Public reception of young K-pop fans in Vietnam, 2011–19

Abstract

"Water buffalo youth," "mixed-race," and "out of control" are notable mainstream terms publicly used to refer to Korean popular music (hereafter "K-pop") fans in Vietnam. In a de-Westernization of fandom studies via a Vietnamese case study of the complicated relationship between nationalistic discourses and transcultural fandom, a cultural frame surrounding mainstream online news representations and public reception of young K-pop fans may be constructed, specifically the dominant shift in the mainstream narrative about Vietnamese K-pop fans between 2011 and 2019 in relation to politicized notions of shame and pride. These findings reveal and complicate various cultural, political, and ideological subjectivities of contemporary Vietnam that are similar to China's ambiguous reception of the Korean Wave. Studying a global and transcultural phenomenon like K-pop in different national contexts remains relevant and important.