How K-pop fans are shaping elections around the globe

Less than a period earlier Chile’s statesmanlike predetermination connected December 19, 2021, Constanza Jorquera, an subordinate researcher astatine the Chilean Korean Study Center astatine the University of Santiago, Chile, feared that her country’s future—and her ain rights—hung successful the balance.

The right-wing candidate, a 55-year-old erstwhile congressman named Jose Antonio Kast, had won the archetypal of 2 rounds of voting connected a level advocating firm taxation cuts, a borderline partition to deter immigrants, restrictions connected abortion, and an extremity to cheery matrimony and the Women’s Ministry. Kast drew comparisons to Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, past the far-right populist president of Brazil.

Analysts warned that the predetermination could extremity Chile into a spiral of governmental and economical illness pursuing respective years of governmental uprisings akin to the events that underpinned Bolsonaro’s ascent.

“I had a panic attack, anxiety,” says Jorquera, astatine the thought that “this fascist is going to win.” She knew she had to bash something. So she thought: “What bash I have? K-pop fandoms.”

Jorquera, present 33, is simply a student of Korean popular civilization and besides a “Kpoper,” the section spelling for the word describing fans of K-pop music—a catchy genre emphasizing choreography and elaborate performances that originated successful South Korea successful 1992 and has since exploded astir the globe done bands similar Girls Generation, EXO, BTS, and Blackpink.

In South Korea, K-pop groups oregon “idols” debut play connected web tv shows, battling different bands to triumph media play. Fans run online for their favorites and probe however galore Spotify streams, YouTube views, medium sales, oregon societal media mentions a radical needs successful bid to person a opus apical the charts oregon triumph an award. They person besides agelong donated to charities, often to commemorate an idol’s birthday, a radical anniversary, oregon an medium release, but some performers and fans mostly avoided politics.

Jorquera believed she could mobilize this aforesaid dedication to impact the result of Chile’s election. She rounded up 5 different fans from Twitter and her societal ellipse to rally—not astir a caller song, but astir Gabriel Boric, the 36-year-old erstwhile pupil person and left-wing campaigner who was moving against Kast. 

With 3 weeks until the election, the recently organized “Kpopers for Boric” launched integer campaigns, threw community-­building events, and ran elector accusation drives. To thrust much votes to Boric, they deployed tactics they’d learned from years of campaigning online for their favourite euphony idols.

“K-pop fans are planetary citizens. We person the powerfulness to marque idols and groups popular. We should usage that aforesaid powerfulness for our governmental issues and causes,” Jorquera says.

K-pop fans successful the US had made headlines successful 2020 erstwhile they reserved tickets for 1 of Donald Trump’s rallies and past neglected to amusement up—leaving the president to look a astir bare auditorium. During America’s civilian unrest aft Minnesota constabulary killed George Floyd connected camera, BTS donated $1 cardinal to Black Lives Matter; its fandom, known arsenic BTS Army, matched the donation successful 24 hours. 

“K-pop fans are planetary citizens. We person the powerfulness to marque idols and groups popular. We should usage that aforesaid powerfulness for our governmental issues and causes.”

Fans person besides foiled achromatic supremacist attempts to dispersed hatred code connected Twitter, hijacking the White Lives Matter hashtag with K-pop GIFs and memes. When the Dallas Police Department asked the nationalist to taxable videos of protesters done an app, fans bombarded it with clips of their idols; it was soon taken offline for “technical difficulties.”  

And that’s conscionable successful the US. Around the world, K-poppers person organized acts of civilian resistance, often campaigning against the creep of progressively authoritarian regimes. Fandoms person learned however to rapidly and efficaciously usage their integer skills to advocator for societal alteration and prosecute governmental goals. 

How K-pop fans organize

BTS started arsenic a hip-hop-based unit of underdogs and became a planetary popular sensation, evoking comparisons to the Beatles. The BTS Army—an acronym for “Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth”—is a improvement successful and of itself, seemingly unprecedented successful scope and influence. 

It’s hard to measurement precisely however large the fandom is, but immoderate estimates accidental betwixt 50 and 100 million. Army is, successful different words, astir the size of Germany—easily the largest instrumentality radical successful K-pop. It was almighty capable to crook 7 young men who mostly sing and rap successful Korean into the best-selling set successful the satellite successful little than a decade.

When BTS debuted successful 2013, their autarkic label, Big Hit Entertainment, couldn’t spend them the accepted Korean amusement industry’s paths to success. So they got past the gatekeepers of the media constitution by embracing societal media. Without unit from an established company, they were capable to situation accepted powerfulness structures with their lyrics. In songs similar “No More Dream” and “Baepsae [Silver Spoon],” they attacked the unit cooker of the Korean acquisition strategy and critiqued Korea’s neoliberal societal structures for diminishing opportunities and fostering socioeconomic inequity.

“People request anthems, and BTS has tons of anthems,” says Jorquera. 

The group’s songs and nationalist statements urged tolerance, equality, and diversity. That connection resonated with K-pop fans, who are often women, LGBTQ, radical of color, oregon from different marginalized groups.

In 2022, the radical announced that it would instrumentality a interruption truthful its members could absorption connected solo projects and fulfill their country’s mandatory subject work implicit the adjacent 2 years. But truthful far, fans person remained loyal, showing up to stream, purchase, and enactment that solo work. With 7 idiosyncratic careers present taking off, it’s imaginable the fandom could proceed to grow.

Though BTS Army is the largest successful number, different K-pop instrumentality groups present prosecute successful akin societal and governmental activities. Jorquera, whose favourite groups are BTS and EXO, emphasizes that Kpopers for Boric was precisely that—a conjugation of K-pop fans who travel antithetic groups.

The Chileans riffed connected what they learned from different palmy K-pop campaigns: however to make viral societal media posts, big events to physique community, and link radical connected the ground of a communal interest. They besides utilized iconography acquainted to K-pop fandoms. Every K-pop radical has a logo, and each fandom gets a sanction and a peculiar airy instrumentality that changes colour oregon displays messages synced to the euphony via Bluetooth. Some groups besides person a designated colour (BTS is purple). Kpopers for Boric created a logo for the person and adopted greenish arsenic his signature hue.

They utilized images of K-pop idols successful societal media campaigns to summation traction. They sent an Uber to Boric’s run office to present a barroom decorated with the candidate’s face, a “Koya” keychain (featuring an animated koala who represents BTS’s person RM), and K-pop-inspired photograph cards of Boric, documenting it each successful a TikTok video. The video spread, earning 387,000 likes. 

As they organized events astatine cafés, printing 200 coffee-cup sleeves with QR codes linked to elector accusation sites, Boric began incorporating K-pop into his run videos. The radical adjacent arranged rides for voters connected predetermination day. 

In December 2021, with grounds elector turnout, Boric was elected arsenic the country’s youngest president. He’d promised to cancel pupil debt, taxation the rich, little health-care costs, revise the country’s societal information system, and combat clime change. After the election, Jorquera thought, “Oh my God, we did this.” 

It wasn’t lone K-poppers, she acknowledges: “Everyone was utilizing what they cared astir the astir for supporting this campaign.” 

In Brazil, wherever K-pop is highly popular, BTS fans utilized akin tactics to scope apolitical fans. The radical Army Help the Planet primitively formed to combat clime alteration but turned its attraction to registering voters up of the October 2022 statesmanlike election. At the commencement of its elector registration campaign, 16- and 17-year-olds (for whom voting is optional, though it is mandatory for astir citizens 18 and up) were turning retired astatine the lowest level successful 30 years.

When BTS’s “Permission to Dance” performance successful Seoul was broadcast successful movie theaters successful March 2022, Army Help the Planet handed retired 4,000 BTS-themed elector cards to viewers crossed Brazil, with a QR codification directing radical to run and elector registration sites. A period later, the radical projected BTS lyrics onto billboards successful six cities. They included lines specified arsenic “If what you spot successful the quality is thing to you, you’re not normal” and “Tomorrow volition support coming and we’re excessively young to springiness up.”

The run helped lend to a record-setting level successful the fig of young radical registering to vote. In October, Bolsonaro was defeated for reelection by the leftist erstwhile president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. 

For Jorquera, the connection is clear: “People should cognize they person the powerfulness to alteration an election. Everything is free. You don’t request resources. What you request is solidarity.”

It’s not each hits

K-pop-led governmental campaigns don’t ever triumph the day, though. 

Last July, successful a lecture hallway astatine Hankuk University successful Seoul, 3 Filipino academics spoke astir BTS Army’s efforts to enactment Lena Robredo successful the caller statesmanlike contention successful the Philippines. She mislaid to Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (whose run besides utilized BTS images and memes online)—a devastating effect for the presenters. 

Allison Anne Atis, a researcher astatine the University of the Philippines Diliman, said she mightiness beryllium “red-tagged,” oregon labeled arsenic a Communist sympathizer and look persecution by the Marcos administration, for delivering the talk. She told the audience: “Please bash not elite a dictator successful your countries.” 

Even palmy K-pop campaigns thin to absorption connected achieving a circumstantial effect alternatively than encouraging nationalist engagement implicit a agelong period, says Tom Carothers, a elder chap astatine the nonpartisan Carnegie Endowment for International Peace successful Washington, DC. That tin bounds their impact. “Their spot is their quality to scope ample numbers of radical astatine a debased cost,” Carothers says. “Their weakness is that they are lone trying to get citizens to bash 1 precise discrete happening astatine a peculiar moment.”

I thought astir Atis and her colleagues erstwhile I was successful Busan, South Korea, successful October for a BTS concert. In the days starring up to what galore disquieted would beryllium the past show by the group, astatine slightest for a while, fans from each implicit the satellite arrived successful the beachside city, sporting BTS luggage tags, pins, and hoodies from erstwhile concerts. I spoke with fans from Germany, India, Indonesia, Australia, Japan, and the US. The amusement was free, but galore did not person tickets, and 100,000 visitors had travel to the metropolis for a performance with a capableness of 50,000. 

Outside a pop-up exhibition, I spoke to 3 fans from the Philippines and asked astir the caller predetermination there. They were Marcos supporters and said they did not o.k. of campaigns mixing authorities with K-pop. 

In Brazil, the radical Army Help the Planet launched the “Tira o Título ARMY” oregon “Go Get Your Voter ID, ARMY” run to promote young radical determination to registry to vote.

@ARMY_HTP VIA TWITTER

A week aft the concert, I went to Magnate, a café owned by the begetter of 1 of the BTS members. I offered to instrumentality a photograph for 3 women, each 30-year-old engineers surviving successful Singapore, who were connected a BTS-themed pilgrimage done South Korea. They were primitively from Myanmar but couldn’t spell backmost to their ain country, they said, due to the fact that they’d been flagged arsenic pro-democracy supporters by the subject junta presently successful power.

As 2 much of their friends joined america for barroom and tea, the women told maine astir their exiled life, relating however BTS had helped them header with depression. For BTS members’ birthdays, they signifier events with different fans to nonstop wealth to orphanages, nursing homes, and the pro-democracy enactment successful their country.

Like different fans I had interviewed, these women said they were not partisan and didn’t privation to conflate their emotion of BTS with politics. They conscionable wanted democracy. 

Afterward, I wondered wherefore they had talked truthful openly to me, knowing I was a journalist. They fto maine grounds the speech and answered each my questions, contempt having been flagged by their homeland’s government.

The answer, I concluded: BTS. If we were each astatine this peculiar café successful Busan, we shared a emotion for the set and, therefore, a lingua franca. 

Earlier, Jorquera had told me, “The crushed we became bonded with K-pop idols is global. We stock the aforesaid struggle. Maybe we tin usage that acquisition to person much empathy astir the world.”

Soo Youn is simply a freelance writer who worked astatine Reuters and ABC News and contributes regularly to the Washington Post, the Guardian, and NBC News.