All About Fangirl/Fanboy Culture in VK

Japanese Music
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I guess the point here is that it’s one thing if the crazy is entirely one-sided. From an overseas’ fans perspective, there is no difference between a fan dynamic like this and someone who obsesses over…BTS or something.

But there is the key difference in that the members of BTS don’t know any of their fans personally, unless they are exceptionally wealthy or if they’re like, a true legacy “since the very beginning” fan.
So the vast majority of people obsessing over them have had no back and forth interaction with them, no instances of being singled out by a member, nothing.

I think the more accurate comparison (even though this is a rather extreme example), would be to remember how toxic the Blood on the Dance Floor fandom was at attacking former fans who spoke out. Not because it was anything close to the Swifties or the BTS Army levels of delusion, but because Dahvie Vanity was actively grooming and abusing so many of his teen girl fans. It’s no wonder why so many of them went “crazy” under those circumstances.

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42

Let me weigh in as someone who actually did this lol.

I used to love a certain band. They weren’t amazing musically, but their live shows were genuinely fun, and I felt like the members wanted us to have fun and wanted to be there. I even went so far as to call one of them my honmei. (This was around 2018, so 6-7 years ago.)

I moved back to my home country for a few years and then moved back to japan in 2022. Of course I was excited to go back to seeing my “favorite” band and my honmei. They had barely released any new music in the 4 years I was gone. Covid had been hard on the members, and my honmei, who did all the songwriting, was burnt out.

I went to see 3 shows. None of them were as fun as the one I went to in 2018.

  1. They had been losing fans over the 4 years because there wasn’t any new music + girl drama + other drama with the other members
  2. There was some infighting with the die-hard fans that was (supposedly) really annoying in the front rows
  3. The band started half-assing their performances on stage. The vocalist somehow sounded worse than in 2018, my “honmei” wasn’t really playing his instrument well anymore.

I didn’t care about that. I still wanted to support them, because I wanted them to stay afloat. I wasn’t doing it because I wanted them to notice me or date me - I wanted them to keep making new music. It didn’t matter that they didn’t sound as good because I thought I could still have fun at the shows.

That is until a certain event happened. The event was a free thing where the members would be outside in the wild in Shibuya, and if you found them, you got a 2-shot and a free ticket to their show that night. (If you know who the band is, pls don’t mention it in this thread. I don’t want this comment to attract attention.)

So I went to Shibuya to participate. I found my honmei, he had the tickets in hand. I was standing at the back of the line. But once it was my turn, he looked me in the eye and then turned around, found a few tourists and started talking to them instead. He handed away his last tickets.

I walked up to the staff member who was chaperoning him and asked for the tickets. She said “Uhhh… Those were his last…” And then my honmei turned to look at me, and he said, “Oh, I didn’t know you wanted any from me. I thought you already had tickets.” I had to ask for my 2-shot, and he just looked uninterested in the photo.

Keep in mind that until then, I had never been to an instore, never been to the front, never even interacted with him. And I didn’t want to! I just wanted to participate in the damn event! Was it so hard for him to act like a regular musician who’s happy to see that someone wants to see him perform? He wasn’t even that popular to begin with!

I was disappointed, but I went to find the other members for 2 shots anyway. Every single one of them was able to perform. I.e. smile, say thanks for coming, offer to take the photo, and tell me to enjoy the show tonight. That was literally the bare minimum!

After the show, I went home and cried because wtf was I doing? There I was, willing to shell out my hard-earned money because I wanted the band to make music. I wanted to support them, even if their songs all sounded the same. I had spent 4 years outside Japan waiting to come back so that I could have fun again, just like I did in 2018.

My “honmei” had been making mediocre music, but I still wanted to support him! But he didn’t even have the decency to say, “sorry, I’m out of tickets.” I don’t think I was a crazy fangirl for expecting a bandman to do the bare minimum required of him at an event, lol. And he wasn’t even a popular bandman! His band pulls in 300-400 on a good day, lol. I’ve been to meet & greets with bandmen who have sold out stadiums, and all of them had the decency to thank me for attending their events.

TL;DR - Sometimes I think people can be quick to dismiss all bangya behavior as “crazy fangirl shit” because they’re looking in from the outside. But vkei is a small scene that goes both ways. For every batshit crazy buy-10-tickets-to-stand-in-front fan, there are dozens of us who just want to go to lives and attend the occasional instore because we like the band and the bandmen. Why spend money on a bandman who acts like he doesn’t even want you to be there?

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43

Ouch, that’s terrible. Honestly, with that degree of snub, I would do the same thing.

…were they at least VK tourists, or did he just hand the tickets off to random foreigners who were wondering what this flamboyantly dressed man was doing in the middle of Shibuya?

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44

Sometimes I find myself surprised at the size of the egos in some of the men, and the depth of the loneliness and insecurity in some of the girls and women. The former makes me a bit angry and the latter makes me a bit sad. Perhaps I’m biased, but I think some of these men need to be taken down a peg or two.

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45

100% Random foreigners who were staring at the heavily made up man with fake blood on his shirt.

He handed them the flyers, they said no, they couldn’t make it, he made them take them and told them to try to see the show.

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46

I never felt like I was being put in the “fan zone” :grimacing:. All the members are kind and still treat me the same as before. Honestly, we’ve gotten even closer after three years.

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Ooof that was hard to read, I am so sorry :people_hugging: He sounds like an absolute asshole. I feel like in your situation dropping the band is perfectly reasonable and maybe the ones on twt were too, they just did not elaborate on what actually happened. The image in my mind was more of someone going to an event and expecting their favourite to give them special attention because they are a long time fan or something. But expecting to get the same treatment as any other fan at an event is in no way unreasonable. And for a member to behave that way is absolutely unprofessional and frankly they deserve to have their careers flop.

I don’t know if my previous posts made me sound like it but I don’t really agree with the “they don’t owe you anything” crowd either. Because I think every person is owed basic respect and that is no different between an artist and a fan. And if they offer something like a M&G or a two shot, whether it is paid or not, they should at the very least put the minimal effort in. I generally tend to really dislike it when artists disrespect their fans. I don’t mean that they should be always deferring to their fans or thanking then at every turn but I just feel like it takes an especially conceited or arrogant person to outright dismiss or disrespect the people who support them. So usually if I see anyone doing that, I try to avoid them if I can. It sucks if the music is good but I can’t really respect someone who acts like that.

It is not like you can always know that in advance though and I would be absolutely heartbroken if something like what you described happened to me or even if I saw/heard my favourite treating another fan that way for no reason. I don’t know what I would do honestly, because he has given me so much through his art over the years but I would not be able to look at him the same after something like that. I don’t know if this sounds unkind (I don’t mean to) but in a way I feel you were almost lucky that everything else with the band (music, skill, lives) was also in a downward spiral. Not to say it would ever be easy to drop a long time favourite but I would imagine it would be even harder if everything else was still amazing and it was just that one bad experience poisoning the whole thing.

I admit I kinda dropped DeG in the late 00’s because they started saying they did not want teenage girls as their fans since they did not understand good music. But at that point I also hadn’t enjoyed their new releases in a while so it was more just the final nail in the coffin rather than the sole reason. As it seems to have been for you with your band too, although in a much more tangible way. I am so angry at this nameless bandman for you :people_hugging:

(Sidenote regarding DeG: it seems we have both matured some while I was away from the vkei fandom so I might give them another chance again :face_with_hand_over_mouth:)

Editing to add:

I 100% agree with this. I think showing basic respect to their fans and being at the very least professional in their engagements should be the baseline. It is part of the job and if they cannot do that, they don’t deserve to be successful :woman_shrugging:

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48

yes you’re definitely right about that! It was just the final straw on top of everything.
my spouse even consoled me by saying, “don’t be upset–their music isn’t even good anyway!” lol.

I would be way more upset if it was one of my favs who actually sound good, or my current honmei because I think he’s really talented.

Yes exactly!

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49

Your spouse is a keeper, I’m envious you have a life partner who’s a fellow fan and so supportive in your vkei journey too!!

And yes to echo the others I’m so sorry you had to go through that, but I’m very glad you came out stronger!

Oh man ngl, this would absolutely crush me, even though I’ve been telling myself that I will have to steel myself for such possibilities. Low, but never zero. I hope you get plenty of opportunities to make more good memories with your current faves!

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50

This is so real. During the post election craze on Twitter I saw someone say you should never get too invested in any artist. I do agree in principle but I am afraid that ship sailed some 17 years ago for me regarding my honmei :smiling_face_with_tear:

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51

I’m a netgya but, I do think I’ve found my honmei. I’ve been attached to this one bandmen ever since I started getting into vkei that I also talk to regularly, I would probably go bankrupt if they sold cheki online lmao. although I do think honmei just means a bandmen you’re attached to and that is your ultimate favorite

what’s everyone’s thoughts on multiple honmeis though :thinking:

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52

Agreed. it’s just your favourite

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53

I don’t police anyone on their use of it, but it does feel weird to me if someone has multiple honmei at the same time, or their honmei changes every couple months or something. IMO honmei is a term for 1 bandman who is special to you above all else, and it implies a level of dedication that isn’t fleeting. Otherwise they’re just an oshi/bias/fave or whatever term you like to use. It took me almost a year of following my honmei’s activities as a fan before I felt comfortable calling him by that title.

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54

do you feel like that word works for bands too? or is it a word just for individuals?

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Honmeiban (本命盤) is the word for bands

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I feel the exact same. I don’t think it’s anything worth fighting over so I have kinda just accepted that the use of the term in international fandom at least is kinda ambiguous. But I am also kinda sad about the general dilution of the term because I often feel like people are talking about different things when discussing their honmeis.

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F*ck the word, I call it favorite band and that’s it. :triumph:

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It’s unfortunate that I had to bring up the same topic again. One of these so-called “fans” organizing band tours in Europe appears to do it solely to get close to the musicians. She and her team seem emotionally unstable, with none of them able to speak Japanese. They don’t earn any money from these events; instead, they spend excessively just to be near the band members.

One of them even sexually harassed a band member and delusionally believes they’re in a relationship. The last time the band was in Europe, he was reportedly scared she might invade his room again. Another team member, despite living in the city where a concert was held, insisted on staying at the same hotel as the band to be near them. There’s also another person on the team whose sole aim seems to be getting close to the band and feeling superior to others. That person even dared to show off her non-existent music skills infront of the band and the fans at the concert. The band looked very uncomfortable during this.

The cherry on top is a new staff member who schemed her way in by badmouthing someone else to get them removed. She has a history of inappropriate behavior, like sneaking backstage in Japan as a fan, which angered the band, and attempting to manipulate organizer by offering “backstage massages” to gain backstage access. This same person somehow managed to know the band’s sightseeing schedule and “coincidentally” showed up at the same locations.

When I asked band members about the events organized by these “fans,” their reactions were either awkward laughter or outright disapproval. So why would a label continue to work with such a chaotic group? The answer is simple: the greedy boss doesn’t have to pay them a dime.

I just wish there were more professional, reliable options for bands to tour Europe. They deserve better than this mess.

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59

I am gonna be blunt, but are we talking about VKbeats here? Where one member I remember tried to crowdfund for Zeke Deux with her own private account and with the band having never aknowledged the crowdfunding?

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60

I’m hoping that with this recent resurgence, some more actual promoters will start being willing to work with VK bands.

I did meet someone on the trip with a bit of an “in” with Anime North, but the main problem there is that the board are kind of stuck in their ways and are behind the curve by a few years. When VK bands have been proposed to them recently, it’s all “Oh, VK is dead. Nobody is interested in that anymore”.

I’m not too familiar with this group, do they mainly just do shows in Germany?

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