Let me start off making a few things clear: I'm an Eyekon. The Katseye girls are all lovely, wonderful, beautiful, and talented. None of what I'm about to write is any dig towards them. While I don't think anyone is above some amount of constructive criticism, nothing of what I'm talking about here is a judgment towards the girls. I get anyone in the public eye with fans is going to have to deal with some amount of parasocial relationships (and drama), especially in the K-pop community, but that doesn't mean we should view unhealthy or damaging parasocial interactions as expected, normal, or acceptable! On to my rant: It feels like every other day there's new Katseye drama distracting away from just being able to enjoy the fandom talking about the girls. From a member being missing to the girls hanging out with Dream Academy friends to complaints about choreo, line distribution, and styling, on and on. There's always something, more often than other groups I've been a fan of especially when they're still so new. I've seen comments like "I can't believe they have fans like this" and "Why are eyekons so parasocial towards the girls?" I can believe it. And I can tell you why: Because of HybexGeffen. Like yes, ultimately, it's the fans' responsibility to JUST BE NORMAL when stanning a group, but the type of fans that have been drawn to Katseye aren't going to be normal because of the way HybexGeffen have marketed them - they have pushed Katseye towards a dangerous combo of people: The survival show and documentary were made to market them towards people who love both control and drama. The survival show was sick and twisted within itself, but that would be a whole other rant - the main point here is that any fan who jumps in at this point feels invested in the group because they feel like they had some sort of say in the group. They got to vote and feel like they were going through the trenches with the girls, working hard to get their girl to win (like a sports fan rooting for their team). They feel like they had some sort of control over the group and we see that mindset continued today whenever you see fans say how the girls should be dressed, marketed, dancing, etc. The documentary added plot lines, story, conflict, etc. into the whole ordeal aka drama. And yes, while for the girls this drama was years ago, for a fan jumping in now, it was 5 minutes ago. Their frustration or discomfort with a situation will be fresh and it's all because HxG made moments that should have been fleeting into a permanent fixture within the girls' filmography. Someone discovering Katseye and wanting to watch all that they have to offer will eventually come across the documentary (or discover them from the documentary) and have to process how they feel about certain ancient situations in real time, hopefully not leaving with a bad taste in their mouth towards certain members (or other Dream Academy girls). Either way, fans who are being pulled in here are already drawn towards reality television and drama. Those appeals aren't just going to suddenly go away once they're following the group. Especially because a lot of these fans are so young. Katseye appeared on Kids Choice Awards and in a bunch of teen mags. They've been asked even before debut of how they want to influence/inspire young girls. Obviously their fans are intended to be younger. And young people aren't exactly known for forming rational, healthy relationships with people they see online. On its own, there's nothing wrong with wanting a younger fanbase (financially, it makes a lot of sense), but what throws me off here is when combined with my first point, you're leading into dangerous territory and also their most recent work seems less kid-friendly than their first album. Wanting a young (under 18) fanbase is fine, but this does not feel like it's being done responsibly. So much of the foundation of Katseye's fanbase were K-pop fans who are also not exactly known for forming rational, healthy relationships with their idols. And this was so clearly intentional on HxG's part, I'm not even going to go too much into it (Appearances on K-pop music shows, Korean variety shows, and recently Spotify's K-pop On & Off). TLDR: So all-in-all, you have promotions that purposely draw in very young K-pop fans who love drama and playing Build-A-Group. While yes, fans should continue to be held accountable to their strange behavior towards the girls and taught why it's not appropriate, I think we need to also stop acting like it's some random coincidence that so many parasocial, drama-obsessed fans crawled out the woodworks to stan this particular group. HxG specifically marketed Katseye towards these sorts of people and that needs to be called out more. I don't even think this is inherently bad on paper, but when you look at it and the results as a whole, it feels irresponsible and like the fandom is being set up for insanity. Sidenote: I did not mention here their Lives because, again, I don't think any of this is the girls' fault. BUT I wanted to add this note that how often they would go Live + HxG's marketing definitely did not help with the parasocial interactions. The girls should be able to go live without having to worry about racist or strange, controlling parasocial comments (on their bodies, sexualities, relationships, etc.) But the kind of fans the documentary and heavy K-pop promotion have drawn in has unfortunately led to their lives and instas being flooded with weirdness. submitted by /u/Impossible-Pen-798 [link] [comments]