Authenticity Essay #4: Gatekeepers and Idol Rappers

Stitch

Back when BTS was a baby group, they were subject to what seems (to me, as a fan coming later on to the group) like a really disproportionate amount of criticism. One theme that got the group loads of criticism?

Their relationship with and attempts at embodying hip-hop culture.

When you watch their m net -hosted series American Hustle Life, the first episode has a selection of headlines revolving around BTS’ debut as a group under BigHit Entertainment (around the 1:05 mark). These headlines, when translated, say things like “BTS challenging real gangster”, “BTS debut, opening up with 90’s gangster”, and “BTS, strengthening the industry with gangster rap”.

As an act, BTs was marketed and developed as a hip-hop idol group.

In the time period that they trained and debuted, a ton of idol groups were also debuting.  Exo (2012), Block B (2011), B.A.P (2012), Winner (2014) and Got7 (2014) are just a handful of male idol groups that debuted roughly within the same era as BTS. But as far as I can tell through research, while all idol rappers are met with the same sort of disdain and suspicion from “mainstream” and underground rappers alike –

Some of the documented nonsense that BTS – and more specifically, their rapline – has been hit with by some of these dudes and, most likely, their fans has been… wild.

Case in point?

Rapper B-free’s on-again, off-again beef with BTS following a 2013 KBH Hiphop Radio interview that swiftly went sour.

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Anti What, Exactly?

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“What is the opposite of fandom? Disinterest. Dislike. Disgust. Hate. Anti-fandom.”

Melilssa A. Click. Anti-Fandom: Dislike and Hate in the Digital Age 

The anti-fandom(s) – and anti-fan(s) – of 2020 look far different from what Jonathan Gray put together in 2003’s “New Audiences, New Textualities” when he described anti-fans as, “those who strongly dislike a given text or genre, considering it inane, stupid, morally bankrupt and/or aesthetic drivel,” (70).

The internet and fandom as we know it have both changed drastically in the past decade and change since he first attempted to provide that definition – a definition that Gray himself has tried to expand upon and contextualize across the years, culminating in his essay in Melissa A. Click’s collection on anti-fandom referenced in the introductory quote.

At this point, if you’re in transformative fandom, you’re probably faintly aware of the term “anti” and the variety of ways it’s used to describe other people in fandom who seem to be against fandom in some way that is rarely fully explained.

In part because most of the people explaining it… can’t explain it very well because they have wildly varying definitions of what an anti is and what anti behavior looks like.

At this point in fandom and fandom discourse, what is most “anti”/opposite/against fandom is not letting fans do what they want without any criticism whatsoever. Which includes, as I’ve noted across the years… fans creating purposefully or incidentally racist fanworks.

I mean, really… considering that when John Boyega was getting shat on by Rey/Kylo fans – members of a fanbase that’d been harassing him and shitting on him publicly for his entire time in the Star Wars sequel trilogy – I saw tweets accusing him of “siding with fandom antis” –

It becomes clear that in many fandom spacesm, the term “anti” at this point is mostly meaningless.

(And that Black people who aren’t doing what fandom wants will always be viewed and (mis) treated as outside of or against (anti) fandom.)

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Stitch Talks Ish: Episode 4 – Where Stitch Processes

Stitch

Episode Notes:

Transcript

Speaker: Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 4 of Stitch Talks Ish. If you missed it check out last month’s episode where I reviewed BTS’s Map of the Soul: 7.

I feel like it’s a fantastic episode, just saying –

But on a related note, episode four is also going to be about K-pop, but from a more critical lens.

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April Content Calendar

Stitch

Support Links:

Website: https://stitchmediamix.com/blog/ 

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Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/StitchMediaMix/ 

Friends, March was a lot.

April is already set up to be even more.

At this point, everyone I know is trying to figure out how they’re going to handle the COVID-19 crisis. Routines have been… rerouted. A lot of folks have lost their jobs, including… me. If y’all remember, at the start of March, my one boss was like “we’re downsizing and trying to save our skins so you’re getting cut”.

Well, it’s the start of April and my time (of unemployment, beyond some freelance article editing and uploading for them) has come.

As the job was the first time that I’d had reliable health insurance in four years and I was basically the breadwinner for my family… You bet I’m panicking.

But I’m trying to channel all of that nervous energy into a positive outlet… creating content and building my brand and audience further! Because writing is the one way I have been able to express myself and make money enough to live on to an extent!

So, barring any complications by the pandemic holding us frozen in our homes (those of us who are at home), here’s what’s on the schedule for April.

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What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Migratory Slash Fandom’s Focus

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Note: The section on RPF and whtiewashing deals pretty plainly with real person fan fiction – where a real celebrity is treated like a character in fan works – but from the POV of “stop whitewashing them” rather than a judgement call on the fandom itself. I’d suggest skipping this section, scrolling down to the solutions section of the piece, and waiting a little bit for me to finish writing my actual RPF-focused installment of What Fandom Racism Looks Like later this year because it’s been in the works for a while and will tackle K-Pop RPF, Hockey fandom, and the One Direction fandom’s endless racism towards Zayn. 

The Fanlore page for Migratory fandom describes it as, “the most recent term used to describe the idea that slash fans are always on the lookout for the next shiny, new juggernaut pairing”.

First seen in fandom discussions across Fail_Fandomanon – one of many multi-fandom anonymous memes – the term is a reference to this idea that slash fans are constantly moving to the next fandom that’ll provide them their dose of slashy goodness. 

On the surface, there’s nothing even remotely wrong with moving to another fandom because the one you’re in is running dry on content. Honestly, I’m right there with folks because when a fandom I’m in is dried up entirely or the fan content it’s creating has been done to death before… I always feel like jumping ship at least for a little while.

So I get the motivation.

But this is “What Fandom Racism Looks Like” and you know that means that there is something I find frustrating about migratory slash fandom that falls under this series….

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What Shipping Says About Fandom Antiblackness

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Note: I originally did this as a thread in like… 2018 but I think it’s still extremely relevant and so… it’s a blog post now! (If it was a blog post before this, pretend it wasn’t. Mkay?)

I love seeing folks who ship ships that came about as a way to distance a Black character from their white faves be like:

“The only reason antis are mad are because they think [Black character] is nothing without [white character]”

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Authenticity Essay #3 – Assigning Authenticity For Clout

Stitch

If you listened to my review of BTS’s new album Map of the Soul:‌ 7, you might have clocked that I’m really fucking feral for BTS’ trio of rappers – RM, Suga, and J-hope. I‌ mention it a bunch of times across my review and my social media.

On top of that, I’m a huge fan of hip hop from around the world and have been since I was a teenager listening to m-flo on my Zune. Like if I didn’t love hip-hop, there’s no way that I would’ve spent a huge amount of the past year having public opinions about hip hop and working my fingers off on this project.

That’s why, when I saw someone I follow retweet a Porochista Khakpour tweet about BTS’ rapline, I‌ kind of like lost it (laughing) at first. In the linked tweet, Khakpour writes that:

“I was a hip hop journalist for a long time &‌ really wish I could convince hip hop heads to give a listen to this track UGH on the new BTS, which features some of the most insane hard rapping i have heard since we used to use embarrassing terms like ”gangsta rap“ I‌‌ SWEAR”

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Problematic Fave: Gravitation

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Gravitation was one of my early queer “firsts” and it falls into the same vein as many of the pieces of media I worshiped as a baby queer. Like Queer as Folk and Interview with the Vampire, Gravitation was an incredibly problematic piece of media that, on some level, shaped how I viewed queerness. (Which kind of explains a lot of my earlier understanding of what it meant to be queer…)

Watching Gravitation now is… a little bit painful.

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Dealing With What Docile Doesn’t

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This is not actually a review of K. M. Szpara’s Docile.

Not really.

It’s a review of what the novel doesn’t deal with and what people are clearly getting out of it in publishing and fandom spaces.

Docile is a near-future dystopian work of erotic science fiction where people in debt sell themselves into something that’s in-between indentured servitude and the horrors of the historic slavery in the United States. The book revolves around Elisha – who sells himself into debt so that his younger sister won’t be subjected to the traumatizing effects of service – and Alex – the trillionaire who buys Elisha, tries to break him, and then… quelle suprise… falls in love with him. 

The novel reminds me of Captive Prince and Ai no Kusabi, two series that deal with male/male relationships and sexual(ized) slavery in one capacity or another within the main story… and the fandom responses to both of those things absolutely reminds me of Docile’s intense early defenders who’ve already shown up to fret about “antis” coming for their slavefic. 

(And when the antis in question include Black people and anti-racist allies simply annoyed at yet another white author going “look at this thing that happened to Black people, what if something similar happened to my white main characters”… Yikes.)

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March Content Calendar

Stitch

I’m putting things together for March and this is what my schedule currently looks like!

Three of the things are catch-ups (2 for my site and 1 for Patreon) but everything else is fresh content that is NOT carried over from last month. The blog is going to have a fair amount of k-pop, but Patreon this month is going to primarily be about fandom and a return to my Urban Fantasy 101 series.

(There will be some surprise light and fun k-pop content because I live for it though!)

I haven’t decided what my next podcast episode will be about – I’m thinking about Castlevania since the new season drops in two days – or what the fiction or poetry will be, but I’m literally leaning towards polishing the first two parts of a poem I started about privilege…

Day job continues to be A Lot and I just picked up some freelance work since I have to try to save up for a potential move/the inevitable moment when this job no longer exists so I will be Supremely Busy. But please feel free to nudge me extra hard if/when you need me.

I’m honestly NOT ignoring anyone, but I am also really scatterbrained and don’t focus well on a good day, much less the days I’ve been having where all I do is work and write.

Thank you once again for supporting me and I hope that you’ll all enjoy my March content!<3

PS: if you’re at the $10 Tier on Patreon, don’t forget that an hour of my time on your project is a perk of your patronage!

Quick Coverage: All Eyez On YunB Proving Why East Asian Appreciation and Appropriation of Blackness Are Two Sides of the Same Antiblack Coin

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I know that not a single one of y’all wanted to know that there’s going to be a South Korean musical version of Tupac’s life called All Eyez on Me performed by a cast that, as far I can tell, only has a single Afro Korean performer at this moment.

I know I sure as hell could’ve lived my life without knowing.

But here we are, with this knowledge fresh in our minds.

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Stitch Talks Ish: Episode 3 – Stitch Talks Map of the Soul: 7

Stitch

ON BUZZSPROUT

Episode Notes

Transcript/Notes

(Not a 1:1 match with the audio as I did go off script a few times and might not have caught them all.)

Regular readers and listeners know that complaining is my love language. The first two episodes of Stitch Talks Ish probably proved that considering that that’s like what… over an hour of me complaining across the episodes?

But we’re breaking from the trend with the third episode of my series where in I give into the urge to get downright obnoxious on main about all things BTS following the release of their seventh studio album (fourth if you’re only counting the Korean ones). Map of the Soul: 7.

If you’ve managed to miss everything I’ve been going through for… what I want to say is a year and a half edging close to two years if you count the offline fandom-ing I’ve been doing – I’ve spent a lot of my time talking and thinking a lot about Korean popular culture. Like I will keep my foot on the Star Wars fandoms’ throats until the damn fandom stops being shitty, but in the rest of my time?

Well… I’ve been k-popping.

(Look, y’all know that I’m a cheesy mess at best and I needed to get that out.)

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Two Sides of Being A Black K-Pop Fan: Incredible Rage

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Jump into Indescribable Joy if you’re not ready for the rage:

On February 11, 2020 twitter user @revegina uploaded a ninety-two second video set to SEVENTEEN’s만세(MANSAE) that highlighted several supremely antiblack moments in the relatively recent history of Korean pop and hip hop.

The video – embedded below since the user in question has since been suspended – includes such gems as:

  • Two separate members of Super Junior (Yesung and Shindong) in blackface
  • (g) i-dle’s So-yeon having her “ethnic hip” moment on Queendom
  • Lots of fucking cornrows, locs, and box braids on scalps that cannot handle that shit
  • Wendy from Red Velvet and RM from BTS mimicking Black people on two separate variety shows
  • Hwasa (from Mamamoo, a group that slathered on the brown makeup as a unit to portray Bruno Mars on a variety show back in 2017), dropping an absolutely unsubtle “nigga” into her cover of Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” like we wouldn’t fucking notice
  • A clip of RM telling interviewers, in English by the way, that he couldn’t see two of his bandmembers in the dark because “they were too black” from early on in their time as a group
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Authenticity Essay #2 – Girls (Not) On Top

Stitch
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4CDtDrFQCV/

Near the end of October 2019, Korean rapper San E posted a photo on Instagram of his favorite (“best”) Korean rappers as part of the promo for something he’d reveal in the following days. He has ten rappers on the list, and while many of them would be on my top ten list… none are female artists.

Now, here’s the thing… I’m not actually surprised that San E couldn’t bring himself to place a single female MC on his list.

First, there’s the way that San E seems to hold female rappers – and women – to a different standard in his time as the host of m-net’s Unpretty Rapstar (2015 to 2016).

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