After seeing the discourse over that rich fan who bought 35 BTS vip tickets, it got me thinking about the rich super fans (aka whales in kpop). This is nothing new on the Asia fandom side as every major kpop group has tons of whale fans who go to tons of concerts and meet them many times through fansigns, fancalls, or send offs. You’ll see tons of this on XHS/Rednote where fans will post how they went to every US concert and did send off for certain groups. Or how it’s pretty well known that Chinese fans can make up a huge amount of fansign winners and they also buy very expensive resale tickets for Korean concerts.
So this has me thinking that even with the increased number of western fans that we don’t see that many people do this same behaviour. I’m not talking about group order managers (GOMs) who win tons of fan calls (they are dependent on others to help them afford to win) or people who try one time for a fansign or a one off to travel to Asia to go see them. I’m talking about fans who are ready to repetitively drop a ton of money on their faves and likely are more well off. There are big public super fans such as SQKpop for Twice since he has gone to a lot of concerts not just in the US, but also Asia. And has done fansigns and fancalls (though he has ran group orders in the past too). I believe he’s also a lawyer now so that probably helps him afford being a fan, but I think he’s also clarified he doesn’t have a well off background so not an example of a rich fan.
I wonder if it’s due to the cultural differences as you hear a lot about China’s new money rich people and how these people go have tons of fun overseas at international schools. Their parents just letting them do whatever so these rich kids can afford all the massive kpop spending. I have no doubt there’s also a lot of rich kids in the west, but maybe their parents aren’t going to let them recklessly spend money on following kpop idols and hold more accountability on them. It would be funny if there just were a lot more rich western fans at all these kpop events. Like some rich kids decided they were absolutely in love with a group and made it their mission to get as close as possible to them.
But I do think there is a clear difference in spending habits for western vs Asian super fans as the few times that Kpop groups do host fansign events in the west, there will often be lots of complaints from fans about the same Asian fans winning them and how it’s unfair since they already win the Asian fansigns. Shows that the Asian fans have much higher spending limits and a flight ticket isn’t going to stop them at that point.
submitted by /u/happyending10
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