I have been invited by Oxford University’s Said Business School to organize a panel on K-pop fan culture and present my research as well. Here is the panel description:

What’s Up with K-pop Today? Fandom, Authenticity, and the “Dark Side of K-pop

According to recent statistics by the Korea Foundation, there are more than 200 million fans of Korean pop culture worldwide. Today, everything from the careers of individual idols to the fate of an entire multi-national industry relies on K-pop fans who mobilize their resources, especially digital media and technology, to set and achieve communal goals. From promoting specific idols and groups, to generating enthusiasm for the industry more broadly, fans massively influence the business and reputation of K-pop and its cultural significance.

Jeong discusses how K-pop fans shape K-pop’s global popularity and reputation by performing a kind of materialization of affective labor, which can be seen from generalized, collective, and communal fan activities to de-centralized, individually specific labor. Baudinette examines how Tokyo’s Koreatown of Shin-Ōkubo has transformed from an ethnic enclave into a “K-pop space,” arguing that the materiality of K-pop merchandising in Shin-Ōkubo and its ties to other markers of “Koreanness” transform the district itself into K-pop content to be consumed by fans. Choi questions how K-pop and Korean culture are imagined in Western media discourse and addresses how such discourse shapes today’s global understanding of K-pop by providing a critique of the “dark side of K-pop.”