The Reality When Your Idol Feels Blue

Recently, Kim Jae Joong made a post that had many of his fans start worrying about him, believing him to be depressed or lonely. On Twitter, I read tweet after tweet from his fans saying "We love you" and "We support you," and saying that he wasn't alone because he had his fans.

The sentiment was pure and the flood of support was well-intended. But it got me to thinking about the way we perceive the idols we support and how it is different to how they see us as their fans.

If Jaejoong really was feeling lonely at the time he made the post, there was really nothing his fans could do to change that feeling. Fans feel as if they "know" their idols because they see their celebrity on social media, in videos, in interviews and live chat streams. But do fans really know their idols? All a fan gets to see is what the idol allows them to see.

And as for how those idols perceive their fans, it is true that idols cherish their fans because without fans' support, they would not enjoy the popularity and ranking that they need to be successful in their chosen careers. It's impossible not to be thankful when knowing that there are people out there in the world, who look to you and see you as precious to them.

But besides this fact, there are downsides to having fans. There are the sasaengs who intrude on celebrities' lives and take liberties they have no rights to with the idols of their obsession. There are fans who won't "allow" their idol to date or have a private life outside of the media. There is the need to always present yourself to the fans in a certain way. Fans can frequently put a lot of pressure on their idols.

And add to that the fact that an idol doesn't really know his fans. He knows of them. He knows they are there when he looks out into the audience from the stage and he knows they care about him. But he doesn't know them individually. He doesn't know their hopes and dreams, beliefs and values or likes and dislikes. He only knows of them as a group. He can't confide in his fans or rely on them. He can't trust them to keep his secrets.

So no matter how many of Kim Jae Joong's fans say that he shouldn't be lonely because he "has his fans," those words are unlikely to make him, or any other celebrity, feel less lonely.

There's a saying about how a person can be surrounded by people and still be lonely. That is true of everyone, but it is most likely especially true about celebrities.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with showing your support through tweets and messages, even if those messages are more helpful to the fans themselves than to the idol they mean to be helping. Being positive and sending positive thoughts is always a good thing. And who knows? There's always a slim chance that your idol might actually get the chance to read your supportive words.

So on that note, let me just say:

I hope you don't stay sad for very long, Kim Jae Joong. You have a lot of people in this world who consider you as someone precious and hope for your happiness.

All About KPop - The Beginning

I have a confession to make: I am Kim Jae Joong's fan. I've never been to one of his concerts, and I live thousands of miles away, making it unlikely we will ever meet. But his music, his personality (of what we've been shown through videos) and his acting ability have all won me over.

I didn't know anything about KPop (or JPop, for that matter) until I was introduced to BTS. Their dancing caught my attention first, combined with their energy. Their singing was fantastic too, and the I was shown some of their videos and interactions with one another on-line and I was won over. But EVERYBODY loved BTS. They had such a huge ARMY that I didn't feel like I could contribute anything to it.

Then I found VIXX. They'd been around a little longer than BTS, and they could also dance and had amazing vocals. They had a huge following too, called Twilight, but Starlight was not quite on the scale of the BTS ARMY fans. I started listening to their music and watching their appearances on TV shows in order to better get to know them. Leo, in particular, really impressed me with his vocals and his shy personality.

While I was discovering the world of Korean KPop music, I was also watching KDramas. Back in my home country (I live abroad), politics was making things stressful and depressing for me, so I escaped by watching shows that I knew would, mostly, have happy endings. I needed the feel-goodness of them to get through the depressing reality of current-day politics and an idiotic criminal being elected to the highest office in my country.

I have been a writer ever since I was a child and penned my first story to share with my family and friends. But I had never written, or even felt the urge to write, fan fiction. Then one day, now in my adult years, I came across a show called Dr. Jin. In the show, there was one very tragic supporting character who I felt got a raw deal in the story. Even though some of the stuff he did was evil, he only did them because he wanted the love and approval of his father (something he would never get), and (SPOILER ALERT), in the end, he died. Something about the eyes of the actor that played him drew me in, and I definitely wanted a happier ending for the character. So, for the first time ever, I was drawn to write fan fiction. Fan fiction that would give the character, not only a way to survive the story, but his own story to become the lead in. I sat down and wrote for twelve hours, give or take bathroom breaks and time to eat, and ended up writing over 10,000 words as a beginning to this new fan fiction story. and it was so much fun to write!

A month or two later, I came across a series called Protect the Boss. There was a supporting character in this one, once again the third wheel in a love triangle who intrigued me. I kept thinking about the main female protagonist, "she's never going to end up with this guy; he's too perfect."  At one point in the show, he was singing karaoke, and I was struck by how well he sang. Later in the show, I began to notice that one of the songs in the show sounded like it was him singing. So I looked him up and found out that he was, indeed, a singer. I found and listened to some more songs sung by him. I watched some YouTube pieces about him and, eventually, watched his Photo People series. That's what began my Kim Jae Joong fan-girling. It's the first time in my life I have ever felt like fan-girling over anyone.

Eventually, I had a dream that inspired me to write some fan fiction based on Kim Jae Joong. Again, this is only the second time I had ever felt drawn to write fan fiction about anyone or anything. Only after I started writing it and did some more research about Kim Jae Joong did I find out that he was also the actor who played the character in the Dr. Jin series who had inspired me to write my first piece of fan fiction. I wrote a story based on him during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) that ended up being over 60,000 words long. (I plan on editing it so that it is no longer recognisable as him in the story and publishing it once the story itself is perfect.)

Photo by LG on Flicker

 Kim Jae Joong was also a former member of the KPop group TVXQ (DBSK) and a current member of the KPop group JYJ, although he was recently concentrating on his activities as a solo singer.



From all of this, I developed an over-arching love for most KPop and JPop and now I want a place to write about them, share some of the shorter fan fiction stories I write and maybe even, someday, create a magazine that will feature one group at a time, with interviews in English, as, with the exception of BTS, English magazine interviews of KPop groups are not easy to find.