but they also have a point that this guy has clearly crossed too many lines of concerning behavior.
It's just...a little surreal to see something that should be trivial, niche, actually register on the scale of international political conflict, with a write up from a global news site and comments from global leaders.
I have no comments to make on the political implications; I only think about how awful it must be for this poor girl at the center of this controversy. Last I heard, her mom is flying to be with her, so she will have that moral support at least. Man, 16-years-old. How do you even react to sparking something on this scale with something so innocuous?
In completely unrelated news, this gifset showcases the greatness of Tom Hardy and simultaneously how thirsty for an Oscar Leo is.
And now Taiwan has just elected a new pro-independent Taiwan president, Tsai Ing-Wen, who will be the first female president, and both she and her Nationalist opponent have commented on this kpop scandal and what it represents in terms of China and Taiwan's international relations.
This has been all over my Facebook courtesy of a law school friend who is both Taiwanese (and fiercely proud of that), and also kind a...uncle fan of Korean girl groups, to put it charitably. He's made roughly 10-15 posts about this issue in the past 24 hours.
It's also made the Washington Post, which I discovered while scrolling through my Twitter feed.
And then I'm browsing /r/relationships and this thread pops up, of a poor American girl whose boyfriend has gone off the deep end following this scandal, dropping his grad school work duties to stay up to date on this scandal and "be there" for his poor Tzuyu.
Even at the peak of our kpop fandom, none of my friends managed this kind of overinvestment. And I say this as someone who had way too many feelings about Qmi and Donghae. The /r/relationship commentators clearly don't get the obsessive culture of kpop fandom (and how it's encouraged by the companies because merch and concert sales!), but they also have a point that this guy has clearly crossed too many lines of concerning behavior.
It's just...a little surreal to see something that should be trivial, niche, actually register on the scale of international political conflict, with a write up from a global news site and comments from global leaders.
I have no comments to make on the political implications; I only think about how awful it must be for this poor girl at the center of this controversy. Last I heard, her mom is flying to be with her, so she will have that moral support at least. Man, 16-years-old. How do you even react to sparking something on this scale with something so innocuous?
In completely unrelated news, this gifset showcases the greatness of Tom Hardy and simultaneously how thirsty for an Oscar Leo is.