Forget chart-topping hits: Everyone wants a "superfan"
Do you really need a No.1 nowadays? Or do you just need No. 1 fans?
A few months ago, everywhere I went I felt like I was hearing the latest music industry buzzword: superfan.
The idea of superfandom features in so many press releases that fill my inbox lately. I'd listen to a podcast or read some article, and there'd it be. Even in a documentary or two that I'd watch. Fans are no longer just fans or stans, they're Super.
This isn't a new term at all, but it feels like 2024 is certainly the year of the superfan for the western music world, especially the American and British music industries. In my inbox, there's about 200 mentions of the term "superfan" or some variant (super-fan, super fan, etc.) since 2017. Over half of them are since the start of 2024, and I probably have deleted at least double that amount as well. This is a small data set, surely, but it feels like an inundation.
Joe Sparrow
What is a superfan exactly? It's a term that's been around for ages, and it's easy to say it's just a diehard fan. But I think "superfan" is really code for semi-professional consumers, sometimes called prosumers, who not only are fans of an artist or celebrity but are actively making that star's rise through their support.
A pretty good definition of how the industry views superfans, I think, is from this talk given by Hybe chairman Bang Si-hyuk in 2018. Considering Hybe's approach to fan-oriented content and technology, it's not surprising that Bang has talked about this before.
"If fans in the past were in the position of a general consumer, it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that fans of the present are facilitators who are able to actively help the artists' growth," he said.
I can't find the subtitled version that I had previously screenshotted a few years ago (yes, I'm a virtual hoarder!), but you can watch the talk in Korean here. You can use YouTube's auto-translate function, but I find it's only correct about 2/3rds of the time.
A talk given by Bang Si-hyuk, founder of Hybe (formerly Big Hit Entertainment).
Fans no longer just enjoy something passively, and haven't for a long time if we're being honest, if ever. That's the point of having fans: propelling the content or entertainment form that they're supporting. But in recent years, the idea of fans propelling content rather than taking it in from afar has absolutely taken over the world of music.
While K-pop was, and still is, demeaned as being too cold, mechanical in its industrialized approach to fandom-oriented content, parties in the Western music industries are increasingly wanting to be part of that very reliable industry action.
There's a reason American and British heavyweights are working with major K-pop firms to create western-focused, K-pop-trained acts like Hybe and Geffen's girl group Katseye, JYP Entertainment and Republic's girl group VCHA, and SM & Kakao Entertainment America working with the BBC and UK production company Moon&Back to produce boy band Dear Alice.
That reason is in a segmented world where you can no longer rely on the average consumer to support a career, the general public doesn't matter, only the fan spenders do. And making those fan spenders dedicated, unrelenting superfans is the way to make money for the music industry for years to come. Why produce new artists when the same artists can tour for decades? If you land on the magic sauce of talent+fandom and are able to make it last longer than a moment? You're golden, as long as those fans are still supporting.
Why bother betting big on song production and praying you get a hit when you can bet medium on song production and knowing that your audience will support you? Or, if you're a newer audience, why bother relying on the general public's taste? Let your fans propel you to immense heights, and profits.
This approach is fabulous for the diehard fan experience, and perhaps less fabulous for innovation. Even if the same singular artist or act reinvents themselves over and over again, they're still the same individual entity.
And, of course, by putting the power into the fans to raise up their stars, it leads to power imbalances where some fans feel like because they essentially produced an artist, they have the right to any facet of them.
While not all fans or superfans (though I'm not sure there's that much of a difference nowadays) overstep, the sort of behavior many in the west consider the "dark side of K-pop" has plenty of parallels, whether it's fans stalking artists or blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Is pushing more fans into this mindset worth it for the profits? Is it worth it for the art? Certainly, there are many who say "yes" and want to keep things getting even more super-fanified.
However, reliability pays, which is why being unreliable -whether musically or personality-wise- oftentimes backfires. Letting artists be people beyond the gloss of PR has become a stressor for not just the K-pop world but also the western one.
It's been fascinating to watch the hypercommercilization of the superfan in the past few years in the music industry as playing out via the US and UK industries learning from K-pop, and the reaction to it. "Why are these dead-eyed K-pop groups represented as some kind of ideal?" declared one out-of-touch writer in an old school classic British magazine last week, touching on stereotypes and animosity. I think this headline alone tells you just enough as to how the old guard is reacting to much of this raising up the suprefanification of the music world.
In the news
Suga shared a handwritten apology after going to the police investigation for his drunk scooting incident.
Min Hee-jin has been replaced as the CEO of Hybe subsidary, and NewJeans home,but will remain as creative lead. Several of Min's aides were removed from the executive board, and newcomers added. The decision is reported to favor Hybe following months of disputes between Hybe and Min.
Korean media's approach to Suga's scooter DUI has drawn criticism for metastasizing the issue. Suga has done something illegal, but I personally feel the apparent level of wrongness and crime are not being reflected by much of the narrative and treatment of the star. Although there are obvious cultural aspects at play, I keep thinking about the tabloid culture America had when I was a kid, and how we treated Britney Spears. My friends at the Name 3 Songs podcast have a good episode on this era and it's ea-lasting impact. (I actually just noticed as writing this that the Joongang Ilbo's reporting on Suga's letter is in the "national-social affairs" section rather than entertainment. Not necessarily criticizing this section placement because Korea currently is grappling with rising accidents and deaths from scooters, causing to widespread discourse in the country. But considering how poorly the media has done so far, it's interesting to see how different outlets are framing this situation.)
Korean women are speaking up against serious deepfake problems impacting women, including schoolgirls, facing harassment and sexual assault by the men around them, including family members. This is nothing new, and women are quite literally begging for people to pay attention as South Korea's laws and patriarchal-oriented society seem to rollover constantly.
Waterbomb LA's lineup was announced, as were ticket prices. People are very upset, as the tickets are more expensive than pretty much every other music festival in the US this year. The experience of Waterbomb LA is also set up differently than other Waterbombs, with more of a concert-style setup rather than festival. A lot of these issues are likely due to the venue limitations and costs of bringing a whole festival's-worth of artists to the US from Asia, but that doesn't mean tickets are selling. Unrelated, Shawn Reynaldo published a newsletter titled "Maybe Fewer Festivals Wouldn't Be a Bad Thing" today.
Korean tech companies are leaving fandom spaces, which industry insiders believe is because of and/or fueling Weverse's dominance.
Lots is happening with Indonesian K-pop fans.
Universal Group now has an official K-pop songwriting camp set up.
What I'm listening to
Jaehyun's solo debut album, J, Cinema Paradise by Zerobaseone which is a lot of summertime fun, and Time Machine by Soul which lives up to the singer's name. I have a review of Jaehyun's album coming out in a few days, so please stay tuned for that.
Relatedly, I've been music lately about how something interesting is happening in K-pop right now with music. I need to spend some time thinking about it a bit more but I think that we're going to start seeing a lot more soloists in the next few years, both ones from groups and totally new ones.
What I'm watching
I binged Pop Star Academy: Katseye on Netflix, the show that gave us a long-overdue behind-the-scenes look at the process through which the Hybe x Geffen (HxG) girl group Katseye were formed. The release of a several-years-old docuseries about their formation premiering the week of their first album's release is interesting, but personally what I think is the most interesting is the show's emphasis on how much Katseye needs to succeed for HxG's continued success. The title of the show with "Katseye" as a subheading also makes me wonder if this is just the first of several of these projects we'll see from HxG, or Netflix.
Fun fact! I feature in the doc for a few seconds in the final episode, as I spoke with the pre-debut competitors. Blink and you'll miss it though. I didn't even see myself on the first watch, it took a friend telling me to know I were in it.
I'm finishing up My Mister this week, then getting my wisdom teeth out on Friday and planning to spend my recovery watching GOSE (Going Seventeen) and hoping I don't ugly laugh my way into an infection.
