Parasocial Interaction And Fandom in Korea

Regardless of age, there are more and more people attracted to consuming media, which has affected their behaviors and mental processes. Parasocial interaction and fandom of Korean wave has been extremely famous and popular among teenagers and even middle-aged people. K-pop has been influencing the international and local music scenes. Not only K-pop fandom has become a subculture of the younger generations in countries such as Singapore and Thailand, but also in diverse countries around the globe. Throughout the years, the number of fans has been increasing gradually.

A parasocial interaction has been established between the Korean idols and their fans.

Hallyu has many facets such as Korean Pop Music, Korean Dramas, language and Korean cuisine. Idols were trained to be perfect in terms of appearance, vocals and many more for the public, making more people to be interested in them. This also results to fans who acknowledge their idols as the most perfect person in the world, follow them around and worship them.

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Moreover, fandoms are created for all the fans to come together to support their idols. To show their loyalty and excitement, fans become the member of the fan clubs, having fan meetings and writing letters to their idols.

The growing popularity of K-pop has resulted fanaticism around the globe and fanaticism can be overestimate. Obsessed fans often do things that are extremely inappropriate. They stalk and invade the privacy of the artists by barging into apartments. In parasocial interaction, it is known as one-sided relationship, whereby one person knows a lot about another, but another does not.

One example will be fans often feel like they understand the artist personally, so they feel attach to the person when they watch the celebrity on television and social medias.

When someone is overly obsessed in an artist’s personal life, he or she enjoys and loves interacting with other fans of the same celebrity. Furthermore, the person will say that he or she is fated and has a certain bond with the idol and that they cannot be separated. Also, he or she will spend time with the artist or will continually think about the artist he or she adores.

All in all, personally I think that being a fan of a celebrity is not that bad. However, we should have a limit to liking someone, if not, it is unhealthy for us. One should control his or her own emotion, by not going overboard and following every move of his or her idol. It is their choice to how they will deal with their fandom and how they will be living with it.