The High Cost Of Being A K-Pop Fan

Being a K-pop fan isn't for the lazy or faint of heart. There are adoring Tweets to be tweeted, scandals to analyze, and wild frenzies to be whipped into when a favorite star makes the headlines.

It's also not for those on a budget. Sure, you don't really need more than an Internet connection to hear the latest songs and news from your favorite idol. But what passes for super fandom in the bowels of the K-pop universe - hands on all the latest albums, tickets to every concert, and merchandise that trumpets your true love - all has a price. And it's a pretty steep one, relatively speaking.

Let's say you're a fan in Manila who loves CNBLUE. They just announced they're making a rare appearance at Manila's Araneta Coliseum on Sept. 19. You've already spent about $20 on their most recent albums (and have asked for the $38 live concert DVD for your birthday. Now you need a ticket to the show. Mid-level tickets are running at about $120 right now. (Assuming you don't want to pony up the roughly $270 that a VIP ticket costs.) And you can't show up in any old outfit -- better drop $24 on a T-shirt and another $13 for the light stick that you'll wave at the show. Suddenly, you're $177 in the hole (in a country where in 2012 the annual average income of a Filipino family was about $5,350) - and that's only for one concert.

"For the types of fans who love to collect all physical albums, photobooks, lightsticks, etc., the cost really adds up. Especially with shipping fees added on top of the items!" said Natasha, a K-pop superfan that runs the wildly popular KpopFangasm Twitter account.

Natasha (who doesn't like to share her surname) noted that there is a little more pressure on fans of K-pop to buy into the K-pop sphere than there is in other entertainment markets.

"I've known fans to buy several copies of one album just to find and collect the photo of their favorite member or of all members," she noted. "Also quite often there will be photobooks and alternative versions of the album which are just released for a limited time, so the pressure to get them in time is on. Not to mention that K-pop covers a variety of groups and if all of a person's favorites make a comeback at once, it's a disaster!"

There is also the fandom that becomes more of a lifestyle. For instance, the the fans that travel to different spots around Korea to catch a glimpse (or a snapshot from an expensive camera) of their favorite star leaving the airport, or the ones that vigilantly keep up fan sites and hustle for advertising or donations.

Keeping up that lifestyle came at a cost for a young fan recently arrested in South Korea. The 21-year-old fan identified as Ms. Nam had allegedly been engaging in fraud, according to a story from the Korea Times. She would rent camera equipment and upload pictures of it online, offering the pieces at a discounted price. Ms. Nam reportedly collected the money from interested buyers, but did not actually give those buyers the gear, and did not even return the gadgets.

When asked what her motive was, she reportedly replied, "In order to follow EXO, I need money."

She's not the only one who feels that way. A quick search for K-pop fans complaining about money, or the lack thereof, on Twitter yields instant results.

As one fan, who goes by @milkytaes on Twitter, put it:

"'money cant buy happiness'
o rlly
money buys concert tickets
money buys kpop merch
money buys meet & greet passes
ur argument is invalid"

Another popular sentiment that gets summed up by @kpopfankakung goes like this:

"I never had a problem with money, until a became a kpop fan."

Of course, it's no accident that pop music is often targeted at a young crowd. Entertainment executives need cash to keep their business afloat, and teens that usually don't have to think about mortgages, car payments, or a child's schooling fund are more likely to spend their extra cash on more fun things like concerts and posters.

That early education in budgeting could even come in handy one day, argued one fan on Twitter who goes by @HAPPYLUHANS. "Kpop is not useless!" she Tweeted earlier this year. "It teaches me the value of money so it will help me with my future when dealing with houses, jobs, etc."

Save for a K-pop CD today, and you'll be able to save for house later, or so the argument seems to go. It's a sentiment echoed often by other fans in the online community that is so alive and well in the K-pop world. It seems that the public commiseration about how pricey it can be adds to a spirit of giving from fan to fan, said Natasha.

"I do see quite a lot of generosity in the K-pop fandom," she pointed out. "On Twitter I often see fans or fanbases doing giveaways - some even offer to buy the winner the album of their choice. Other times I've seen fans giving away albums they bought impulsively and didn't like or just their old albums so others can enjoy."

It's that spirit that helps the K-pop community thrive, she said. As Twitter user @reallifekpop sums it up, at least if the bank account is dry, you know there are people out there with just as little cash but as much K-pop love as you.

Tags
money
expensive
fandom
superfan
Twitter
CNBLUE
Manila
Philippines
entertainment business
k-pop business
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