The (anti)fan is Black: Consumption, resistance, and Black K-pop fan vigil labor

Abstract

The continuous international rise of K-pop demands that current discourse on the industry consider its artistic model and the labor of its fans. Much of this fan work occurs on digital platforms such as Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube, allowing fans from different geographic locations the space for collaboration and transnational fandom community building. However, just as these platforms are spaces for community formation, users can also engage in discriminatory practices. These practices leave some fans, specifically Black fans, to face the realities of segregated communities off-line and in digital fandom spaces. I examine how Black K-pop fans attempt the im/possible performance of fan identity while already racially positioned as outsiders. Of particular interest is how Black K-pop fans experience fandom while being interpellated to the position of the antifan. Through an analysis of Black fan creations across social media platforms, I position "vigil labor," a wakefulness to the industry, and fandom as what aids Black fans in constructing their fan identity within and against the object of their fandom (the pop group) and the fandom itself.