Blackpink queers your area: the global queerbaiting and queer fandom of K-pop female idols

Abstract

ABSTRACT This entry discusses the global queerbaiting and queer fannish discourses surrounding the K-pop girl band Blackpink. I examine some key moments in the music group’s tantalization of female same-sex intimacies and its global fans’ queer reading practices. My analysis shows that while queerbaiting encourages a global queering of the female idols, the contextual specificities of contemporary global K-pop industry facilitate a particular kind of queer fantasies that simultaneously contributes to a global LGBTQ visibility and the social policing of its idols’ (hetero-)sexual innocence and desirability.