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Sasaeng Fans: Beyond Admiration Essays

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You know that you have become an obsessed fan when you start to stalk celebrities everywhere. There are stalking that takes place online and offline for fans. It is a common thing for normal fans to follow celebrities on social networking sites. On the other contrary, sasaeng fans are the ones that take place offline. They will follow a celebrity all the way to their salon, shows, and house. In other words, they will follow them 24/7 if they can. In South Korea, an obsessed fan of a celebrity is referred to as a sasaeng fan. Sasaeng fans are specifically fans of K-pop (Korean-pop) celebrities. Sasaeng fans are located all over the world, but there are more …show more content…

Even website servers have been down because there is too much competition in buying tickets. One cannot underestimate the obsession and competitiveness of a fan. The wave brought an increase in fans, and some turned into sasaeng fans. I was affected by it as well during the early days of K-pop. I remember I started watching Korean variety shows and dramas on television when I was seven years old. I would watch television all day and not go out to meet new friends. I remembered that I would tell my parents to record a certain variety show with a video home system tape if I know that I would miss it. It was becoming harder for me to socialize with people around me. Things got worse when I started using a computer. Internet seems like a more powerful place than a television. It was a whole new world for me because I could look up information on idols like their blood type and birth dates. I would surf online all day just to see breaking news on idols. I am able to watch all the old shows I missed and even wait for new episodes to watch. If an idol sets up a social network account, I will follow it immediately. If someone had asked me to name all twelve members of the idol group EXO, I would be able to. I wonder if this is what a normal fan goes through before turning into the sasaeng fan stage. In the late nineties, I was only around three or four years old. I did not know anything on K-pop or the existence of sasaengs, but I did know of some

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