Whoa.
I just had an eye-opening experience.
I was reading a typical Korean shoujo manhwa (Korean comic aimed at teenage girls – usually featuring one ordinary but pretty girl caught in a love triangle between two guys. Best-known example would probably be Goong/Gung/Princess Hours.) In this case, the manhwa My Girl was about a sports-loving girl who has a secret life as a teenage model, who loved her classmate, but got caught in a media scandal with a national tennis player. Pretty standard teenage girl love-triangle romance. I’ve read at least half a dozen other stories with the same or similar plotlines – these are like the comic equivalents of Harlequin novels for teenage girls.
However, there was a difference in my reading of this story and the rest. The difference was that I’ve been avidly following the Korean media and celebrity scene now for the last year or so, whereas previously I did not. As a result, my readings of the relative importance and significance of events portrayed in the story has dramatically changed. Case in point: the rumours of the scandal between the main character and the tennis player appearing on the Internet. It’s one of those big no-no’s for teenage celebrities in Korea – they mustn’t date anyone while they’re popular with the public. When I had encountered similar scenes before my exposure to the Korean media industry, I didn’t think too much about it. Maybe my thoughts went something like, “Okay, so she did a bad thing. What’s all the fuss about? Can’t they just go out anyway? Ignore the public.”
Then, I dived into the world of Korean idol worship on the Net. It’s scary. Korean culture really – and I mean really – glamourises the teenage celebrity idols they have. Fan groups go absolutely crazy over them. In fact, fan groups can even go to war with each other if their idols are perceived to clash or be disrespectful to each other. (Example: The 2008 Dream Concert) Similarly, I’ve seen death threats and other stuff when fans take a dislike to someone who’s rumoured to be dating their favourite celebrity idol. It may sound ridiculous and overblown to you and me, but they take it absolutely seriously. Remember, the root word of “fan” is “fanatic”.
Because of this, the Korean media industry, and Korean celebrities, take the Internet rumour and gossip mill very seriously. A hint of a scandal among these fan groups can spread like wildfire and mean life or death to a celebrity’s career and popularity. It’s a fairly unique phenomenon, only in Korea where hi-speed Internet broadband capability is integrated almost seamlessly into everyday life and used throughout the entertainment world. In other countries like the U.S., Internet rumours are taken with a pinch of salt, especially since fan culture doesn’t really go online. But in Korea, the Internet is where all the fans hang out and where you can get the latest news about your favourite celebrity idol.
Coming back to my main point: Now that I’ve been exposed to the way the Korean media industry interacts with its’ fans and internet culture, it completely changed my interpretation of the significance of the event. A teenage model getting into a rumoured Internet scandal with a national tennis player is a BIG THING in Korea. It could lead to stalkers, death threats, constant harassment, the death of her career, etc. What I had once dismissed as trivial (as it would be in any other country except Korea) becomes a very significant and dramatic moment. Mmy exposure to Korean Internet fan culture has radically altered my interpretation of a media artifact (the comic) produced by that culture.
In the bigger picture, what importance does this have?
What this has shown me is that exposure to different cultures and ways of thinking is actually a good idea after all. I tend to be reclusive, averse to travel and quite happy with my own world. Unlike many, I don’t really seek out new experiences by travelling or wanting to converse with strangers. But to genuinely understand how people think, and to perceive the reason for why they react in the way they do… that’s something worthwhile. It took me 1 year to understand Korean fan culture to the point where I can put myself in their shoes (even though I don’t really get involved in their activities). It took me an equally long time to understand MMORPG gamers, back in the Eternal Lands days, when I was playing online games heavily. And even until today, I have only gotten past the surface layer of anime/manga fandom.
Fan culture. What an interesting thing it is. Time to go read Prof. Henry Jenkins’ books on the subject again.
