[The Fountain] Fan platforms in full bloom

The K-pop fandom business that started in the 1990s with voice messages from stars on pagers is evolving into a structure that makes more money.

JEON YOUNG-SUNThe author is head of the K-Entertainment Team of the JoongAng Ilbo. I know the phone numbers of the members of NewJeans, a K-pop girl group. Actually, I don’t know their real numbers, but I can call them through their fan platform Phoning. I can use the call feature for a real time chat and ask where they are and what they had for dinner.

Of course, there is no guarantee that they will respond. But I can see their personal schedules, friendly replies and recent photos. You get to know more about their personal stories than your real friends. But unlike friends, it costs 9,900 won per month ($8) to keep in touch with them.

There are several inventions and business models that K-pop introduced in the music market. The most notable of them these days is this kind of fan platform. Online fan clubs have been around for long, but now the tremendous fandom energy gathers into these platforms led by K-pop agencies.

On the fan platform, the entity owning the intellectual property can take the initiative and develop the business project. HYBE opened Weverse in 2019 and hosts more than 80 teams and individuals, with nearly 60 million cumulative subscribers. It provides both paid and free communication, information on stores selling goods, concert tickets and special contents.

After Jungkook of BTS deleted his personal Instagram account of 50 million followers, he wrote on Weverse, “I deleted the account because I don’t use it much. I will be on Weverse Live more often from now on.” It must have been a regrettable departure for Meta.

SM Entertainment also has been operating its paid messaging service called Bubble since 2020. It is a different format but similarly provides interaction with stars. You can learn about childhood stories of Winter of girl group aespa and get cheered up by Jang Won-young of Ive.

After abandoning the plan to acquire SM, HYBE said it would cooperate with Kakao on platforms. Both sides are not specifying what kind of cooperation and or what platform they are talking about. If HYBE actually works with Kakao and SM, it is likely to be on a fan platform.

Celebrities from SM may use HYBE’s Weverse, or the other way around. There could be a fan service using Kakao Talk, the main service provided by Kakao, the major shareholder of SM. The K-pop fandom business that started in the 1990s with voice messages from stars on pagers is evolving into a structure that makes more money.