How K-pop Changed Oshi-Katsu Around the World: The Asia Edition

In a survey by the Gakken Educational Research Institute, the share of children who said they have an oshi was 53.4% of elementary school students, 61.8% of middle school students and 70.7% of high school students. Oshi-katsu is no longer the hobby of a few adults. It is something people talk about with friends, and it overlaps with school life and time on the smartphone.

For young fans, choosing what they love and putting it into words also leads to self-understanding. Having an oshi is not consumption decided by someone else, but an act of creating your own story.

Still, young people can have trouble telling love from buying. Seeing the goods their friends own, or the play count on the same song, it's easy to feel that sitting out means loving less. Free ways of showing support, such as talking, watching or drawing, are just as much a part of the same culture.

Companies, schools and families shouldn't try to stop oshi-katsu itself. What they can do is share, first, age-appropriate payment methods, a check on in-app purchases and ways of interacting that don't reveal personal information. A child needs a place to talk about why they like something, and a place where they still belong when they can't buy. Even when setting a budget with the family, you can start by asking which matters most (tickets, streaming or goods) rather than with a flat ban. Explaining why they chose it isn't only a way to manage spending. It's also a chance to put what they love into their own words.

K-pop fans in Korea have an organized form of support called chonggong (literally "all-out attack"), in which fans stream, vote and post hashtags all at once during a set period. Because fans take on a role close to unpaid labor, it is also described as parasocial labor.

The activity can be a force for wishing an oshi success, but it becomes a burden once an atmosphere builds in which people who don't take part are shut out. The task is to balance encouraging participation with not making it an obligation.

Synchronized streaming and voting have a festival-like fun that comes from lining up the timing. But when a missed target is blamed on individual lack of effort, the fun quickly turns into a job. Fans can agree on a rule that people take part only for as long as their lives allow, and that no one has to explain leaving partway.

The official side also needs to do more than hand fan organizations numerical targets. It should clearly show the legitimate ways to watch and vote, the automated actions that are prohibited, and the participation conditions in each country. When presenting results, mentioning roles such as translation, guiding newcomers and correcting misinformation, and not only conspicuous bulk purchasing, can weaken the ranking of contributions. A post explaining how to vote, for example, can also state the eligible regions, the deadline, and the difference between free participation and participation that involves a purchase. If a translation points people back to official information instead of attacking those who don't know the rules, action across regions can happen on the same terms.

In 2020, fans of the Chinese actor and singer Xiao Zhan reportedly carried out more than 200 charitable projects, including rural support, education and support for the elderly, with total donations coming to nearly 100 million yuan. In another case, fans of BTS's V helped fund the building of a school.

When fans contribute to society under their oshi's name, it affects not only their standing in the community but also the oshi's own image. Fans themselves are inventing ways to return their support to society.

To protect that goodwill, check where the donation goes and what it is used for, who manages the collection of money, and how results are reported. Don't trust something just because it carries an oshi's name. Read the information published by the organization that receives the funds. If anything is unclear, you can choose to support only by spreading the word, without handing over money.

Management companies and agencies need not organize every activity themselves, but they can show the scope in which official names and images may be used and how to check which organizations are fine to support. After an activity, rather than pitting fan groups against each other by the size of the sums, they can report which social issue the group engaged with and how. That ties an oshi's name to responsible action, not a passing topic. When reporting with photos, take care not to turn the people receiving support into a backdrop for a record of fan achievements. Check how much exposure the recipient wants, and center the report on what the support delivered rather than on fans' names or the oshi's logo, and goodwill and dignity can coexist.

In 2021, the Chinese government used its Qinglang (literally "clear and bright") campaign to tighten regulation of idol-training shows, organized fundraising by fan clubs and the media exposure of effeminate male idols. Behind it was the way bulk buying for votes and attacks between fans had become social problems.

The regulation did not wipe out a culture across the board. It is also a sign that overheated mechanisms are being questioned. Before stoking fans' passion, designing ways to take part without burning out is the responsibility of companies.

The lesson from this case is not to leave things alone until someone bans them from outside. Decide at the start of a campaign how purchases feed into votes, who manages organized fundraising, and how attacks on other fans will be handled. Beyond following each market's laws, fans need common principles so they don't get lost.

Fans can stop and pause, especially when phrases like "only now," "mandatory for everyone" and "people who don't take part don't really support them" pile up. Organizers should check not only the participation rate but also whether people could leave partway, whether inquiries were kept from becoming targets of attack, and whether young participants were protected. The point of preventing overheating is not to lower passion, but to avoid shrinking the number of people who can come back for the next activity. After an activity ends, check participants' fatigue and conflicts, and change how targets are presented, how often notifications go out and how many moderators there are next time. That, too, is part of running it. By checking not only whether the numbers were reached but whether people got back to their usual lives, "sustainable" can be evaluated concretely.

To show the strength of your support, you don't need to attack anyone or cut into your own life. Quiet contributions such as donating, translating, guiding and creating have their value too.

If organizers and fans build a culture in which both can rest, fandoms around the world won't end as a passing boom, and will be handed down to the next generation.

The strength of K-pop fandom lies not only in how much is spent, but in the power to sort information, bring in friends, and even build social activities by themselves.

Companies and organizers should not exploit that power. They should hand over transparent information and safe rules, and leave room for fans to take part of their own will. That relationship is what will sustain oshi-katsu around the world.

Big numbers produced by simultaneous action are also not enough as a measure of success. We need to look at whether newcomers could join, whether people who took a break could return, and whether social contributions reached the work of the organizations that received the donations. Recording both the strength of the outreach and the gentleness of participation is where we start to nurture global fandom without painting it all in a single standard.