K-popper activism: the platform of fan activism in times of the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Due to the self-isolation caused by a coronavirus, K-pop fans have used social media such as Twitter in order to engage, especially, in political, racial, and gender agendas. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the demonstration and the activism of the K-pop fandom during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, we rely on theoretical assumptions which allow us to comprehend the fandom (Hills 2017, Jenkins 2015), conceiving the activism of fandom and, mainly, the cyberactivism (Queiroz 2017), as a form of resistance (Amaral, Souza, and Monteiro 2014), which allows this theme to be allied with the reception studies (Bonin 2018, Fígaro 2000, 2009, 2019, Jacks 2015) and the data fandom (Zhang and Negus 2020). Among the demonstrations performed during the COVID-19 pandemic, we highlight the support of K-poppers to the movement #BlackLivesMatter (Yang 2016) through social media as platforming elements for fan activism. Thus, this paper has made possible a reflection based on bibliographies regarding the reception of K-pop fans about the antiracist mobilizations, as well as their protagonism related to the metrics in favor of cyberactivism.