I’ve tried to ask myself this question from different perspectives. One of the first ones was psychology, then biology, a little bit of philosophy, business and marketing, and others. These days it’s from the perspective of rethorics, not the current concept but the Aristotelic one. As it’s a big area, it’s difficult to find a relation with something so specific (a fan, and being even more specific, a fan of idols, as it’s the idea of fan I’m supposed to be familiarized with the most), and plus I don’t know much about it yet.
I think it’s very well related to the actual marketing of idols and celebrities. I don’t know how are the regular shows of other countries that talk about celebrities and super stars, but the ones I’ve seen here are talk as if everything they present is the truth, or at least, facts that most people believe in. This is related to rethorics. It’s not the intention of any discourse to present the truth but rather something plausible. We see this on a lot of stories, be it in the form of books, movies, comics and whatnot.
Now I’ve seen over and over that fans’ favourite idols (or at least a kind of) are the ones that tell a story. Wether it’s with words, through a show or through their entire career, if you’re fascinated or charmed by the story they tell, then it would seem that you like that particular idol.
And it’s the intention of all discourses to appear as if they have no intention, to imitate nature, which, it seems, has no intention or malice. It appears, then, as something ideal, which the discourse will try to imitate.
Every idol must seem natural.
This is why when something seems “off” to some fans who’re casually paying attention to an idol, a common reaction is to say they’re fake, they have fake personality, why does she try to get so much attention, spotlight hog, etc. I mostly remember the words “they’re fake” because I’ve seen them so many times.
All the manufacturation aspect needs to be appear as hidden, or better, as something non-existant, because if it was all over the place, the idol wouldn’t seem natural.
This when the marketing part enters, or should I say, is already visible.
Who they want to appeal to? Mainly fans, but many companies and labels seem to ultimately aim for their idols to become cashcows, grabbing all chances of (succesful) business, including acting, modeling, singing, performing at concerts, etc. The idols themselves probably like this as well. By this, I mean, all of this.
How? This was, personally, difficult for me to understand. Because the discourse was so beliaveable. The marketing is done in a way so that it seems that the fans know the idol. If, ultimately, the belief of knowing the idol is a strong way, the marketing has succeded.
It’s not a secret that rethorics are something that all well-versed publicists and marketers know about. Promoting a product and saying “I’m SELLING this!” would most likely ruin your chances of selling anything. A good seller doesn’t have to say that they’re selling anything at all, and a really good one wouldn’t even insinuate it and still sell something in the end.
Idols promote themselves through that marketing strategy, which is, I think, very related to rethorics. They wouldn’t say they’re selling themselves or their products. What they’d say is “support me from now on” and similar phrases. I’ve barely heard or read the phrase “it’s on sale now” from them, only when it comes to specific releases like CDs.
When I think about it though, such marketing is a big job.
(This is still only an initial idea, but from what I’ve seen, most fans of idols believe their favourite idol is a good person/individual. I say initial because I’ll eventually ask my friends who’re into idols that question and see their answers)
A job so big it involves so many persons… and yet it’s made appear as if what the idol says or does hasn’t had the involvement of so many persons.
This, of course, gives chance for rumours to appear. It’s not the only reason, just one of them. Because everything surrounding the idol is apparently so perfect, ideal, something that perhaps a group of people obssesively look up to, and the center of that attention is usually the image of the idol. So if someone finds a rumour that describes a characteristic that isn’t related to that image people already have the security of “knowing” (believing) or at least the feeling of “knowing”, and the rumour is found out to be real, an entire job could be destroyed or partially destroyed.
It’s a big risk.
You have to keep the fans in check, so they believe that the idol is natural and pure (I don’t mean natural in terms of surgery, and neither pure in the terms of virginity, but, surprise, more than often, natural looks and virginity are part of the rethorics of idols. It shouldn’t be ruled out that some idols do have natural looks and virginity). If the media is also kept in check so no big tabloids or worse, trustable outlets, start talking whatever they want, even better. Publications that have close ties with the companies behind idols know this very well. Yet, simple lines like “Z will do their best with their next song” or “some of the habits of Z are to not to sleep until very late and to not to shower frequently. Z gives you the best of smiles today!” will appear to be as something natural.
I’ve already thought of this: so… has the magic been lost? Some think these idols are role models and life inspirations, I think they’re normal people with a job that is related to advertising and one big part of that is rethorics. I mean, I’ve never found myself attracted to a particular kind of idol image more than another one, I see the differences between them (at most) and that’s it. I don’t find myself charmed by the stories they tell on TV -I barely watch it-, or how they’re on TV (it’s the same thing).
I don’t want to be a fan that is completely alienated. The fan side of me, I’ve already accepted, is a dimension of me. Just that. If I don’t recognize myself or that dimension of me when, later on, I read the things I’ve wrote about fandom, I’ll regret it a lot. I don’t want to think “who wrote this? me? why was I like that?”. I mean, in general. Once and then there might be a moment where I have too big of a reaction and I don’t react like I usually would, and might write something that isn’t like me. I’m a person, not just a fan.
I’ve also thought: why would I want to be so serious? It’s just fandom, it’s entertainement, it’s supposed to be fun
It will probably be a long journey until I find the balance between the serious side of me and the one that has sense of humour. For me, I can at least think of finding it if I’m not alienated. Once I start acting like that, it becomes more difficult to even distinguish what could be an horrible joke to someone else and what could be something that brightens someone’s day.
Acting like an alienated fan, I think, makes you advance in just one direction. Or think in, I almost dislike saying it, a way that fits the box. The box that is made of all effective advertising and rethorics.
I am probably now, to many people, an untrue or an incomplete fan.
I don’t care. If one of the requirements to be myself is to be an incomplete fan, then so be it. Perhaps as I live and experience more I’ll change my ways of thinking, but right now I really can’t find a way to combine these two things. I can’t imagine it, being myself but also finding the way to make myself firmly believe in such and such delusion, and ones that seem so obvious to me (that they’re delusions).
What is the part of being an idol fan that I still like?
The music. I think the composition of various idol songs is something I like and can enjoy, and my favourite ones can raise my mood. I also like to cheer on someone that isn’t so sparkly shiny perfect. I see all idols as persons with a job that is called being an idol, not as pure gods or goddesses.
I can see the fun and excitement in that. It works for me. These are the things I take as entertainement, the rest is not something I believe in. Obviously, a lot of fans do, and even if at times I’d like to say to them “you don’t know them!”, they like to believe in idol rethorics, or to say it in a nicer way, they like dreaming, and there’s nothing wrong with that in itself (alienation is about completely believing rethorics, any kind of it, and a sentence like “I want to marry this idol!” doesn’t neccesarily mean the fan is alienated), so I respect that other fans like the plausability of them knowing their idols. If they’re completely alienated, I’ll just have the most basic respect for them.
——
This is something very specific that I really can’t talk about elsewhere.
Soshibond.
I like SNSD since their first MV came out (on the first days of August 2007), and I don’t remember that such a word existed back then, neither in 2008. Since about 2010 I’ve seen that lots of people have been talking about it, over and over. So I’m thinking it must have been created in either 2009 or 2010. And I think it was probably created on forums or places that aren’t meant to allow much discussion (like, opposing opinions… oh, the requirements of posting like a fan in some places), probably soompi and a certain other big forum.
I can’t bring myself to believe in it. I think it’s half real and half fake. I don’t think it’s ~the~ bond in Korean pop or Korean entertainment. I think friendships go through so many stages and so many years, that friends are still friends after some time, and different times, then good. Right now these young woman haven’t even know each other for a decade.
For me it’s disrespectful to speculate about the relationship of existing people (as a joke it’s okay). Worse, to believe in what I speculate about those relationships. Even if it’s idols, even if we only see a limited side of them. I see the interactions (in SNSD) as idols and can laugh or smile at what they do, but that’s just it.
The worst of it though, for me, is to speculate that the so called Soshibond is something human, that it grows and evolves, and that it’s a miracle. And yes, there are people who’ve said that. Who am I to say something like that about the relationship of people I don’t know? I probably wouldn’t have that so shocking if it wasn’t because there’s a rather big amount of fans who believe that, and a few of them are people older than me. They can believe in that, I cannot. And since the first time I’ve seen sentences like that (“it’s a miracle”), I thought, with no hint of doubt, “man, just what, they’re advertising Soshibond”. Because that’s what it just seems to me, that they’re describing it so beautifully, to sell it.
I’ve thought about this over and over, and I think it’s just a matter of believing. That, I mean, different beliefs, I can respect. People have and will defend their beliefs with all their might, and also with rethorics (right now I’m defending a belief as well… lack thereof), and it’s all okay unless they try to obligate me.
So I don’t believe in Soshibond and yet I really like SNSD. Once again my fan side is incomplete and I like it.
—
Perhaps, when my fan side is incomplete, it’s complete. Or perhaps it’s a balance of, a middle point between incompleteness and completeness. I’ll find out.
