Recently, a London clothing store for music fans K-Pop has been crowded with visitors. Before the concert of a popular Korean group called BTS, thousands of fans wanted to buy branded products with the emblems of their favorite artists.
Moreover, there were so many people who wanted that a huge queue formed. But accessories with k-pop symbols can not be called cheap. You could even say that being a fan of Korean pop music is very expensive.
So how much money do keypayers spend on their hobby?
Maybe they have to pay several hundred rubles a month for listening to music on the Spotify service?
Or a few thousand (the price of a concert ticket and T-shirts with performers, in which you can take pictures for Instagram)?
Different numbers
This is what key popers themselves say about it.
“About 21,000 - 30,000 rubles are released per month,” writes one of the fans on the Reddit social network.
Another admits: "Now this amount is 10,000 rubles. But if my idols release a new album, then I will spend more."
Another fan says, “I think I'm spending about 25,000 a month.”
Experts in the field of show business argue that any amount less than three digits in the world of Korean pop music looks implausible.
Peculiar culture
Everyone knows that artists of many genres produce branded products for fans. And it is most often not cheap. Whether it's a set of Fenty Beauty cosmetics from Rihanna or Yeezy sneakers from Kanye West - all these are very expensive things.
But, for fans of key pop music, the financial issue is most acute. Last month, journalist Kat Kelly published an article about Korean pop fans living in the United States of America.
It says that these people regularly spend impressive amounts on air travel, concert tickets and multi-day meetings of like-minded people. To be able to lead such a life, many of the k-popers have to work on several jobs.
What distinguishes the Korean pop from the pop music of other countries? What makes her lovers spend a lot of money?
Help idols
Here's what Kelly writes about it: "Not all Korean musicians make a lot of money. But there are some super-popular bands such as BTS, whose work sells very well."
In other words, key pop musicians get all or nothing.
Therefore, it is widely believed among fans that they should certainly spend more money on their hobby. After all, by purchasing tickets or clothing with symbols, they benefit not only themselves, but also their idols.
Such financial support, in their opinion, allows their favorite performers to stay afloat. These ideas often arise not by themselves. Their distribution is the result of the activities of marketers. It is beneficial for them to form a whole subculture around the musicians with their clothes, shoes and other things.
Fly on, hurry up, buy ...
The selection of goods here is very large. Unlike other musicians, artists working in the genre of key pop are not limited to the release of calendars and hoodies with their image.
The selection of products is huge. Any self-respecting Korean pop group has its own signature light sticks. These are glow sticks with the team logo. Kay popers usually dye their hair in bright shades. Therefore, hair dye is another product that should be in the arsenal of every fan.
Korean artists are usually very prolific. Their new releases come out regularly (once every few months).The appearance of singles and albums is accompanied by the release of booklets, posters, collection cards.
Often all this is included in the package of the gift edition.
If you have enough funds in your bank account, then you can allow yourself to plunge into a colorful utopia called key pop.
Social Inequality Among Fans
But what about those music lovers who cannot afford it?
The subculture of Korean pop fans exists mainly on the Internet. Fans communicate in groups of social networks. What and where to buy, they often discuss together. Having acquired a new thing, they are in a hurry to take pictures with her in order to put pictures on the court of like-minded people.
But not everything is as harmless as it seems. A person who has attended more concerts, has branded clothing and a large collection of other things related to the performer is considered a more loyal fan. And the one who did not buy the last album is publicly ridiculed here. On the other hand, no one forces people to be members of these communities. So they like to live by these rules.
It is worth repeating that products with symbols are also produced by artists of other genres. But such discrimination exists only with key popers.
At the beginning of this year, one of them wrote the following message on the social network: "We are dressed in BTS branded clothing, we listen to the new album we just bought when we go to our BTS concert in our Hyundai Palisade, where we will buy more things." This post has collected 24 thousand likes.
Such a culture of consumption is spreading more and more around the world.
Not everyone who likes key pop is so suggestible that they are willing to pay for any thing with the symbolism of their idols. Some of them get new discs together, and after visiting the concert, they arrange its live broadcast on Twitter. Thus, people who failed to get to the event can also enjoy the performance of idols. This approach is much more reasonable than blind worship of idols and thoughtless spending of money.
A bit of history
John Lennon believed that songs released as a single could not appear on the Beatles albums, as people should not pay once again for the same composition. And the band Led Zeppelin did not release singles at all. Its members wanted their fans to listen to not only hits, but also more complex compositions on albums.
And the leader of the Aquarium group Boris Grebenshchikov likes to repeat that information (music, literature and so on) should be free.
Each of these groups also had their own large army of admirers. But music has always played a major role for them. I wonder how many fans would have left for groups playing key pop if there were no products with their symbols, video clips, and pages on social networks?