This is going to be very long, like the title. I’d like to call it an ‘ultimate guide’ but it won’t be that detailed and anyway, I don’t really think you need to know this stuff because I didn’t, when I took the plunge.
However, I’ll still try to make this fun to read and it might be useful. It’ll be a compendium of terms, links, videos, resources, random stuff like that. Some of the videos I’ve linked will begin to play from a particular part that is relevant to what I’m talking about, and not the beginning, but you can watch the whole video if it interests you. I recommend you turn on CC wherever available.
- Comeback: When an idol/group pops back up in the Kpop scene with a new single or album, i.e enters a new ‘era’. An era is the time an idol/group promotes a particular album or song, so called because they tend to have a certain image and style according to the concept of the comeback for its duration.
e.g ‘[insert boy group] uploaded pics with changed hair colours omggg must mean they’ll have a comeback soon!’ and ‘I loved [insert boy group]’s style in their [insert album/single] era!’
- Bias: the member of an idol group who is your favourite. Your ultimate bias is your favourite idol in the whole of kpop. Your bias wrecker(s) keep(s) threatening to take over as your new favourite(s). Your bias list is the list of your favourite idols in kpop, in order of favouritism, and your bias wrecker(s) keep threatening to creep up your bias list and wreck it.
- MV: Music video, duh. And a performance version is a choerography version, basically.
- Maknae: The youngest member of an idol group. Generally the image they have to maintain, at least for a while (and depending on the overall group image) is one of youth, purity and innocence.
e.g. Jungkook is the ultimate example of a maknae popularly typecast into such a role.
- Fanchant: A chant alongside the song used by fans to cheer or show support during live performances. There are official fanchants for singles, and sometimes for popular non-title tracks. They consist of parts of the lyrics, the group’s name, phrases in reply to parts of the song, or a combination of these.
- Fandom Name: What the fans call themselves. Usually, when the company calls for fandom name nominations, fans send them in and one is picked, either on the basis of votes or the company’s preference. For example, BTS’s fans are called ARMYs. On the other hand, sometimes there isn’t an official fandom name. Fans use a placeholder name until they get a name (EXO’s fans called themselves EXOtics until they were named EXO-Ls) or name themselves to such popularity that no alternative names are used, officially or otherwise. Jaejoong’s fans calling themselves Jaeharem is one such instance.
- Fancafe: This article breaks it down pretty satisfactorily.
- Hwaiting/Fighting: ‘Hwaiting’ (romanization of the Korean word) is a phrase used to cheer or support, meaning ‘You can do it’ or ‘Good luck’. International fans use the romanization, or the word ‘fighting’ interchangeably like a pun because it sounds similar along with denoting some sort of encouragement.
- Oppa: It literally means ‘elder brother’, and is used by a female to address an older male (the age gap should be relatively less). It’s used to address both one’s elder brother as well as love interest/boyfriend/husband. If a girl calls a male non-blood-relative she doesn’t have an established platonic relationship with oppa, then she regards him with romantic or sexual interest. It’s the norm for fangirls to call male idols oppa.
- Noona: Means ‘elder sister’, pretty much the male counterpart of oppa in that it’s used by males to address older females. Often you’ll see boy group songs about wooing noonas; noonas are depicted as being hard to get, so successfully wooing them is regarded as a sort of achievement. ‘Noona fans’ are older fangirls, but the term tends to be used to depict middle-aged women who drool over youthful kpop boys just as ajusshi or ‘uncle fans’ are middle-aged men drooling over young k-pop girls. Another common depiction of noona fans (and of middle-aged women falling for young boys) is of them calling them oppa in spite of being older.
- Noona killer: Young boys who are attractive to and seduce older women. Typical depictions of them are winking, teasing young flower boys with innocent aegyo acts.
- Selca: selfie.
- Ajusshi: A middle-aged or older man, called so by someone younger regardless of the younger’s gender, and similarly ahjumma, a middle-aged or older woman. It’s interesting to note that ‘uncle fans’ are called ‘ahjusshi fans’ but older fangirls are called ‘noona fans’ regardless of the age gap. Also that male fans slightly older aren’t specifically referred to as ‘oppa fans’, and neither are fans younger than the idols ‘dongsaeng fans’.
- Dongsaeng: Junior. Platonic friends younger than you, and colleagues at lower positions are addressed this way. Another term for the latter is hoobae. Similarly sunbae: Senior.
- Oppalogist: Oppa + apologist. A fangirl who defends her male bias’s problematic behaviour irrationally. Whenever a male idol is involved in a scandal (a proper one, not he-didn’t-bow-to-so-and-so-sunbae-idol-when-they-met bs but he-did-blackface-in-a-skit-and-he-doesn’t-care-that-it’s-racist kind of bs) you’re likely to encounter a few of these.
- Trainee: A wannabe idol signs with a company and trains for years before hopefully being launched into idol-dom. A trainee is someone still undergoing their training period to become an idol.
- Flower Boy: Kkonminam (kkon: flower, minam: handsome man) Pretty boys who dress well and make an effort to look good and behave refined. Apparently it’s beyond an aesthetic, it’s a male prototype. (I must mention that the article I’ve linked her mentions ‘bishonen manga’ as an influence to the emergence of the flower boy in Korea; this terminology is wrong. The genre isn’t called ‘bishonen’, it’s called ‘shoujo’, since it’s marketed towards young women; ‘bishonen’ is the prototype of male beauty. Also, it associates the increasing use of male beauty products to male idols wearing makeup, but actually, makeup in Korea has always been marketed in a gender-neutral way. Partiarchy and male gender roles don’t manifest in the same ways in different cultures.)
There are also historical associations to hwarang.
Seventeen’s Jeonghan and NU’EST’s Ren are called the Pledis Pretty Boys (Pledis is the company they’re signed to).
- Beast: The anthithesis to the flower boy; the macho man. You won’t find many of these, especially in newer Kpop.
- Unnie: how a female addresses an older female. Similarly hyung is how a male addresses an older male.
- Stan: An ‘overzealous and obsessive’ fan, according to google. It’s not used in a negative sense, however. An enthusiastic and dedicated fan would be a better definition. ‘Stanning’ is the verb form.
- Akgae: Someone who stans to an extreme extent only one member of the group while actively disliking the others, often expressing their dislike and pushing for more attention for their bias.
- Variety shows: Entertainment shows idols go on to promote, usually involving banter, tasks or games, fanservice, showcasing talent, skits, competitions, travel etc.
e.g. Weekly Idol, Running Man, One Fine Day etc. There are English-language varities for international K-pop fans too, such as After School Club.
- Sasaeng: An obsessive fan that stalks, and invades idols’ privacy in other ways. Generally fans that do crazy shit are called sasaeng. Like gatecrashing their family functions. Or breaking into their dorms and stealing their underwear. Or taking pictures of them while they’re sleeping. Sasaeng are usually female- because guys wouldn’t get away with this shit- and stereotyped as South Korean. However, international fans have indulged in such behaviour too, when idols visited their country to give concerts, but claimed that it’s ‘different’ because they don’t get the chance to get close to their biases otherwise as they don’t live in the same country. The stereotype of the sasaeng as Korean is due to sasaeng not being a minority within the fandom in Korea, quite the opposite in fact, and creating often very powerful and organized networks for stalking. This is more due to proximity and opportunity, however, than anything else.
There’s a general rift between k-fans and i-fans (international fans) in the i-fans’ imagination. K-fans are imagined as sasaeng, oppalogist, or crazy k-netz (korean netizens: South Koreans are never anonymous online, either to their government or each other. In the context of k-pop, many k-netz try to dig up dirt about idols they want to put down, or create false rumours, or post hate to the idol, or start fanwars, or do something i-fans disagree with (in this case, justifiably so). But considering that they’re a) generalizations about k-netz and b) we wouldn’t have fancams of our biases without k-fans, I wish we could get along better.
- Antis: They hate a particular idol or group so they’ll whine online, or attempt to ruin their reputation, or poison them.
- The Big 3: SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment. The biggest and most successful companies in Kpop, the power players.
- Co-ed: A kpop group with *le-gasp* both guys and girls. There are very few of these around, folks. Quite a few performances of same-sex groups with opposite-sex backup dancers, though.
Also, check out K.A.R.D for a contemporary co-ed that isn’t doing the sexy concept.
- Fanboy: They are assumed to be male fans of female kpop groups. They’re not talked about much except to condemn ‘uncle fans’ and fancam culture. Statistically fanboys are much fewer, insufficient to support the girl groups they follow, so that the idols have to resort to dependence on CFs (commercial films, ads basically) and are more likely (statistically) to disband once their contract expires rather than sign again. See the Rule of One (exceptions to this rule turn out to be girl groups that have managed to garner a sizeable following of fangirls, especially utilizing the ‘girl crush’ concept; usually groups under the Big 3 like Blackpink and Red Velvet.)
When fanboys are talked about, it tends to be about fanboys of boy groups. While fangirls of girl groups are accepted, fanboys of boy groups tend to publicly express their fandom a lot less because isn’t accepted very well (in Korea). They are often assumed to be homosexual, and constructed as homosexual in depictions. Sometimes the male idols themselves are awkward meeting a fanboy. It doesn’t help that fangirls fantasize and ship fanboys with idols. This is just one instance of many, of fandom in kpop being seen as an expression of sexuality.
- Ships: Common to pretty much all fandoms, not just kpop. Shipping, initially derived from the word relationship, is the desire by fans for two or more people, either real-life people or fictional characters (in this case, two idols) to be in a relationship, romantic or otherwise. A “ship” is the concept of a fictional couple; to “ship” a couple means to have an affinity for the ship; a “shipper” is somebody who ships the ship, basically.
The ship naming conventions in Kpop are usually a combination of the names in the couple. There are popular and unpopular ships for every idol group, but there are some ships that are overarching and legendary within the Kpop fandom itself, like Eunhae (Eunhyuk x Donghae, Super Junior), Yunjae (Yunho x Jaejoong, TVXQ) and Hunhan (Sehun x Luhan, EXO). In the example video above, rather than using Mingyu x Wonwoo = Minwoo, which itself is a given name and so would make a confusing ship name, the convention is Mingyu x Mr. Beanie (Wonwoo’s nickname)= Meanie.
- The Thirsty Fangirl: The stereotype of fangirls being hormonal teenage girls who are in it for the hot guys and their leather pants and body rolls.
- Visual. Every member of an idol group has (a) designated role(s) like lead dancer, rapper, vocal, sub-vocal… and visual. If they’re a visual, that means one of their roles is to look hot. If they’re the ‘main visual’, they’re supposed to be the hottest in the group. If their ‘visuals are good’, they look good.
- Rookie: An idol or group that is relatively new and inexperienced. An older group would be called a sunbae group.
- Nugu: An idol or group that is relatively unpopular or unknown. (And it’s rude to call anyone nugu by the way).
- Fanservice. Oooh, boy. Where do I even start.
Fanservice is basically pandering to thirsty fangirls. Girl groups do fanservice, but it’s usually limited to aegyo and sexualized outfits and choreos. Boy groups additionally do a range of other stuff, like fanservice games and homoerotic ‘skinship’ (in kpop it denotes friendship + physical intimacy; originally a Japanese term for describing the intimacy between a mother and child).
Fanservice is really extensive, but let’s see what I can cover.
The fan as the lover. In generic Kpop boy group MVs, there’s a single actress in the MV who is the foil to every member. It’s implied by much more than the seductive and/or intense gazes at the camera- at you- that everything they’re singing about love and whatnot is directed towards YOU. Hence the dating bans, an actual part of idol contracts. Nothing makes this more explicit than those GOT7 teasers for ‘A’ where you’re supposed to be on dates with them:
Another, even cringier example is the BTS high school dating sim thingumajig.
Aegyo. Cute behaviour is aegyo, but there are specific techniques of voice and facial expression, too.
Yes, cuteness is sexualized in both men and women. Welp.
Also, it isn’t limited to idol behaviour. It’s common for young couples to perform aegyo for each other (once more, both men and women, but of course it’s often either/neither). If you choose to rock that kind of personality, you can also do certain kinds of aegyo for friends.
Cross-dressing. Mostly, male idols dressing as girls.
Fanservice games.
The Pepero game.
The Paper Kissing Game.
The ‘Touch My Body’ game.
Fanservice shirts. I’m not kidding, these are a thing.
Homoerotic shit.
This takes place in fanservice games (of course), in music videos:
In performances:
(May I mention cross-dressing + homoerotic shit?)
In general audience/fan view:
By the way!
Boy idols dancing to girl group songs. Girl idols dance to boy group songs too but this isn’t seen so much as fanservice as showcasing talent, because there’s a general, often mistaken impression that boy group choreography is harder, more ‘serious’ and requires more skill.
General fanservice. Hip thrusts, lip bites, abs-flashing, humping the floor, everything from bondage to booty shorts.
It’s pertinent to mention here that there’s a double standard. Boy groups get away with more sexual choreos than girl groups, in terms of censorship as well as the way they’re judged, and it’s stupid.
Also, the sexualization of minors needs to be talked about. Jungkook was only fifteen when he first lifted his shirt onstage. Not only that, his position was front center. To explain, it makes him the face of the performance, the focus of attention. (Hence all the competition to become center in the various performances of PD101.)
What’s more, neither ‘No More Dream’ nor ‘Bulletproof Pt.2’ (featured above) had sexual lyrics, but shirts were lifted in both.
There’s also one case that came to light of a rookie boy group providing sexual favours to Japanese fans… welp.
Now you know where the girls over at the legendary Perving on Kpop used to get their unending source material from.
Also, when it comes to fanservice, especially choreography/performances, the concerts are generally more risque than the music show performances. This is because the music show performances will be broadcast on television, and so are subject to censorship.
- Kpop News: I recommend AsianJunkie and Seoul Beats.
- Concept: These are largely cute vs. sexy (girl groups) or sweet vs. sexy/badass (boy groups)
Groups change concepts often. For instance GOT7, who did the sweet ‘Just Right’ also did the badass ‘Hard Carry’.
Also, there have been increasing kpop concepts, especially recently, that fall in neither category, accompanied by a diversification of concepts like retro and tropical-house-summer.
- Subunits: Often, particular members within an idol group form a separate smaller unit and make music.
- Collaborations: What they sound like. SM Station, a continuous project of collaboration, is a prominent example.
- Special Stages: Idols performing covers, collaborations or title tracks on music shows.
- Fanmade content:
Fancams. When the cameraman doesn’t focus enough on your bias in the official music show and concert recordings, these are your dreams come true.
Cracks. They’re usually full of in-fandom jokes and meme references.
Voiceover cracks. Barack Obama mentioned SHINee in a speech, and the fandom was inspired.
Compilations.
Fanart.
Drama CDs. Often, when an anime ship is popular, the same or similar voice actors are roped in to produce a Yaoi drama CD, generally 18+. Similarly, voice actors who sound similar to particular idols voice over Drama CDs for kpop ships.
Fanfiction. Bandfics and/or AU. Usually ship romances or ‘scenarios’ with ‘you’ or an OC main character. Usually fluff or smut or both. Apart from Asianfanfics and Archive Of Our Own, plenty are written on Livejournal, Wattpad, Tumblr etc. So are roleplays.
Fakesubs. No English Subs is (one of) the Kpop fan’s worst nightmare(s), but once in a while there are advantages to not knowing Korean.
Reactions.
There was a barrage of first-time reactions to Kpop after BTS won Top Social Artist at the 2017 BBMAS, breaking the world record for having the most votes ever garnered in a fan voted award.
Kpop Youtubers.
- Culture Technology: A term coined by SM’s CEO, Lee Soo Man, about the export of Kpop. The idea itself was implemented with NCT. Government support contributes much to the cultural outreach of Korean entertainment, with policies similar to those applied to other technological exports.
And there you have it, folks. Now it’s left to you to explore. You might want to visit Naver and V Live. I encourage you to check out not only some of the senior popular legends like Big Bang, TVXQ Super Junior, and the Queen of Kpop, BoA, but the underrated side of Kpop as well. There’s also the hip-hop side, with the likes of Dean and Crush along with Big Bang.
I’ll leave some solo acts here.
Finally, this is the note I want to end on:
Or maybe this, I can’t decide.
You know, because you deserve a treat for making it all the way to the end. You can have two.
