Asian idolater culture: I’m sharing my ‘boyfriend’ with millions of rivals

“I wish my ‘boyfriend’ could be seen and be loved by more people.”

Imagine there is a group of girls who have advanced photographic equipment and the ability of photo-taking and modifying as professional journalists. They follow their idols (here means those who debuted in usually singing and dancing groups at a young age) to everywhere with their cameras. They take thousands of photos for their idols to make posters, photo books, promoting websites etc.. In addition to going to concerts and purchasing albums, they spend large amount of money to do promotions and advertisements for their idols at all costs, even though these are not their jobs. They are doing this because they love their idols so much. They call their favorite idol boy “boyfriend”.

This is an unique idolater culture in Asia. It was first derived from the idol entertaining industry in Korea which have been popular and quickly swept Asia since the 1990s. Led by Korean entertaining companies such as SM, JYP and DSP, a mature industrial system and profit chain throughout the country were formed, especially in South Korea. Agents in South Korea have a regular global recruitment campaign every year to pick young teenagers with iconic qualities to become trainees. The best trainees can debut in groups as idols. For these young idols who haven’t have master work to be popularized, attracting fans is their first step.

“Usually ‘having relationship with fans’ is the best way for them to keep their fans, ” said Hands, a 19-year-old fan of Korean idol group BTS, “I call my favorite idol ‘boyfriend’ or sometimes ‘husband’ to show my love and support because I can feel that I’m connected with my idol in this way.”

It might be awkward for someone who doesn’t understand this culture. But it’s amazing to see how great impact the love to an idol could bring to someone in this field.

“Because of him, I found something suits me very well, or rather, dream.”

Jennifer, now 21 years old, has been a fan of a member in Korean idol group Super Junior for over 6 years. She is currently an university student in South Korea. She calls her idol “my boy”.

“When I was in high school, I followed many sites of Super Junior (known as SJ). These sites published first-handed photos of SJ taken by fans in Korea. They followed SJ to every performance, airport and event to get photos.” She said, “I really envied them a lot because they can meet them face-to-face, so I started to learn Korean.”

In July 2015, one of the sites was asking for editors of photos and videos. Because of her Korean language ability, Jennifer was hired and mainly in charge of translating and editing captions for videos. “I liked him so much that I started making videos by myself. Later I found that I actually had a talent in this job.” She went to Korea in her final year of high school. After a-year study of language, she managed to go to Sungkyunkwan University, in South Korea, majoring in Film and Video.

“Then I started my craziest year in 2018.” Jennifer got her wish, she was sent to take photos at airport. “I was really excited when I first got this job because I can finally meet my boy in person,” she recalled, “But later I found it was not that easy.”

The airport was more than an hour of subway away from her school. To save money from taking taxi, Jennifer had to spend long time for a round trip. “If his flights are extremely early or late, I have no choice but to spend a night at the airport with my equipment.” After taking photos, Jennifer would immediately send them to friends for further professional modification and select the best ones for publication.

“Over the past year, my life was only about school and airport. Meeting idol became a mission. My first reaction of seeing him was setting up my camera instead of being excited. I realized that this job is consuming my enthusiasm.”

Jennifer quitted. She continued with her video job. She said: “I really appreciate that he “helped” me to find my speciality. I started as his girlfriend fan, but now I’m not satisfied with being a fan only. I should stick with what I’m good at and make it to the best. Then one day I can meet my boy as his colleague and tell him ‘I make myself here because of you, thank you.’.”

Actually being involved in relationships for idols is expressly prohibited in idol industry. It’s not only for the worries of losing focus on their jobs, it’s more about the characteristic of their identity.

“For singers or actors, their fans pay for them because of their works. But for idols, what they are selling is actually themselves. Their fans pay for them to make them be popular because of them.” Said Cassie, a fan of Xukun Cai, a Chinese idol boy. “So their job not only include giving performance, they also have to satisfy their fans’ fantasy. If they are in relationships, the fantasy is broken, they will face the risk of losing fans. For idols, popularity is the very first condition of success.”

Ming, 22 years old, a girl who just quitted being fan of a Chinese idol. She gave up her idol because that boy was found being in relationship just after debuting from an idol production show.

“Although I was his girlfriend fan, it wasn’t unacceptable for me to see him fall in love with someone. I gave him up because he didn’t concern about his career like we do,” Ming explained, “We actually knew about his girlfriend from ‘internal source’ from the very beginning, so we were actually hiding it for him. But I didn’t expect that he was exposed by himself. It was an accident but it still tells how careless he was. He didn’t have any works to be remembered by the public at that time, he was relying on us. But if he doesn’t really care, why should we?”

When these girls were asked how other people would see them, their reactions were similar : “They think I’m rich.”

“It’s true that you’d better be rich if you want to run a site very well,” said Hands, “But for most of us, we just save money in every way we can. For me as a fan, I’m happy to spend money for my idol. What I wish is that one day my idol could be popularized because of his works, rather than relying on our costs.”