omonatheydid | Changing Image of the Fangirl

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The fandom culture, that used to chase after stars, is experiencing a change. The generation of ‘Sasaeng Fans’(Fans who chase stars’ private lives) and just writing letters to stars is over. Recently, fans have been spreading the culture of giving back to the community and getting their stars a better image and more publicity.

◆Rice instead of flowers… Even creating a scholarship fund in their celebrity’s name

These days, it’s hard to find ordinary flower stands at musical concerts or concert venues. This is because fans have been replacing these flower stands with ‘rice stands’ through donation drives.

At the venue of the successful musical ‘Mozart!’, the entrance of the building is decorated by the ‘rice stands’ donated by Kim Junsu’s fans. ‘Rice stands’ from other stars such as Eom Gi Joon, Song Chang Ui and Park Eun Tae fill the entrance as well. These ‘rice stands’ have been distributed to social welfare centers, retirement homes and to the elderly who are living alone.

Kim Hyun Joong’s fanclub became a hot topic last year when it created a scholarship fund with their favorite star’s name titled ‘The Kim Hyun Joong Scholarship Fund’. After donating 14 million Won to a childcare center, they have been monetarily supporting students who leave the center due to their age.

Fans of JYJ’s Park Yoochun have been donating at regular intervals since 2010. They collected a total of 40 million Won this year and after donating 10 million Won to a social welfare center last year, they’ve been helping child patients since then.

Lee Minho’s fanclub ‘Mizuno’ donated 20 million Won to celebrate his birthday. A different fanclub of Lee Minho also donated alms to a devastated district through Unicef and they’ve been avid supporters of the Green Energy campaign.

◆Take care of our star..Sending lunchboxes to staff

When stars spend the night filming on location, fans prepare lunch boxes for the members of the staff as well. Everyone knows about fans making lunch boxes for their celebrities to ensure that they don’t skip their meals, but recently, fans have begun preparing lunch boxes for staff members as well. They take care of their stars’ image by leaving a message with the stars’ names on each lunch box.

These lunch boxes are delivered to a variety of locations such as concert venues, and filming locations for movies or CFs. At the press conference of ‘You’ve Fallen For Me’, which features CN Blue’s Jung Yong Hwa, fans impressed the reporters and production company crew by providing everyone with lunch boxes.

Not only do these fans help maintain the image of their stars, but they also help the morale of the star. As more fans buy lunch boxes in large quantities for their fans, new ‘support lunchbox businesses’ have sprung up.

◆Money is no issue… They even create newspaper ads

It has become a natural thing for fans to celebrate stars’ birthdays or promote albums through advertisements. Fanclubs collect money for a variety of mediums such as newspapers, buses, and electronic scoreboards.

‘Girls’ Generation’ fans have been garnering attention for making newspaper ads for the birthdays of the members. Last year, their fanclub ‘HwaSuEunHwa’ created newspaper ads for members such as Seohyun, Sunny, Soo Young, Jessica and Yoona.

When Yoochun, Jaejoong and Junsu, who have transformed from ‘TVXQ’ to ‘JYJ’, released their music essay in January, fans hired 120 buses across the nation to hang advertisements for the group on the side of the vehicles. To make it happen, it was said that the fans collected a total of 200 million Won. After this, JYJ fans also placed ads in 21 subway stations.

A broadcasting representative stated, “Though the current mature culture of the fans who think of their star’s image is desirable, there is still fierce competition amongst the fans in certain areas,” and “I hope that the fandom culture becomes something mature and truly for the star and his or her well-being.”

Source: etoday via dongbangdata