There’s a long history of K-Pop artists — known simply as “Idols” in Korea — communicating directly with their dedicated fan bases. Korean music stores and companies hold intimate, in-person album signing events — called “fansigns” — where attendance is often selected through a lottery system based on the number of albums purchased from the store holding the event. Then there’s the online fan call, where devotees get the chance to speak to their idols for a minute or two.
“K-Pop is really good at cultivating a parasocial relationship between the fan and the idol,” says Yale University sociology professor Grace Kao. “To the extent possible, idols work really hard to make fans feel like they’re the center of their attention.”
But these opportunities remain selective and include a high monetary barrier to entry, since the easiest way for fans to secure the lottery-based prize is to simply buy more albums. The more economical — but certainly not free — way to connect with your favorite K-Pop artist has arisen over the past few years in the form of messaging-based fan communication platforms.
Bubble, a subscription-based app from Korean software development company Dear U, that gives fans the chance to privately message their favorite artists, launched in 2020. The premise of Bubble and others like it is simple: find an artist from a group, pay a specified amount per month, and send off words of encouragement. But there’s a bit of a catch: Subscriptions are member-by-member, not for groups as whole, typically, and run about $4 to $5 a member, meaning fans of groups of eight or nine (which is common in K-Pop) must choose the members they want to focus on or shell out $30 a month.
Weverse, owned by K-Pop giant Hybe, is a powerhouse in the fan platform space. There, fans can buy their favorite artist’s merchandise, grab an official fan club membership (about $4 a month), apply for presale concert tickets or check out a listening party. Merchandise and fan club memberships, of course, come with their own cost, the latter running about $20 a year.
Like other apps, Weverse allows fans the chance to connect directly through Weverse DM. Much like Bubble’s messaging service, its subscriptions are about $5 per bandmember per month. The app’s parent company says they’ve hit more than 150 million downloads.
“Approximately 90 percent of our traffic originates from outside of Korea, indicating that the vast majority of our users are non-Korean speakers,” Weverse’s president Joon Choi tells The Hollywood Reporter in an email exchange. “This global user demographic fundamentally shapes our strategic direction across all areas.”
As K-Pop’s globalization continues, companies must balance the core tenants of the genre alongside each market’s fan norms. “While providing a globally consistent experience, we also offer localized features tailored to regional and cultural preferences,” Choi explains.
Naturally, all these costs can add up, meaning being a devoted K-Pop super fan can get costly. But in the grand scheme of expensive, imported K-Pop merchandise and $500 concert tickets, it’s just a drop in the bucket.
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