Older K-pop fandoms think they’re on a high horse, but it’s actually a mound of shit

On recent article on K-Pop K-Fans there was a bit of mess on a rather irrelevant article about TWICE fans mediaplaying/pseudo-bragging about their group debut in Japan being bigger than KARA and SNSD.

Kara’s showcase: 2,000 seats
Girls’ Generation’s showcase: 7,000 seats
Twice’s showcase: +10,000 seats, first group to open their Japanese fanclub before debut

This, obviously, is idiotic and replies called them out for it, as they should. However, since it’s Pann, they also decided to be a bit extra to make TWICE look worse since Pann generally hates on them like they do all popular female idols.

4. [+28, -10] I don’t hate Twice but it’s impossible to compare them to second generation groups. In other words, it’s impossible to compare SES (first gen) to SNSD (second gen) because things have developed since the first generation. Have you heard of SES’ Japanese advancement? HOT’s? At that time, a group couldn’t advance to overseas just because they were popular. SNSD could because BoA and TVXQ had paved the way before SNSD. Same with Kara. Flaunting Twice’s 10,000 audience and putting them above SNSD and Kara is laughable ㅋㅋㅋㅋ No one said SNSD was bigger than SES and Fin.K.L when they were on their peak. Please.

5. [+25, -9] Do you even know when SNSD and Kara held their showcases? It was 7 years ago. They paved the way and now you’re looking down on them. In fact, SNSD’s total audience was 21,000. Why are you twisting the facts? The fans of Kara, SNSD, and Bigbang don’t look down on TVXQ and BoA who started off by performing on the street. They sold their CDs at small record shops and performed here and there. Are you gonna say that TVXQ’s debut scale was shitty? There are things that you can’t compare because the situations are different. Twice fans must be thoughtless.

I bolded the parts where their comments were truthful, and that’s where they should’ve stopped. Regardless, I read it at the time and thought, “Yeah, that sounds about as delusional as older fans can tend to be.” So whatever and all that … but then I saw the international K-pop fandom quote those two netizens and it spread like wildfire.

This is revisionist horseshit. I’m sorry.

New K-pop groups and fans need to understand the obstacles older K-pop groups and fans overcame to pave the road for K-pop now. The modern success is built on the backs of the older generation groups, and in the case of fans, many wouldn’t even be into K-pop if it wasn’t for the older groups. I completely agree with that, and they deserve to be respected.

BUT

It’s unbelievably annoying to see these older fandoms and their alternative facts or fake news or misremembering how things actually played out at the time. The issue here isn’t the idols, since they always tend to show respect and admiration, but rather the fandoms who constantly search for any kind of edge over other fandoms so they can jerk-off their faves or themselves. In this case, the older fandoms are just selling bullshit because newwe fans can’t remember and have to take their word for it.

Well, I remember.

From a K-pop fan that’s been around since fans of first-gen groups have been going insane, let me assure you that they were all in fact as bad or worse than current fandoms. Honestly, this should be the most obvious fucking point ever, but fandoms back then were absolutely similar to how they are now in insanity, and thus of course they looked for every opportunity to one-up the previous generation whether due to pride or insecurity or whatever. Just instead of Twitter and OneHallyu it was forums at Soompi or Solid07 or other places like that.

Specifically, they cite BoA in their comments. Well, BoA was who really got my invested in K-pop to begin with, and I’ve been a fan of hers basically since debut, especially after all the hate and rumors and bullshit she dealt with back then. I definitely witnessed the new wave of K-pop in Japan during the peak of Hallyu mediaplay the hell about replacing BoA, being bigger/doing better than BoA, and basically bragging about how BoA was a flop by comparison since her sales were in sharp decline at that time. During that time period, those fandoms were claiming the wildest shit about Hallyu in Japan, and like 25% of the posts on Asian Junkie were about disproving that delusion that every K-pop group was “taking over Japan” or the “next TVXQ/BoA”.

Hell, all you have to look at is the current fights fandoms get into over colors or respect or whatever to this day, and then just imagine that for the previous generation except worse because it was a lot more raw and they were directly competing at the time.

Also, everybody gonna be mute when BoA gets ignored in best soloist discussions now, huh? Alright.

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Anyway, I’m not saying TWICE’s fandom isn’t an extra mess. They’re a significant fandom, so of course they’re going to be a significant mess. For example, TWICE is not going mainstream in Japan (especially not right now) just cause they topped a meaningless Tower Records Chart. Nobody gives a fuck about that chart except K-pop companies for mediaplay and stans for delusion. So definitely feel free to keep checking them on stuff like that.

What I am saying, however, is that while TWICE’s fandom is shit, so is … uh, everybody else’s to varying degrees of terrible. This is an evergreen reality, and trying to pretend like one generation is more mature than the other or that one generation never disrespected the other in the past is 100% laughable.

Hell, I would argue it was worse because stanning those groups used to require a lot more effort than it does now, and shit used to get physical more frequently.

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Anyway, I seriously wasn’t going to write about this, but as soon as that irrelevant stuff turned into a gigantic jerk-off sesh for older generation fandoms and/or current generation antis about how superior shit was before, I had to say something.

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