K-Bops in K-Pop

I know I’ve been posting my A-Z challenge and that will go back to normal tomorrow but let me just take a second to talk about something that I’ve been noticing lately and that we, as fans, are speaking out against more and more.

The Good & the Bad

I brought up Jungkook’s hair because he’s been growing it out lately and it looks SO GOOD. People are giving him a lot of positive feedback for it and it’s clearly giving the courage to sport it without feeling the need to chop it off.

On the other side of that, there are also people who have stopped him from doing what he’s wanted with his own body in the past. Fans told him not to get tattoos, to not get any more piercings, they even told him to dress more formally because he was looking frumpy. Then, a couple days ago, I heard fans were doing the same thing to Jimin about his piercings and it has got to stop.

Controlling Your Idol

I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this but your fave doesn’t owe you anything. If they decide they wanna chop off all their hair, that’s their prerogative. If they wanna get tattoos, piercings, or anything else they dream up, you get 0% say in how that goes down.

For some reason, it’s becoming a trend for fans to go into the comment sections of Vlives and Twitter posts or whatever and tell idols what they can and can’t do and that is deeply not okay. Not only is it fundamentally strange that anyone feels like they can tell their idol what to do, but it’s also incredibly harmful behavior because it’s essentially verbal abuse and manipulation targeted at the person you claim to love.

Let Them Be Happy

What’s the solution here? Just accept them as humans. Idols are people. If they want to get a crappy tattoo and regret it then years later, they can! If they wanna pierce every centimeter of skin on their earlobe, they will! You can’t stop your idol from living their life anymore than a parent can stop their kid after they’ve turned 18. The only thing you can do is love them and support them.

The good news is that there are more people against this kind of behavior than there are people for, but those that are for are still being heard. I think, more than anything, those people responsible need to accept that they can’t enforce their expectations on idols and that those of us who know better need to drown them out so our faves can know we will love them no matter what they look like.