It’s that time of the semester, folks. The time when we have to pick our topics for The Final Project–in this case, the weekly-aforementioned field guide we’ve been gathering sources for.

In class, we were tasked with perusing through those sources, thinking back on previous class discussions, and starting to brainstorm the topic we wanna focus on for our sections of the field guide.

And so we did. And after perusing and thinking, I came up with:

I remember getting pretty passionate during our discussion about kids’ life on the internet. I agreed with the dangers, but stressed that there are things that these kids stress about, and having spaces that are their own that they control is important to them. Seeing my theatre kids over the summer basically thrive on Instagram set that idea in my head. But I digress.

The second topic I initially came up with had little to do with trying to teach the world about the darkness of the internet and a lot to do with my music interest. I referenced songs that I’d linked to in previous posts that related to social media (“instagram” and “Noir“) along with another called “Dispatch” that I’ll get to in a second.

Sharing this second topic with the rest of the class proved to reveal how kind of out there it was. It didn’t seek to really bring up a concern that could be worked on, I think the explanation was. Which! Is fine! I knew it was a structurally iffy topic from the beginning, so I wasn’t upset about that.

Further discussion led to my current topic of interest: fan culture and obsession, particularly in the music industry.

I ain’t gonna lie, I’m gonna be focusing on the K-pop music industry, just based on my familiarity with it and the popularity of it in the States right now.

Oh. And all the receipts and sickening video evidence of toxic fan culture I’ve seen won’t hurt, either. I’m looking forward to ranting about this.

I don’t want to get too into it all right now so I can save it for the actual project, but basically, there are levels as to what is appropriate in fandom, especially when you are a fan of real people such as a band. A good portion of fans understand this. Others do not.

And that’s how fans start to lose themselves in their fixations, endangering both themselves as well as the object (or, in this case, person(s)) of their fixation. There’s just… a lot that can (and does) go wrong. Far too often. As a little preview, feel free to check out that song I mentioned earlier, “Dispatch” by Heize. The lyrics, as well as a corresponding short film, tell of a possessive side effect of K-pop fandom culture.

And… I’ll leave it at that for now. I’ve already said a lot, haha.

Sooooo yeah! That’s pretty much what I’ll be covering.

I’d say that it’s important because a lot of K-pop fans today are incredibly young, and seeing this kind of toxic fan behavior as the norm will do nothing but perpetuate a continuation of that behavior. And… it’s really gotta stop. For the fans’ sake and for the artists’ sake as well.

I haven’t gotten a chance to ask Euphie what she thinks of this particular topic. As far as I know, she has a rather dim view of this interest of mine.

She has a rather dim view of a lot of things, but regardless–

Maybe seeing all the crazy things I’ll link her will actually trigger some primal protective instinct in her. Hopefully we can like… harness that snark of hers for the greater good.

Dare to dream.

Alright! Main blog post should be going up soon! Ya gurl has a proposal due on Monday and she’s procrastinating by doing all her other hw getting other hw done first so she doesn’t have to stress about it and can have a clear, one-track mind.

L8r g8rs.

–Masooch