Not your fandom, not your problem? Cosmopolitan solidarities and fissures among transnational K-pop fans

Abstract

In this paper, I examine online negotiations of transnational fan identities through the K-pop boy group Neo Culture Technology or NCT. Many studies have focused on how transnational fandoms can foster intercultural understanding among fans, but few have sought to understand the ways that pop culture products can re-inscribe racial and ethnic identities. This study explores how this re-inscription happens on Twitter, as the social media site helps form digital fan communities and enable their relationships with pop culture texts and each other. Through an intertextual analysis of public tweets containing the hashtags #boycott_resonance, #boycott_resonance, and #NCTApologize, I unpack how the issue within the fandom facilitates performances of cosmopolitan identities. I argue that transnational fans perform and instrumentalize cosmopolitan solidarities and cosmopolitan fissures for both fannish and political ends through consumerist expectation, authentic marginalization, and fannish territorialization. By extension, they collectively construct a cosmopolitan identity and ethics unique to fandom.