https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5566-781X
抽象
本文批判性地分析了 K-pop 场景中新出现的女孩暗恋概念，探讨了这种新的女性赋权趋势如何与 K-pop 粉丝对女权主义和赋权的看法相互作用。话语分析显示，K-pop 粉丝将 girl crush 概念视为一种高度商品化的女权主义形式，它从根本上维护了 K-pop 行业的父权现状和潜在的性别权力关系。尽管很少有粉丝认为这个女团概念具有潜在的赋权，但一些粉丝沉迷于反话语，批判性地反思 K-pop 粉丝中存在的内在厌女症，同时也呼吁需要接受女权主义价值观，以实现 K-pop 音乐行业的变革。
介绍
新韩流，或称韩流 2.0，是文化和数字技术的重要跨国流动的一部分（Jin、Yong Dal 和 Yi Hyangsoon引文2020;Sung， Sang-Yeon.引文2014;尹庆。引文2018).尽管如此，在这种全球性的、多向的文化交流中，K-pop 仍然是一种混合文化产品（宋 引文2014）内化了西方的风格和做法，尤其是过度性化 （Kim， Gooyong.引文2019 年a;Pužar， Aljoša.引文2011;尹引文2018).
事实上，K-pop 行业长期以来一直受到许多人的批评，因为它根据规定的性别角色物化、操纵和商品化女性偶像以获取市场利润（爱泼斯坦、斯蒂芬和詹姆斯·特恩布尔引文2014;林、习和罗伯特·鲁道夫引文2017;西路引文2013).考虑到 K-pop （Hae-Joang 引文2000;普扎尔引文2011;尹引文2018），该行业开始受到具有不同女权主义背景和意识的国际和本地观众的审视，产生了不同的文化辩论和女权主义问题（Kelley， Caitlin.引文2018;吉布森引文2019;隆尼引文2019).
我们的研究旨在（重新）考虑 K-pop 女偶像对新自由主义和后女权主义制作中的国际粉丝的影响（Kim引文2019 年a).借鉴新出现的女孩暗恋对象脚注1概念，本研究调查了女性偶像作为赋予女权主义信息权力的渠道的商品化，并通过女权主义镜头探讨了 K-pop 粉丝对其的看法。缺乏关于暗恋女孩概念的官方定义和文献（我们将在下一节中进一步探讨）提供了从专注于其观众接受度（即 K-pop 粉丝）的归纳方法阐述这项研究的机会。事实上，高度参与的 K-pop 粉丝文化呈现了一个有趣的意义、体验和观点战场，这些对于更好地理解这种现象至关重要（Sung引文2014;尹引文2018;叶娜，李。引文2019).饰演 Riordan， Ellen.(引文2001）认为，“接受女性赋权可能会增强与个人身份相关的能动感，但几乎没有留下空间来发展对自我赋权的全部复杂性的认识”（第 287 页）。然后，K-pop 粉丝围绕 girl crush 概念的参与和讨论可能有可能引发对这些时尚赋权话语的有意义的反思。
通过这项研究，我们旨在探讨以下问题：K-pop 粉丝如何接受、讨论和使用新的“女权主义”K-pop 音乐概念“女孩迷恋？从所有媒体“[...]文本会受到多重阅读的影响，这取决于读者的观点和主题立场“，并且”受众研究可以揭示人们实际上是如何使用文化文本的[......]”（凯尔纳引文1995;8;另请参阅 Press 和 Tripodi引文2021），我们研究的目标是通过反思 K-pop 粉丝围绕它的对话来剖析 girl crush 概念是一种女权主义赋权现象的假设。
流行的 girl crush 概念
最近全球女权主义在主流媒体话语中的传播导致 K-pop 行业重新思考以前女性代表和女性观众参与的方式（Dans引文2018;耶纳引文2019），提供了一种新的、新鲜的和赋权的趋势：Girl Crush 概念。
“概念”一词是 K-pop 中的常用术语，用作主要主题和营销亮点，以概括乐队的整体风格（凯利引文2018).事实上，它是 K-pop 团体的分类词，它定义了广泛的主题并规定了音乐、编舞、服装和视觉效果的特定风格。例如，经典的 K-pop 概念是可爱的概念（例如，GFriend 的“Rough”中青春可爱的校服主题）或性感的概念（例如，Girls' Day 的“Something”的亢进音乐视频和诱人的地板舞和服装）。
与西方浪漫主义不同，粉丝中“暗恋”一词的情感含义（凯利引文2018）和通常强调超女性气质和性化的传统 K-pop 概念，女孩迷恋概念走了弯路，提出了一个整体上更具侵略性且偶尔性感（但不太性感）的群体概念，突出了雄心勃勃和自信的女性形象。一般来说，girl crush 是一个具有动态含义的 K-pop 总体概念，可以指代女团的不同方面：大胆而具有挑战性的音乐歌词（例如，CL 单曲“No”中的“Forget ways to look more beautiful， screw how you feel， so I can look more like me”）;以服装描述为特征的强烈而激烈的表演，例如“男性化”的衣服、发型和态度（例如，Blackpink 和 Mamamoo，经常表演喧闹、充满活力的舞蹈动作，穿着运动毛衣和较深的调色板服装）;或代表前卫和大胆女性的音乐视频（例如，Blackpink 的“Kill This Love”，充满了爆炸、破坏和打斗场面，描绘了女性强加自我并占据应有空间的决心）。
在其各种表现形式中，暗恋女孩的概念概括了 K-pop 场景中的自信和女性赋权的敏感性（凯利引文2018).从本质上讲，它传达了一种共鸣性，激励观众拥抱自信和赋权的女性态度，拒绝刻板的女性形象和传统的性别规范，追求独立（杨引文2020).然而，这个概念似乎仍然是一种 K-pop 商品（朗尼引文2019），这是一种后女权主义营销策略，是现代消费主义不可或缺的一部分，以响应其多元化的需求 （Kim引文2019 年a).
在女性气质的不同变体下形成，提供女性反叛和解放的不同形象，女孩迷恋概念再现了女性从被动客体到主动主体的商品化女权主义转变（Gill， Rosalind.引文2008 年a).然而，尽管披着女性解放的外衣，这个概念似乎只不过是相互关联的力量的表现，例如女性身体的商品化和物化以及流行音乐的资本化和工业化。
The feminist issue with the girl crush concept
As a hybrid cultural product (Pužar Citation2011; Yoon Citation2018), K-pop embraced and adopted many Western cultural practices like the “hypersexualization of (female) bodies […] to create economic profit” (Kim, Gooyong. Citation2020, 52). This inevitably leads to parallels between K-pop productions and commodified feminism in the Western context, which is commonly regarded as “the way feminist ideas and icons are appropriated for commercial purposes, emptied of their political significance and offered back to the public in a commodified form” (Gill Citation2008a, 1). The girl crush concept seems to encode this definition in its very nature of a pop-cultural product that leverages feminist ideals of self-empowerment.
With particular attention to sexual agency and empowerment—which we reconnect to body politics, a key element of third-wave feminism (Riordan Citation2001) – the girl crush concept reflects feminist aspirations for female sexual self-determination (Harvey, Laura and Gill, Rosalind. Citation2011). It shows (sexual) agency as women’s resistance to a passive gender role that reduces them to either an “innocent and sweet girl or a provocative and sexy femme fatale” (Epstein and Turnbull Citation2014, 322; Kim Citation2005); it is presented as a symbol of empowerment as sexual liberation, control, and assertion of women’s own sexuality (Riordan Citation2001).
However, with its aspirational and celebratory narratives about female power using symbolic vocabularies like independence, empowerment, and autonomy, the girl crush concept seems inherently performative, falling into the same contradiction that Harvey and Gill (Citation2011) discuss for “sexual entrepreneurship:” the concept needs to “spice it up” to keep up with the “neoliberal incitement to constant self-improvement through hyper-consumption” (Harvey and Gill Citation2011, 64), and to engage broader audiences (read: male fans). So, the promised sexual liberation through sexual subjectification turns into a double-edged sword (Gill, Rosalind. Citation2003). On the one hand, the girl crush concept allows an apparent shift from objectification to subjectification. On the other, it re-invites the male gaze by incorporating in its rebelliousness “sexualized female stylistics: mini-skirts, high-heeled shoes, perfect hair and makeup, highly sensuous dance movements, and overtly sexual lyrics” (Lee, Jieun and Hyangsoon Yi. Citation2020, 23). This further extends to maintaining the South Korean patriarchal continuity of a mediated fantasy for ostensive, sexually active, proactive women (Epstein and Turnbull Citation2014; Lee and Hyangsoon Citation2020).
Finally, the girl crush concept seems to be pointing at a post-feminist deception—a paradoxical mediated illusion of female empowerment that does not translate into women’s daily life but results in a “schizophrenic view on what it means to be an independent, strong, and empowered woman” (Lee and Hyangsoon Citation2020, 23). Although this study focuses on transcultural fandoms, it is important to note that, since South Korea presents the highest gender inequality in the world (Kim Citation2020), there is a great possibility that, in internalizing the performative empowering practices of the girl crush concept, Korean K-pop female fans would find themselves entrapped by patriarchal values and social expectations for their gender passivity (Kim, Gooyong. Citation2018), thus exacerbating preexisting marginalization and oppression (Kim Citation2020).
The K-pop phenomenon, including the construction and use of female bodies, has always been studied from a production perspective as a neoliberal service economy (Kim Citation2020) or a cultural production event (Yoon Citation2018; Choi, JungBong and Roald Maliangkay Citation2015). Instead, the role K-pop female idols play within fandoms in the contemporary transnational context, and by reason of the latest feminist and post-feminist movements, has not received enough deserving attention. It is then crucial to shift the focus on K-pop audiences to investigate how, transnationally, fans perceive and negotiate the girl crush concept and how they interplay with the claimed trend for female empowerment.
(Feminist) K-pop Fandoms
K-pop online fandoms present a highly bottom-up participatory culture (Jin and Hyangsoon Citation2020; Sung Citation2014; Yoon Citation2018) that has been labeled as fancom, an abbreviation for “fan company” (Jung, Sun. Citation2012). This concept implies that fans have moved away from passive worshipping toward the recreation and reproduction of content and alternative discourses that can influence music labels’ decision-making processes (Jung Citation2012; Steirer Citation2016). Facilitated by social media platforms, K-pop fandoms can now organize global networks to collaborate and engage with one another and the industry to support their bands’ success (Yena Citation2019; Kang, Jiwon et al. Citation2021).
The literature around K-pop fandoms has always been interested in transcultural fans’ experiences (Sung Citation2014; Yoon Citation2018), online fans’ interactions and organization (Kang et al. Citation2021), or cultural production and fans’ labor (Choi and Maliangkay Citation2015; Kim Citation2020; Yoon Citation2018). For example, Jung (Citation2012) extends the study of fancoms, using Jenkin’s notion of fan activism, to discuss more traditional community-oriented activities (e.g., fund-raising and volunteering in emergency situations) or fans practices of voyeurism and vigilantism. Additionally, fans’ heavy involvement can reach other societal and political issues that have not been thoroughly explored yet, especially feminism and feminist fans.
In South Korea, the global outburst of the #MeToo movement (Kim, Hyun Mee and Jamie Chang Citation2021) added to the third-wave feminist upsurge that started in 2015 with the hashtag #iamafeminist, aimed at addressing broader structures of patriarchal power (Kim Citation2017; Shin, Jin-Wook. Citation2021), and denouncing the spreading of digital sex crimes (Kim, Hokyoung. Citation2021), as well as sexual harassment and violence within the K-pop industry (Kelley Citation2019; SCMP Citation2022). In this consciousness-raising context, younger generations of women are, arguably, more conscious and involved in feminist online debates around body and identity politics, possibly recognizing the difference between claiming their own sexuality and being hypersexualized by others (Kim and Chang Citation2021). For instance, Yena (Citation2019) studied the hashtag #WeWantBTSFeedback on Twitter, through which K-pop feminist fans called out BTS for their misogynist lyrics. Yena found that fans were bringing awareness around typically feminist issues like infantilization and overt sexualization of female K-pop idols, concluding that further research is needed around female idols’ roles in relation to how fans make sense of their constructed images (Yena Citation2019).
K-pop fancoms can produce backlash and critiques of K-pop music industry practices (Choi and Maliangkay Citation2015), and online platforms allow for an “[…] unprecedented freedom to create, distribute and access a much more diverse and interesting set of sexual representations and practices” (Feona Attwood Citation2011, 207). Given this context, we intend to explore fans’ ability to create feminist counterpublics (Yena Citation2019) as alternative discussions to notoriously sexist industry-produced texts (Kim Citation2005; Epstein and Turnbull Citation2014; Lin and Rudolf Citation2017; Kim Citation2019b).
Nonetheless, since the girl crush concept offers an accessible and appealing idea of women freedom and disruption of patriarchy (Chen, Eva. Citation2013), it is important to note that, if for some people, commodified empowerment is nothing but performative sexual agency imposed on women (Bay-Cheng Citation2019), for others it made it possible to see sex as a source of strength, confidence, and self-determination (Attwood Citation2011). We are then curious and open to observe the different nuances that these discussions might present, whether as counter or conforming arguments.
Method
To answer our research question, we collected and qualitatively analyzed Reddit forums and related comments posted by K-pop fans. As an interactive network of user-created communities (Shelton, Katherine, and Nardi Citation2015), Reddit offers integrated social dialogues among international users, ensuring more diverse and inclusive dialogues (Ratika et al. Citation2016). This allows for a comprehensive, discursive analysis of the girl crush concept, then expanding the nuances of the transnational feminist debate around it.
To collect our sample, we used the keyword “girl crush concept” and the “past year” filter. As previously mentioned, the demarking word “concept” helped us to contextualize the research within the K-pop realm. We did not include the word “K-pop” because it is an implicit contextual reference within the K-pop fandoms community, and fans do not often mention it when they discuss related issues.
Excluding all the forums that were just mentioning “girl crush” while focusing on general issues (e.g., music sharing, fans’ love/support, K-pop-related news and trends, advertising, etc.), we were able to collect a total of 25 forums and 552 comments that were examined using discourse analysis to identify the main themes of discussion inductively. This analysis method allowed us to recognize and report patterns within the dataset to select then and provide compelling examples to answer our research question in a meaningful way (Mogashoa, Tebogo. Citation2014).
Critical discourse analysis has been widely applied for interpreting and discussing critical concepts, such as gender issues, diversity, and marketing, and for the exploration of values and social assumptions (Mogashoa Citation2014). Therefore, through a contextual examination of discourses, more nuanced and unanticipated facets around the girl crush phenomenon were expected to emerge.
Results
Based on our analysis, the following three themes appeared: Commodified Girl Crush; Internalized Misogyny; and Feminist Counterpublics within K-pop Fandoms. The following sections contextualize each theme and discuss its implications according to their relevance to how K-pop fans are using and receiving the allegedly feminist concept of girl crush.
Commodified girl crush
Our findings reveal that fans widely perceive the girl crush concept as a manufactured and faux feminist concept — “a marketing/production strategy” and a “new standard” — to cater to a wider, transnational K-pop fan base. More specifically, fans largely perceived the concept as a (Western) feminist-friendly K-pop trend, with some fans arguing that “I’m not surprised that the girl crush concept is so popular, it feels like feminist fan service.” Further, in the discussion forum titled “Why are Blackpink so popular in America/western markets?,” fans discuss the girl crush concept as a trend “[…] beloved internationally” and as “music for western [sic] market.”
As a hybrid cultural product (Jin and Hyangsoon Citation2020; Sung Citation2014; Yoon Citation2018), K-pop is indeed “a slick business strategy to market pseudo-Koreanness that is stylized, packaged, and commodified for global consumption” (Kim Citation2020, 53). The girl crush concept appropriation of female power has manifested the alliance between local (Confucian) patriarchal values and practices (e.g., infantilization and sexualization) and Western neoliberal commodification of female bodies based on exploitation and hyper-sexualization (Kim Citation2019a, Citation2020). In this regard, K-pop fans occasionally advance more cultural awareness, accusing others of looking at the phenomenon from an exclusively Western perspective, adducing superficial comparisons with the more common K-pop cute concept,
“It’s unfair to say that infantilization is unjust when a lot of ‘girl crush’ or Western pop concepts similarly sexualize women, just in different ways. Infantilization simply arises from a largely Confucian-based culture of different perceptions of women, whereas a ‘girl crush’ concept isn’t necessarily empowering by any means—it’s simply a more western take on sexualization.”
There’s nothing wrong with being cute, there’s something wrong with selling sex using an infantilize attitude though, and this isn’t exclusive to eastern music, take a look at Britney.
For most K-pop fans, the concept “hardly speaks to the authenticity of their image of female power.” In a strong sense, the girl crush concept has nothing to do with “encouraging girls to seek power through direct economic and political means” (Riordan Citation2001, 291). Rather, it is a non-threatening compromise with male supremacy, resulting in its confinement to the safe realm of the patriarchal K-pop market, ultimately failing to achieve empowerment in a real sense (Kim Citation2020). As one fan remarked,
the girl crush concept is never subversive enough to actually upset the status quo or the patriarchy.
More than that, several K-pop fans even directly dismissed the possibility that any concepts of K-pop female groups could actually be empowering, as girl crush is “just a trend at the moment, because the industry was saturated with cute concept before:”
Cute isn’t just cute. Girl crush isn’t just girl crush. You have to admit that neither is empowering, though, and there is no objective way of framing one as better than the other. It’s two sides of the same coin
But, if both concepts of cute and girl crush, or any other concepts, are perceived as problematic, then K-pop female idols are facing a patriarchal trap: It does not matter how visible and represented a woman is, because she will stay invisible until the male desire will decide otherwise (Oh, Chuyun Citation2014).
According to our dataset, an array of fans questioned institutionalized gender inequalities, attributing the performative feminism of the girl crush concept to an invisible hand (i.e., male management) that manipulates female idols to make flawed public claims of female empowerment,
girl crush is just a repackaged sexy concept that is directed at teen girls thru the use of “female empowerment.” Like it had a performative feminist message that attracts female fans but still shows the idols in short outfits, suggestive dancing n [sic] imagery, etc.
“Empowering or ‘girl-crush’ is about a group of women who has to do wtvr [sic] a bunch of old men (typically the heads of these companies) tell them to do.”
These fan comments highlight a fundamentally asymmetrical relationship between female idols and the K-pop industry, identified by a fan as “literally built on old men of big companies exploiting and making all decisions for the young teens and adults in their groups.”
The structural inequalities within the male-dominated K-pop industry have largely prevented K-pop from engaging in real gender politics (Kim Citation2020). As a result, K-pop female groups are essentially the product of the patriarchal, commodified industry, whose management model is built upon a centralized system for producing and promoting seemingly diverse but homogenous cultural products (Kim Citation2020; Jonas, Liz. Citation2021).
Internalized misogyny
An unexpected self-reflective discussion emerged around internalized misogyny and sexist practices among K-pop fans. Defined as a copying mechanism typical of sexist society (Szymanski, Dawn and Feltman Chandra Citation2014), internalized misogyny often manifests as a competition among women toward societal acceptance (Szymanski et al. Citation2009; Szymanski and Chandra Citation2014; Chuyun Citation2014). K-pop fans’ debates brought to light the widespread assumption that women compete against one another to access a limited and elitist status quo traditionally owned by men, then reproducing the patriarchal rhetoric that they are a threat to each other (Bearman and Marielle Citation2013; Mavin, Sharon, Jannine Williams, and Gina Grandy Citation2014; Tanenbaum Citation2002),
“Not like other girls” isn’t a compliment; it’s a misogynistic view of girls/women as a whole and used as fuel to the fire of pitting us against each other.
Although they are not competing at a professional level, K-pop fans still present a form of internalized male gaze, ultimately policing other women’s bodies according to stereotypes based on appearance (attractiveness, weight, dress sense) and gender conformity (Mavin, Williams, and Grandy Citation2014; Chuyun Citation2014). As a fan put it, “sexualisation and judgement based on looks is infinitely worse for girlgroups [sic] I feel.”
What we observe is a high level of self-awareness where fans recognize a contradiction in how images of empowerment are sometimes conceived and used. Having internalized cultural standards of beauty, some K-pop fans turned self-objectification, originally meant as self-determination, into constant body surveillance (Szymanski and Chandra Citation2014). Thus, the girl crush phenomenon seems to generate toxic practices, moving from “an external male judging gaze to a self-policing narcissistic gaze” (Gill Citation2003, 104), that several fans endeavour to detect and call out,
“Both groups have a large portion of toxic fans who are ‘woke feminists’ and believe in pulling down other female idols just to prop up their idols.”
If you love a group for being real women but all you do is tear down other girl groups for not meeting your standards of what a woman should be you’re the problem.
Allegedly, the girl crush concept was introduced as a symbol of sexual freedom for everyone to disrupt what a fan identified as the “[…] ‘women group’ vs. ‘girly groups’ debate from a while back.” In avoiding explicitly passive sensual and seductive images, the girl crush concept was meant to dismantle the cute/sexy dichotomy that kept female idols under the exclusive control of the male gaze. Nonetheless, in its attempt to offer a third—more progressive and empowering—option, the concept ended up introducing new standards for how a woman should be free while using toxic symbols of masculinity itself,
If a woman gets to do something that is usually more related to man, she gets praised, but if a man get [sic] to do something that is usually more related to woman, people will make fun of him. It’s just how sexism/misoginy [sic] works in a society that, as I said, view [sic] anything slightly feminine as less than a masculine thing.
“This happens with girl crush stans too btw who dismiss any other concept as ‘childish,’ ‘super-girly,’ ‘only for perverted men,’ as if feminity [sic] can only be embodied through over the top fake lyrics about being bad bitches lol.”
K-pop fans’ discussion goes beyond the usual fan wars for idols and concepts, highlighting a critical and socio-cultural discourse that opposes mainstream fandoms and previously unquestioned understandings of K-pop texts and messages (Yena Citation2019). This feminist consciousness takes an important part of our findings that we further unpack in the following section.
Feminist counterpublics within k-pop fandoms
As a K-pop fan points out “[…] men have traditionally been in power […]” in the K-pop industry, limiting female K-pop idols in creating and producing their own music (“The issue is many female idols are denied the right to put out the work they produce compared to their male counterparts”); however, fans do not deny the possibility of free sexual expression when self-dictated and self-produced,
It’s nice when grown women are happy to be doing it of their own free will, rather than a bunch of men in a director’s room discussing how to best exploit these women to make money
Sexy can be fun, sexy can be empowering. I really don’t see many (frankly tempted to say- any) female k-pop [sic] idols actually owning & having genuine fun with the sexy element like in WAP by Meg & Cardi or Freak by Doja Cat etc. That has partly to do with the kind of sexist scrutiny female idols have to undergo
Professional recognition and sexual liberation are indeed pivotal political discussions within feminist counter-debates. However, K-pop fans’ consciousness-raising goes beyond entertainment production, touching on more value-oriented issues concerning feminist resistance against performative feminism, misogyny, and patriarchal societal structures in favor of “real” female sexual self-determination (Harvey and Gill Citation2011),
Feminism is about equality; it’s about giving women the power to be themselves no matter what it is. The industry wants to sell their idols’ sex appeal and they are gonna [sic] do it with whatever concept they want.
A tenet of third-wave feminism is exactly the rethinking of gender, especially considering the “loss of a unified subject “woman’” (Budgeon, Shelly. Citation2011, 281), to allow women to develop their own relationship to feminism and femininity in a way that is more suitable to their lived experiences (Budgeon Citation2011). K-pop fans” comments seem to reflect this claim of a free female expression in multiple and even ambiguous ways (Lee and Hyangsoon Citation2020, 20),
[…] a more “sexy” concept songs only to find “THiS Is WHAt ReaL WomEN aRE,” “ThIS IS a WOMan ConCEPT,” “ThEY’re ACtINg LikE REaL WomEN,” etc, etc. Sexy concepts ARE more “mature,” but that doesn’t mean you have to be sexy to be a woman.
It always made me feel bad how now some stans think that being feminine is bad (??? How tf is it bad) and that women shouldn’t be feminine?? … like when did it become feminine = bad, masculine and girl crush= good (both are good and I enjoy them but the whole women being cute and feminine thing bothers me so much).
What emerges is the perception of the new commodified trend of sexual liberation and empowerment as a “new imperative, the new obligation from which one is not free” (Chen Citation2013, 9). In response, K-pop fans reclaim women freedom of being feminine and cute and uphold that a strong, empowered woman “fights the sexist and normalized idea of a weak femininity that inscribes women as docile and innocent” (Lee and Hyangsoon Citation2020, 19). Interestingly, these actions may actually reinforce patriarchal double-standards on women.
In opposing mainstream K-pop fandoms and unquestioned hegemonic understanding of K-pop texts, several K-pop fans position themselves as politicized feminist counterpublics (Yena Citation2019). Reflecting the typical bottom-up participatory culture of K-pop fancoms (Jin and Hyangsoon Citation2020; Jung Citation2012), K-pop feminist fans’ counter-discourses hope to serve as a “wake-up call for idols and their agencies to keep up with the current discourse on identity politics within K-pop fandom” (Yena Citation2019, 36),
Fighting for feminist ideals will impact girl groups and allow them to eventually be at the same social standard as their male counterparts
Although, with our study, we are unable to assess whether feminist counterpublics can actually impact the K-pop music industry, we noticed that K-pop fans show a deeper faith in and awareness of their role within the entertainment production. More than that, in contrast to previous harsh critiques of commodified feminism as deceiving (Attwood Citation2011; Chen Citation2013; Harvey and Gill Citation2011), the fans in our data collection present more nuanced discussions and understandings of what pop-cultural empowerment and sexual liberation mean. In a third-wave feminist style, K-pop fans recognize the multifaceted significance of being feminine, agentic, and sexually free, citing the ability to apply those concepts to individual identities and realities,
The whole point is making the world a safer place for girls to be who they want, do what they want, not just nit-pick on conventional femininity. Girls can be powerful and cute, if they want! It’s their choice!
Although this sense of self-determination is still relevant to the identification of feminist counterpublics as opposing “the mainstream fandom and the previously unquestioned dominant-hegemonic understanding of K-pop star text” (Yena Citation2019, p. 36), the exposure of gender inequalities and misogynist practices stops at an idealistic understanding of independence and autonomy: fans do not seem to take these feminist concepts outside the realm of the debate around empowerment as liberation versus empowerment as imposition.
Discussion and conclusion
The analysis of fans’ discussions in this paper reveals that underneath the popularity of the girl crush concept lies a battlefield among capital, gender power relations, and the spread and development of feminist awareness. The girl crush concept appears to be nothing more than a problematic and performative form of female empowerment, where “K-pop female idols are simultaneously empowered and disempowered” (Kim Citation2019a, 146). Within an industry with deep-rooted gender issues, the girl crush phenomenon will forever remain a pseudo-feminist tool to hide the fact that K-pop female idols have no choice but to “embody marketable, profitable human capital” (Kim Citation2020, 75).
Although the commodification of female bodies within the K-pop industry is not a new topic of debate, in shifting our focus to fans’ reactions to the girl crush phenomenon, we were able to foreground the presence of feminist counterpublics who, while questioning mainstream fandoms’ internalized sexism, offer new ways to understand and interpret K-pop products (Yena Citation2019). Indeed, our findings show that K-pop fans have moved to more consciously feminist dialogues and critiques, not only exposing the girl crush concept as a faux feminist marketing strategy, but also recognizing the double-standards it ended up reinforcing, debating around the notion of the evil within: K-pop fans call out the deep-rooted internalized misogyny of some fans that, in competing for societal acceptance, reproduce practices of re-objectification through self-policing and body surveillance according to new beauty and empowering standards.
On this line, K-pop fans’ discussions also offer interesting and nuanced reactions to women’s free sexual expression, echoing a deep feminist awareness. To the mainstream idolization of the girl crush trend as the only form of women empowerment, several K-pop fans offer counterarguments claiming that rejecting other identity expressions, like the traditional cute concept, is not a true revolt against the male gaze nor the patriarchal status quo, but rather its subtle reinforcement—the focus remains on what a woman should be and do according to specific imposed standards. Then, in recognizing that the girl crush concept cannot overcome sexist over-structures alone, in a third-wave feminist fashion, K-pop feminist counterpublics reclaim women’s independence, agency, and sexual freedom as an independent choice to be executed in whichever form suits one’s own individuality, whether it is cute, sexy, or girl crush.
This socio-political consciousness is indeed a feminist one. However, in focusing on liberation as individual determination, it does not touch on deeper collective issues that are emerging from the South Korean feminist awakening, such as financial security and physical safety from sexual harassment and assault that expands outside the music industry (Kim and Chang Citation2021; Shin Citation2021; Kim Citation2021; The Guardian Citation2019; SCMP Citation2022). These K-pop fans seem to display a unidirectional feminist awareness—they believe that their behaviors and requests to the K-pop industry would help K-pop female idols to finally achieve sexual freedom and independence. Still, they never discuss what this mediated sexual empowerment could mean for