K-Pop Fans Are Getting Involved in U.S. Politics. Are They Activists? – By Mariam Elba (The Intercept) / July 1 2020
As the nationwide protests gained prominence after George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police, fans of Korean pop music, or K-pop, raised eyebrows after jamming an app released by the Dallas Police Department called iWatch Dallas, which was meant to be a portal to submit videos of protesters. K-pop fans instead flooded the app by submitting “fancams,” or videos of performances featuring a particular K-pop star or group. Within hours, the app was shut down due to what the police department said was “technical difficulties.”
In the following days and weeks, fans flooded right-wing hashtags on Twitter like #WhiteLivesMatter and #WhiteOutWednesday with fancams, drowning out any serious engagement with those hashtags from white supremacists.
Most recently, K-pop fans and TikTok teens were among those who reserved tickets to Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last weekend, only to not show up.
Even now, look under #ItsOkayToBeRacist, which was trending last week, and you will find fancams of Korean artists like V of the seven-member boy band BTS (Bulletproof Boy Scouts, in English), or Han from the group Stray Kids. This week, K-pop fans continue to obfuscate #AllLivesMatter with fancams of j-hope of BTS and the girl group Red Velvet, to give a few examples. Among the most visible and widely coordinated effort in previous weeks was the #MatchAMillion campaign, in which BTS fans, which call themselves ARMYs, matched BTS’s $1 million donation to organizations supporting Black Lives Matter in about 24 hours. (Disclosure: The author of this article also participated in #MatchAMillion.)
Continue to article: https://theintercept.com/2020/07/01/k-pop-fans-bts-activism-politics-black-lives-matter/
