Slash Shipping in K-Pop
Even if you haven’t personally participated in a fandom, shipping has become a big part of pop culture. Draco and Harry. Louis and Niall. Sherlock and Watson. Jungkook and Jimin. Slash shipping, or pairings between same-sex characters, has become especially popular and has led to fan-created media such as fanfiction and videos. Although shipping has been normalized in some fandoms (mostly ones centered around fictional characters), fans in the Korean pop (also known as K-pop) fandom tend to clash over whether pairing K-pop idols together is okay or not. Korean society is quite conservative in regards to the LGBTQ+ community, but we can see the gradual increase and influence of shipping culture on Korean and East Asian media. However, there continue to be conflicts within the community, especially in the online contact zone where shippers and non-shippers disagree. To understand all sides and to see how sub-fandoms have been affected by slash shipping, I have collected the opinions of friends who are at varying participation levels in K-pop fandoms. The K-pop industry itself fosters a strange environment that both encourages same-sex interactions but does not completely support those relationships at the same time. Overall, the rise of slash fanfiction in K-pop has made an impact on the Korean entertainment industry and also has caused ethical tension within online fandom contact zones.
The Korean pop genre builds off an industry that generally focuses on idol culture and their image, meaning that idols maintain highly curated images and dedicate their careers to fans, with a huge focus on parasocial interactions. In addition, most K-pop groups are single sexed, meaning that the groups are either made of all males or all females with a few exceptions. H.O.T. is known to be one of the first idol boy groups, debuting in 1996 under one of the largest entertainment companies, SM Entertainment, and marking the beginning of the first generation of K-pop (Lee 2021). From there, entertainment companies started training and forming idol groups of boys and girls from young ages, encouraged even more by the popularity of “Gangnam Style” in 2012 and the rise of the Hallyu wave, or the spread of Korean pop culture to other countries. K-pop has been increasing in popularity, and slash shipping culture has become a part of the international fandom as well as the local fandom. Now, we’ve entered what is commonly known as the fourth generation of K-pop, with a myriad of idol groups, one debuting every few days from a different company. The recent pandemic has forced the industry to think outside of the box, with idols transitioning to online performances and marketing to the international community more than ever through video call fansigns (Jeong 2020).
Although this comes as a surprise to some people given the nature of Korea’s reservations towards the LGBTQ+ community, gay pairings have actually been a part of the K-pop fandom from the very start, in the mid-1990s (Kwon 2014). SM Entertainment held its first fanfic contest in 2006 for one of their other boy groups, TVXQ, encouraging fans to write stories starring the singers as the main characters for cash prizes (Kang 2006). In fact, it’s become very common in the industry to encourage the strong same-sex friendships within groups, an idea that has been marketed by entertainment companies themselves through purposeful skinship and promotional fanservice that hints at more. K-pop labels hope that cultivating idols’ homoerotic appeal can make them more popular in fanfiction, which in turn, “can increase their profile -- and translate into economic benefits” (Hollingsworth 2020, n.p). The rising popularity of BTS has expanded the K-pop fandom even further internationally, which has triggered more fan-produced LGBTQ+ media revolving around K-pop idols. These forms of media, especially fanfiction, take K-pop idols and place them in scenarios that differ from our reality, often with romantic subtexts.
There are debates, as always, over the ethicality of shipping real people together. As a long-time reader of fanfiction of all types, I am quite biased, so I decided to pose the following questions to some friends who have been active or are currently active in K-pop fandoms to gather opinions about shipping, all of whom are students in America. Therefore, the perspectives of my friends will differ from those from Korean fans. All of the text responses to these questions can be found in the Appendix.
- 1. Do you think shipping plays a huge part in the K-pop fandom that you are in?
- 2. What do you think about shipping real people together?
- 3. What do you think about shipping fictional people together?
- 4. Do you read fanfiction? What types of ships?
A majority of respondents were positive or indifferent towards Q3, the idea of shipping fictional people together. Respondents generally were indifferent or negative towards Q2, the idea of seriously shipping real people together, with comments ranging from “it’s stupid” (M5) to “it’s weird if it’s serious” (F6). There was a general consensus among those who do not mind real person shipping, summed up very well by F1’s quote of “it’s okay if it’s lighthearted and made in good humor, but if it is serious and pressure is put on the people (in the form of comments and actions) that affects them personally, it is not okay.” Fans, such as myself, have resorted to moving conversations about real person shipping out of the public sphere and into smaller, controlled environments, such as in social media group chats or on sites specifically meant for fanfiction, like Archive of Our Own (AO3). Through AO3, we can see the popularity of K-pop real person slash fics — the fifth most popular ship on the site in 2019 was a pairing between BTS members Jungkook and Taehyung (Lulu 2019). Not only does the K-pop fandom have its own digital culture that is different from other music fandoms, but there are subcultures based around other parts of the K-pop experience with their own members and implied social rules. These subcultures arise from liking specific groups, being on different social media platforms, focusing on the photocard/merchandise economy, supporting certain ships, and other nuances. The general “shipping” side of fandom revolves around the dissemination of fanfiction, which brings readers and writers together through love for the relationships between their idols. It’s common to see terms such as OTP (One True Pairing), fluff (referring to G-rated plots), and AU (alternate universe) thrown around among members of the “shipping” subculture. However, the widespread digital format of fandom has invited more disagreement over where the boundaries lie concerning fetishization of slash ships.
More explicit gay media commodities, such as Korean dramas and films, have become easier to find in Korean mainstream media recently. The problem is that reality remains harsh for actual members of the LGBTQ+ community in South Korea. Dr. Jungmin Kwon, a professor at Portland State University, has brought up the problem of female fans consuming and producing texts sexualizing gay identities, “welcoming the insinuation of homosocial relationships” (Kwon 2016, 1571). There is a disconnect between Korean fangirls who support the commodification and fetishization of homosexual relationships and the general Korean public, who do not accept that lifestyle. At the beginning of the year, a presidential petition started circulating around Korean web, calling for the production and consumption of fanfiction to be a crime, as fans “took advantage of young male idols’ vulnerable positions, which depended on love and attention from fans” (Ock 2021, n.p). The issue of real person slash was brought up by a rapper known as Son Simba, who expressed his disgust with fans forcing people into “irresistible situations'' and using the hashtag “RealPersonSlashIsSexualCrime” (in Korean) (Ock 2021, n.p). Some have brought up the fact that this discourse only revolves around hating same-sex ships and allowing M/F or reader/idol ships, revealing the implicit homophobia and dislike for gay innuendos that continues on in Korean society.
I was curious to see how many of my friends read slash fanfiction (Q4), and I found that only a handful of people I know engage with M/M ships through reading. This isn’t too surprising, since there is a stigma associated both with real person fanfiction and with K-pop. Many fans tend to leverage fanfiction in “interpersonal relationships and in more insular communities” (Haasch 2019, 40), such as in private chats among close friends. Depending on which part of your fandom you are active in, shipping may show up on your feed a lot or not at all. With Q1, I asked my friends if they thought shipping played a big part in the fandom they are in, and received mixed responses. My first takeaway is that shipping does play a big part in girl group fandoms, partially because the girls initiate the ships themselves - however, these F/F ships are more of friendships rather than relationships. M7 stated that in the IZ*ONE fandom, fans “notice that certain members have closer bonds than others, which could mean that … ships have come to mean close friends.” Although the member Sakura has explicitly said she wants to date Minju and marry Chaeyeon, it is clearly a joke and she does not imply actual romantic intent. This opens up a whole different can of worms in the realm of queerbaiting, or the “glorification of imagined homosexuality… which is utterly disgraceful and insulting to the millions of people in South Korea who suffer discrimination and oppression simply because they are gay” (Dana 2012), articulating the idea that this type of purposeful fan service trivializes LGBTQ+ rights in Korea.
As for friends who are active in boy group fandoms, a majority agreed that shipping does have a big part in the fandom and a few agreed that companies themselves are responsible for pushing same-sex ships. M1 states that companies “use fan service to foster a sense of being close between fans and idols”, and F3 agreed and brought up the infamous pocky game that is often shown during variety shows to encourage shipping between group members. The pocky game involves two players, each holding one end of a cracker in their mouth. The challenge is to get the piece of cracker to be as small as possible by moving closer until the players drop the pocky or refuse to get closer. A similar, well-known game is the paper kissing game, where members must pass a piece of paper to each other with only their mouths - basically kissing. A quick YouTube search for “pocky game kpop” or “kissing game kpop” will show endless thumbnails of male idols from all groups in precarious positions, with hundreds of views per video. The play-acts of romance make the industry seem very open to same-sex relationships, but this does not reflect the true nature of Korean society (Hollingsworth, 2020). When 23-year old Go Taeseob debuted under the stage name Holland and came out as the first openly gay K-pop idol, his music video featuring a small kiss between two males received a explicit rating in South Korea. Although he was lauded for his bravery internationally, South Koreans had “muted or negative reactions” (Hollingsworth 2020, n.p). The fantasy that many female fans have of their favorite male idols together is not something that could realistically be supported in South Korean society.
Even though my respondents are not representative of the entire K-pop fandom, I think the varied responses I received are indicative of the online spaces on social media that serve as a contact zone between fans who ship and fans who do not ship. There are also conflicts between fans who ship over possessiveness and wanting to prove which ship is better, as referenced by F6 (a TWICE fan), who said “Michaeng-ers [Mina x Chaeyoung shippers] have a reputation for being annoying.” F8 (an NCT fan) also stated that “there have been some fanwars in regards to the better ship being Jaeyong [Jaehyun x Taeyong] versus Dotae [Doyoung x Taeyong].” These contact zone conflicts are not exclusive to K-pop fandoms. Shipping culture has existed since the beginning of K-pop and has faced continuous backlash, especially due to the tension between Eastern and Western cultural norms. However, it persists partially because of the intra-group dynamic that the K-pop industry places so much pressure on and hints at through same-sex fanservice, which “legitimizes fan desire” and plays a role in the foundation of fandom (Hong 2020, 92).
The K-pop industry differs from others in the way that companies sell their idols as commodities, and conflate their personal lives and their public images together. The question of whether real person shipping is ethical is a hard one to answer, since the entertainment companies encourage the agenda of “K-pop idols being different from regular people” (brought up by F3), thus blurring the lines between what is right and what is wrong. As emphasized by many of my respondents, real person shipping and fanfiction must be respectful and should not disturb or affect the lives of the idols. The dichotomy between Korean media companies versus Korean conservative values and the ethical dilemma of pairing two real people together have contributed to K-pop social media spaces becoming a contact zone that simultaneously harbors fan wars and allows fans to express themselves.
