The oncoming fandom crisis

Honestly as a person who is highly interested in K-pop, Chinese government's decision has valid points. It seems that companies blacklisting fan accounts for inappropriate behavior are not found sufficient enough. Western fan culture has not reached "that" far but dominant fan practices originated from Eastern fan culture have reached on an an extreme level in terms of monetization and competition that as a fan, it causes a sense of being not enough for the idol(s) you support and that feeling starts to exploit you. The economy of emotions plays a huge role in here which differs the East from West. For Kpop fandom, a huge amount of fans do believe that generating data for their idols is the equivalent of generating love because semantics also function like that; but a little portion criticizes the ethical side of the practice which is basically exploiting the one's money and digital labour force for those "chaotic" acts expanded in real life. Christian Fuchs and Maurizio Lazzarato have well depictions of this type of labour. The problematic side of this decision is, since China does not have a well reputation in terms of democratic environment, their regulations regarding banning idols' appearance for their political voices or opposing hegemonic culture through defying masculinity in their looks can set barriers to the inclusive transformation of social structure. I don't think that Western-based entertainment market in general would get infulenced by this decision, yet. The fan portrayal between the West and East are not that close and they are still in the process of expanding the fan practices inspired by the East.

This is incredibly interesting and I think, as you point out early in the article, it's about human psychology. As technology enables companies to collect evermore precise human behavior data and as companies are able to apply that data, it results in nothing short of a "hacking" of human psychology to which most of us are unprepared to counter, protect ourselves, and protect our loved ones. We see the results of fandom hacking in other areas, such as politics. Donald Trump is an excellent exploiter of fandom with all his merch, "Trump Cards", and the fervent following he is able to inspire... even to the point of seeming cultish. This is an endlessly fascinating topic. Thanks Mark. This has really got my mental wheels turning.