KimA Stan Is Born
How far will K-pop superfans go to support their idols? Stacy Kim
spent $10,000 on a group that didn’t even last two yearsT
HE K-POP ACT WANNA ONE LASTED
a mere 18 months, but its legacy lives
on in a nondescript two-story building
in the Itaewon district of Seoul, South
Korea’s capital.
There, Stacy Kim and her mother run a guesthouse
that doubles as a shrine to Kim’s favorite K-pop group.
Memorabilia is almost everywhere: One kitchen wall is
adorned with framed photos and empty coffee bottles
bearing the faces of the band’s 11 members. In another
room, Kim, 28, opens storage boxes to reveal more
of her trove: dozens of collectible CDs still in their
elaborate packaging; Wanna One-branded vitamin C
gummies; a menu leaflet for a fried-chicken brand the
group once promoted; the band’s official concert light
stick; magazines, shoes, puzzles and much more.
“Some things I don’t even know what they are,” says
Kim, who opened two bank accounts to get Wanna
One-themed checkbooks. “I just buy them needlessly.
I want to be minimalist, but for merchandise, I just
can’t throw it away. I can’t throw away anything that
has the face of Wanna One on it.”
Kim’s fervor is hardly an anomaly in the world of K-
pop, where sales of physical albums and merchandise
are especially important drivers of success for artists
(though it’s unclear whether the artists receive much,
if any, of the proceeds). And with the way labels
incentivize fans to make repeat purchases to bolster
their favorite pop idols’ careers, the financial toll of
fandom is often huge: Billboard estimates conserva-
tively that over the 18 months that Wanna One existed,
Kim spent more than $10,000 on the group, includ-
ing about $7,000 on merchandise. Her biggest single
purchase? A $1,000 ticket to the act’s final show that
she bought from another fan. “I’ve never really calcu-
lated how much I’ve spent because I know it’s going
to destroy me,” says Kim. The fact that the group was
designed to be short-lived — Wanna One formed on
the reality competition Produce 101 in 2017 and was
contracted through January 2019 — only encouraged
her to spend. “You know everything will be limited.
That’s why you have to buy it,” she says.
Born in Los Angeles, Kim grew up living alternately
in the United States and South Korea, without any
great love for K-pop. She preferred alt-rock acts like
Fall Out Boy — until she returned to South Korea in
2017 for family reasons after graduating from New
York University. New to Seoul, she felt overwhelmed
and struggled to adjust to her life even after landing a
job at the Korean cable station Channel A.
She found unexpected comfort in Produce 101,
which ran for a total of four seasons from 2016 through- As the show’s title suggests, viewers “produce” a
short-term pop group by choosing members from doz-
ens of trainees through elimination rounds and both
online and live voting. During its second season, the
members of Wanna One collectively drew over 11 mil-
lion votes. “The program itself is the extreme version
of having this personal relationship with the trainee or
the member you’re supporting because you are seeing
them as a regular person that’s not in a K-pop group
yet,” says Kim.
She didn’t just support the band with her wallet. She
joined an online community, known as a fan cafe in
South Korea, for her favorite member, Bae Jin-young,
and the cafe formed what’s known as a union with the
other band members’ fan cafes to coordinate supportfor Wanna One. In hopes of bumping up the group’s
chart positions, Kim and other fans played its music
on continuous loops using various paid streaming
services. (She estimates she spent around 100,000
won — $82 — a month on the services alone.) They
also organized fundraisers for fan-related events and
designed posters and banners they’d put up in Seoul’s
subways. “I’d stay up all night managing the fan cafe
on top of my daily job,” says Kim.
Despite the money — and hours — Kim has dedi-
cated to Wanna One, she has never actually met the
group. K-pop fan meetings run on a lottery system,
and lottery numbers come with each album purchase.
The meetings are so popular — and space is so limited
— that it’s not unusual for fans to purchase hundredsof CDs at $15 to $20 a pop to increase their chances.
Kim, who doesn’t even own a CD player, chose not to
participate. “I was already spending so much money
on other stuff, I couldn’t afford to spend thousands of
dollars on albums,” she says. She’s aware that labels
designed the system to boost album sales but notes
that many K-pop fans don’t mind: “I think people are
proud to do this for their artist.”
And, perhaps, for each other. Kim is effusive about
the community of superfans she’s found; several have
stayed at her guesthouse. Another attended one ofWanna One’s final concerts with Kim. “We instantly
became K-pop friends,” says Kim. “We talked about
everything, and we cried together.”
Though Wanna One is no more, Kim’s passion lives
on. She’s still supporting the careers of its 11 members
— especially that of Bae, who recently debuted in the
five-member boy band CIX. Kim has already begun
stocking up on CIX merchandise, though her collection
so far is more modest: four copies of the band’s debut
album, two banners and a light stick that was sold at
the group’s debut showcase. “All the thousands of dol-
lars I’ve spent have been worth it,” she says as she care-
fully puts away her box of Wanna One treasures, neatly
placing the posters back in a portfolio. She breaks into
STICKS: SM BRAND MARKETING. PILLOWS: HAN MYUNG-GU/WIREIMAGE. BT21: WALTER CICCHETTI/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO. KIM: RAPHAEL RASHID. a wistful smile. “No regrets.” —T.H. and R.R.MARCH 28, 2020 • WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 477fea_kpop [P]_27818950.indd 47 3/24/20 7:44 PM