The derogatory label “Koreaboo,” used to stigmatize Korean popular culture fans, suggests Korean media's movements are treated as a contaminant rather than a welcome presence. In this research project, I conducted focus group research and analyses of Reddit threads to understand the ways women fans of color in this study interpret and navigate taste hierarchies that mock women's interests in celebrities and texts from a racialized Asian nation. Korean popular culture fans of color reject “Koreaboo” for themselves, but they project the label onto “bad” White fans, who are perceived as having inappropriate fannish interests that deviate from popularly held standards of intercultural and interracial fan interest. The self-disciplining within fandom distances itself from the Western patriarchal gaze by re-directing its focus. Even when fans of color seek Korean media to escape White hegemony and heteronormative patriarchy, they internalize and react to its gaze in their fan practice.
BourdieuP (1984 [1979]) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
2.
De KosnikACarringtonA (2019) Fans of color, fandoms of color. Transformative Works and Cultures29.
3.
DolbyN (2000) The shifting ground of race: The role of taste in youth’s production of identities. Race, Ethnicity and Education3: 7–23.
4.
DyerR (1988) White. Screen29: 44–65.
5.
EglashR (2002) Race, sex, and nerds: From Black geeks to Asian American hipsters. Social Text71: 49–64.
6.
EngDLHanS (2018) Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation: On the Social and Psychic Lives of Asian Americans. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
7.
EspirituYL (2004) Ideological racism and cultural resistance: Constructing our own images. In: AndersenMLHill CollinsP (eds) Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology, 5th edn. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, pp. 175–184.
8.
GabrielJ (1998) Whitewash: Racialized Politics and the Media. New York: Routledge.
9.
GlaserBGStraussAS (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine.
10.
HillsM (2007) Michael Jackson fans on trial? Documenting emotivism and fandom in Wacko about Jacko. Social Semiotics17: 459–477.
11.
HodkinsonP (2002) Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture. Oxford: Berg.
12.
HoltDB (1998) Does cultural capital structure American consumption?Journal of Consumer Research25: 1–25.
13.
hooksb (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston, MA: South End Press.
14.
IwabuchiK (2004) How “Japanese” is Pokemon? In: TobinJ (eds) Pikachu’s Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokemon. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 53–79.
15.
JenkinsH (1992) Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge.
16.
JohnsonM (2013) The aesthetics of diaspora in colonial fields of power: Elite nationalism, art and the love to die for. Ethnos78: 175–199.
17.
KimHA (2023a) Blackness, Koreanness, and Han: Unmasking rap in Korean hip hop. Journal of Black Studies54: 136–156.
18.
KimKA (2023b) Stifled, invisible, and threatened: Cultural appropriation in K-pop through the lens of identity-negotiating fans of color. Communication, Culture & Critique 17(1): 17–23.
19.
KimY (2023c) Soft power and cultural nationalism: Globalization of the Korean wave. In: KimY (ed.) Media in Asia: Global, Digital, Gendered and Mobile. New York: Routledge, pp. 93–106.
20.
KollnigS (2020) The “good people” of Cochabamba city: Ethnicity and race in Bolivian middle-class food culture. Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies15: 23–43.
21.
KuipersG (2006) Television and taste hierarchy: The case of Dutch television comedy. Media, Culture & Society28: 359–378.
22.
KuoR (2018) Racial justice activist hashtags: Counterpublics and discourse circulation. New Media & Society20: 495–514.
23.
LayneLO (2023) “Let us look at the immediate background of this young poet”: Langston Hughes and the sociological critique of taste. African American Review56: 27–42.
24.
LeeJJLeeRKYParkJH (2020) Unpacking K-pop in America: The subversive potential of male K-pop idols’ soft masculinity. International Journal of Communication14: 5900–5919.
25.
LeeWKaoG (2021) “Make it right”: Why #Blacklivesmatter(S) to K-pop, BTS, and BTS ARMYs. Journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music11: 70–87.
26.
LyanI (2023) Shock and surprise: Theorizing the Korean wave through mediatized emotions. International Journal of Communication17: 29–51.
27.
OhDC (2012) Black-yellow fences: Multicultural boundaries and whiteness in the Rush Hour franchise. Critical Studies in Media Communication29: 349–366.
28.
OhDCEguchiS (2022) Racial privilege as a function of white supremacy and contextual advantages for Asian Americans. Communication, Culture and Critique15: 471–478.
29.
ParkJZ (2008) Second-generation Asian American pan-ethnic identity: Pluralized meanings of a racial label. Sociological Perspectives51: 541–561.
30.
PrashadV (2000) The Karma of Brown Folk. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
31.
ShomeR (1999) Whiteness and the politics of location: Postcolonial reflections. In: NakayamaTKMartinJN (eds) Whiteness: The Communication of Social Identity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 107–128.
32.
StanfillM (2013) “They’re losers, but I know better”: Intra-fandom stereotyping and the normalization of the fan subject. Critical Studies in Media Communication30: 117–134.
33.
StraussACorbinJ (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
34.
van DijkTA (2002) Multidisciplinary CDA: A plea for diversity. In: WodakRMeyerM (eds) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 95–120.
35.
WilliamsJPHoSXX (2016) “Sasaengpaen” or K-pop fan? Singapore youths, authentic identities, and Asian media fandom. Deviant Behavior37: 81–94.
36.
WodakR (2002) What CDA is about – a summary of its history, important concepts and its developments. In: WodakRMeyerM (eds) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 1–13.
37.
YoonK (2021) K-Pop pedagogy in the digital platform era. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics17: 183–190.
38.
YoonK (2022) Diasporic Hallyu: The Korean Wave in Korean Canadian Youth Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
