[Opinion] Anti Fans and Their Power in the Music Industry

I remember that one of the things that caught my curiosity while falling into the arms of K-Pop was the idols and their anti-fans. I started reading story after story and when I read about DBSK’s Yunho and the incident of the juice with glue in it, I asked myself, “Why do these people have so much power over the artists they hate?” It is something that up to this day I don’t understand clearly.

First, these people waste time hating K-Pop groups without even having a reasonable argument for that. Secondly, they elaborate plans, websites, manipulate pictures and even gather in groups secretly, to attack the person they hate when their anger towards said artist grows even more. I have seen plenty of websites and even groups on Facebook or Twitter, recalling “Anti SNSD“, “Anti 2NE1“, “Anti Kim Hyun Joong” and even “Anti DBSK”.

Why does this happen? Why so much anger towards a group or person? Just because a group does really well in the industry, it doesn’t mean that you have to hate it and become part of some sort of evil sect to attempt or to even destroy it. Sometimes, fans themselves create these evil monsters. I have read comments in which people get actually sick of X or Y artist just because of their fandom.

These little antis, can be divided in three categories. The first category is the “regular anti.” These anti-fans just comment or say they don’t like certain groups and that’s all. Their intention is to actually hurt the group’s fandom and not to hurt the artist itself. The second category is the “stalker or sasaeng anti-fan.” Here, some fans of a group are actually sasaengs without even hating the group, but why are they considered antis?Because they stalk their artist and cross the limits of a person’s privacy.

There have been cases in which stalkers follow an artist every single day. They spend too much time following them around, getting information of their schedule, and also there have been cases in which they trespass illegally into their dorms, as it happened to JYJ, or writing on their dorm’s walls such it happened on BEAST‘s dorm and Yoseob himself had to clean up the walls, or the case of Super Junior‘s Yesung who caught a fan writing on their dorm’s wall and had to tell her to stop.

[Yoseob cleaning BEAST’s dorm wall]

Also, this category of stalkers, tend to check out their idol’s garbage. Some of them are so extreme that they get their idol’s phone number and call them several times at day. This last case happened to DBSK’s Yunho and it was so stressful that he had to change his number. When he did, the same fan who was calling him non-stop obtained his new number in just five minutes and argued: “Why did you change your number?, that’s not good for you” and hung up.

Some of them, post very disgusting pictures declaring their obsessive love towards their idol without even realizing that it actually is a very sick kind of way to declare their love. One of these crazy girls actually wrote a love letter with the blood from her menstruation, and to prove that it was real, she even sent her panties. This happened to 2PM’s Taecyeon. Other idols who have received bloody letters are, MBLAQ‘s Lee Joon, FT Island‘s Lee Hongki and Big Bang‘s Taeyang and G-Dragon.

[Taecyeon’s disgusting love letter]

[Love letter to Lee Joon: ” Lee Chang sun (Lee Joon’s real name) don’t forget about me. You are everything to me. I love you. Remember that. Soojin”]

[3rd victim of the bloody letters: Lee Hongki. “Lee Hongki, do you know that i love you right?”]

[Letter addressed to Taeyang, scary uh?]

[The last victim of the letters, G-Dragon]

Some others stalkers follow the idol 24/7 and even videotape them. Honestly, the following video made me feel uncomfortable even to watch, in the case of SHINee‘s Jonghyun. He was feeling really awkward, surrounded and being videotaped when he clearly asked them to give him some space.

When these kind of fans break the boundaries imposed by the group’s manager, it gets until the point in which the manager has to react violently. This last happened when CN BLUE‘s manager got into a controversy for being accused of violence against a fan. A similar thing also happened to SHINee’s manager as he was recorded hitting the back of a fan’s head. Some of the group members looked surprised by the violent gesture.

[CNBlue’s manager incident]

[SHINee’s manager incident]

The third category is the dangerous one. These people are so full of nonsensical anger and hate that they actually attempt against the life of the idol they want to destroy. There have been really serious issues of attempting and almost killing an idol. I’m pretty sure that all Cassiopeias remember when Yunho got poisoned with a juice spiked with adhesive glue. After he drank it, he started vomiting blood and had a stomach washout done immediately. After the incident, he dropped all the charges against the person who caused that. Even Kim Heechul, who was really angry about the incident, got threats from Yunho’s antis so he had to stop tweeting about the issue.

This makes me wonder, why are they so afraid of these people? Why are they so afraid of filing charges against their attackers? Shouldn’t they be punished? These anti-fans have gained such a power in the music industry that they can decide or control a person’s destiny. Remember the issue of Jay Park who decided to leave 2PM due to his accusations of being anti-Korean despite the fact that he apologized for it and went back to Seattle? Or the case of Tablo and his Stanford issue in which people were demanding the truth from him? Isn’t that too much?

They have acquired so much power and control over the artists they hate, that it is almost normal for the idols to have antis. They don’t even date and if they do, they date secretly in order to stay safe and away from stalkers and antis. When is this going to stop? Aren’t agencies supposed to do something against these people? To suffer harm from an anti-fan is not nice and we surely don’t want to see our beloved idols being hurt and suffering as it happened to Yoon Eun Hye when she got shot in her eyes by an anti-fan who was holding a water gun full of soy sauce and vinegar.

The latest case was of Super Junior’s Kyuhyun who was threatened while being on vacation in Spain by, what SM Entertainment said, “a strange guy” who had a knife in his hands. Kyuhyun reacted quickly and was able to run. It may not be an anti fan case, but still it is really disturbing, being attacked while being alone in a country that you barely know.

I honestly think that this anti-fan thing should stop. There’s no reason to harm another person or to make them impossible to lead a normal life. They already have too many things and schedules to deal with so I think there’s no need of another living terror called “antis.”

Note: The content of this article represents views and policies solely of the writer, and in no way represents the editorial stance of Soompi.com or the whole editorial board.