Project One Essay

Example of Fan Involvement in K-pop: Sandy Mandy

As the fame and popularity of K-pop expanded around the globe, numerous types of structured fan involvements appeared. Many of these fan involvements made their appearance through You Tube which has been serving as an essential platform that promotes and distributes K-pop on a world-wide scale. It seems very natural to understand how You Tube, a platform that had set as a background for K-pop’s international popularity, becomes one of the major platforms where fans express their love and support back to the artists through their means of fan involvement. I want to examine at the example of fan involvement from one of the most popular You Tube cover video channels, ‘Sandy Mandy’ that has over one million subscribers at this point.

Culturalist scholar Lee Hye-kyung explains the expansion of fan involvement in K-pop at this era: “Fan research has provided fascinating accounts of cultural consumers who deeply admire and feel attached to particular cultural and media texts to the level where their affection for the text plays a determinant role in shaping their identities and ways of life” (2016: 2). Sandy and Mandy are twins born in 2001 and they have been uploading K-pop cover dance videos on You Tube for over nine years. Their love and passion toward K-pop had influenced them from ever since they were very young and led them to explore their fan involvement through engaging in cover dance videos. They are now officially associated with Korean company that manages You Tube channels, meaning their channel had gotten to a level where it gets organized and structured assistant from the corporation. These two girls have their own studios where they practice and film K-pop cover dances and supporters behind them that help them to maintain and develop their channel in a positive way. It’s incredible to watch how these girls’ identities have been shaped within their passion toward K-pop and how their ways of life have revolved around the influence of K-pop.

Cover dance videos from ‘Sandy Mandy’ are not just traditional fan involvement where fans get influenced by K-pop but it’s one of the examples of how fans can influence back on K-pop industry and their popularity around the world. Media scholars, Kent A. Ono and Kwon Jungmin, explains, “Unlike traditional media You Tube does not work without "you," people to upload videos, view them, offer comments and read those comments” (2013: 208). The popularity of K-pop dance cover had made its start from You Tube channels like ‘Sandy Mandy’ that uploads well-practiced, high quality cover dance videos of popular K-pop songs at the time. The rise of K-pop cover dance directly means the increase of K-pop’s popularity and its broadening influence to the global fans. Because these fan involvements on You Tube had made such impacts on the growth of K-pop industry, even Korean government is encouraging this type of fan involvement through financially supporting cover dance festivals.

The twin owners of ‘Sandy Mandy’ channel had grown from little, cute girls who admired K-pop artists and their songs to an influencer who brings millions of people watching their cover dance videos. Not only their identities have been greatly impacted by K-pop but as one of the first few channels who initiated cover dance videos on You Tube, they had influenced the development of fan involvement profoundly by turning the fans from consumers to prosumers.

References

Lee, Hye-Kyung. "Transnational Cultural Fandom." The Ashgate Research Companion to Fan Cultures, 2016, 195-207.

​Ono, Kent A., and Kwon Jungmin, eds. The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global. Westminster: University of Westminster Press, 2013.