Project 5

Project 5 The change I want to see

Summary

I focused on how to spreading Chinese pop culture well in my Project 3 and 4. When I began to think about this project, I paid more attention to the fandom economy in China’s pop idol culture industry. In fact, this is also the content of the study proposal when I applied for this MA course.

According to some literature, it is generally believed that Chinese earliest fandom economy began in 2005 with a program called “super girl” (Yang, 2009). In 2018, a program called idol traineee announced the arrival of China’s “the first year of idolism” and opened a new generation of fandom economy (Myths and lies of “the first year of Idolism”, 2020). Fans can vote non-restrictively by buying milk and scanning the QR code to vote. With the development of big data and new media, the fan groups have more convenient communication methods and more direct publicity social media platforms, which makes them more closely connected with each other (Sun, 2022). From then on, the audience’s participation and discourse power have received unprecedented attention. In this case, idol culture and fandom economy are together growing rapidly (Liu, 2020).

Of course, the fanatical fandom economy does not just include the unrestricted milk vote. The online platform has established a set of online indicators and systems to force idol fans to provide free labor on a regular basis (Zhang and Negus, 2020). Rampant consumption and commercialization have led to the transfer of power among idols , fans and entertainment institutions (Zhang and Negus, 2020). Fans are beginning to believe that they can intervene when their idols need their support, whether it means money donation or unpaid work (Zhang and Negus, 2020). Idolatry is a big market in China, especially among teenagers. In fact, there is a very morbid situation among the fan group in China. For example, during the “comeback period” of idols, some fans will do something similar to PUA, which is commonly known as cutting leeks in China. They will use words like “your idol is just short of a cup of milk tea money, spend to support them” to lure some younger fans with poor psychological defense to spend.

I was one of the idol trainees, I was one of the brand workers, but mainly, I was one of the fans. I have also bought many milk votes to support my idol and prove his commercial value. However, these talent shows were completely banned by Chinese regulators in the summer of 2021. Because the QR code used for voting is printed on the inside of the bottle cap, the voting heat leads to a lot of unused milk that were poured directly into the trash can. Regulators soon cancelled the show, organizers and sponsors were expected to be fined.

Therefore, from the perspective of fans, the change I want to see is that maybe one day in the future, fans will no longer spend a lot of unnecessary expenses in order to prove the commercial value of idol. The premise of this is that the platform I mentioned above can cancel the online indicators and systems, and can also advocate well subjectively.

From the perspective of branding, the change I want to see is that the brand manager should not focus too narrowly on playing number games and promoting sales, but really inject its own brand concept into the products. At the same time, they should also do a good job in corporate social responsibility on such ways. However I am stilling looking forward to finding out more ways on this perspective.

Reference list

Liu, X. (2020) ‘Observation on the Turn of Music Talent TV Show 3.0 in China’ Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, pp. 535–540 Atlantis press [online]. Available from:https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/icassee-20/125944318 (Accessed: 24 April 2022).

Myths and lies of “the first year of Idolism” (2020) [Online]. Available from: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/266394273 (Accessed: 24 April 2022).

Sun, M. (2022) ‘From H.O.T. to GOT7: Mapping K-pop’s fandom, media, and performances in China’ [online]. Available from: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/78169873/Sun_Meicheng_Dissertation-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1650159559&Signature=GqxqFNUgNEkMvaVI6oRJVrbke1y7cV9F1NmcxfXPkcZA7DEKpwfBEdJolMhR5O8Gh321m4-H7XEx0RMDmftQ0yV8QYotHhZbWBuaW3Ih6GKvMR5WyM1PnmG4DRchmNzGxZIhjpm3Wgje3SdOIT2ib2GmPeXQyb-WjtkbZ6fUkj1lwZ4lXxh9pgV5hlQjrppVy-8pWIOU1Ng678uGoRWmzIo4ZCstdO3dYznt1M5-nIpmBNXBKp0lKwJHI4wXTH~oXSyDcPojod~iR8UM7oYkGxp8zwUwR4MZJbhomSX6CUprvTU4WMK6guCBCJypt7D3erYFgDfVH4524L5M~ld59A__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA (Accessed: 18 April 2022).

Yang, L. (2009) ‘All for love: The Corn fandom, prosumers, and the Chinese way of creating a super star’ International journal of cultural studies, 12(5), pp. 527–543 sagepub [online]. Available from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1367877909337863 (Accessed: 24 April 2022).

Zhang, Q. & Negus, K. (2020) ‘East Asian pop music idol production and the emergence of data fandom in China’ International journal of cultural studies, 23(4), pp. 493–511 sagepub [online]. Available from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/1367877920904064 (Accessed: 24 April 2022).

Project 6

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