Hello readers and fellow K-pop fans, Today I am here to talk about something that has been happening since the genre of K-pop came into play which is: Fan Wars. In this post, I will be talking about different fandom wars that have happened over the course of the years that K-pop has been out and how it is harming the reputation of K-pop as a whole, making people less interested in joining the K-pop fandom.
Just like the many fandom wars in America like the Swifties versus the Selenators, there are various similar fandom wars in the K-pop world that go back to the early days of K-pop from the early 90s to the present time in K-pop. But let’s define what a fan war is, to begin with for those of you that don’t know what I am talking about.
A fan war is a fight between two different fandoms on which fandom is better. The fights have been both online and offline with many debates, yet many of the wars are on online platforms, forums, websites, and social media websites. While many fans may consider these wars to be defending and supporting the artists that they love, this process is carried out by downplaying other fandoms and/ or their idols.
Let’s talk about some fan wars from the many generations of K-pop.
One of the first well-known fandom wars back in the early days of K-pop was the fandom war between the groups H.O.T and Sechsikes. Both of these groups were very well known during the time and had very devoted and large fandom bases. During the time of this fandom war, fans would often meet up, argue, and fight right before an award presentation that involved the groups being nominated. During this time, the fandom leader gained the same reputation as a true K-pop idol that power could only be helped by individuals who have the bravery to fight other fandoms to defend their idols.
Once the fandom leader started the fight, hundreds of fans would rush to join the fight creating a HUGE melee. Fans have recalled during this fandom war that the police were even called to stop the fistfights between the H.O.T and Sechsikes fans back then.
This fan war was even recreated in the K-drama series “Reply 1997”.
Super Junior ELFs versus Girls Generations SONEs
No one truly knows when this fandom war truly started between the Girls Generation and Super Junior fans but it was a very long battle between them. There have been some people that have mentioned that this war started when Super Junior released their iconic hit “Mr. Simple” and others think it started before that.
But regardless of how it started, the fans often fired shots at one another and some ELFs claimed that SONEs said cruel things about them while some SONEs blamed ELFs for the “black ocean” (happens when members of a kpop fandom, sometimes multiple turns off their lightsticks, during a group’s performance resulting in dead air) at the 2008 Dream Concert. Eventually, netizens noticed later on that the war between the two fandoms stopped very suddenly, we don’t truly know what made the two fandoms stop but I am glad that things ended peacefully between the two fandoms.
EXO’s EXO-L’s Versus B.A.P’s Baby’s
Back in 2012, both EXO and B.A.P were nominated for Rookie of the Year at the MAMA Awards. There was a heated debate between both fandoms about who deserved it more which lead to the creation of a YouTube video that further intensified that war between the two fandoms back then. The fandom ended up ending with a shocking twist of events when the group Busker Busker ended up winning the award and the term “Busker Buskered” was made.
Girls Generation SONE’s Versus 2NE1’s Blackjacks
In 2014, the fandom war between SONE’s and Blackjacks started off on a rocky foot. The controversy of the fight between the fandom started with Girls Generation’s timeless hit “Mr. Mr.”, 2NE1’s “Come Back Home”, and 4Minute’s “Whatcha Doin’ Today?” were pitted against one another on SBS’ Inkigayo back then. While the 4Minute fans decided not to get involved, SONE’s and Blackjacks were convinced that their group was going to win. At the time, it seemed like that’s all that people could talk about, and even idols from other groups were asked to pick sides like EXO’s Chanyeol during the show, “Roommate”.
The whole fan war ended up being pointless when 4Minute ended up getting the award on Inkigayo. But it wasn’t the end of the fan war. The two fandoms continued to face off against one another when both Girls Generation and 2NE1 were nominated for both Artist of the Year and Best Female Group at the 2014 MAMA Awards, both fandoms continued to defend their groups until the winner was announced and that’s when things finally started to calm down between the two fandoms. Back then, SISTAR took home the Best Female Artist Award and EXO took home the Artist of The Year Award.
Big Bang’s VIPs versus EXO’s EXO-Ls
Back in 2015, There was a big rivalry between both the EXO-L’s and VIPs when “Love Me Right” by EXO and “Loser” by Big Bang were pitted against each other on SBS’ Inkigayo and M Countdown. Around this time, There were many accusations of Mnet favoring one of the groups over the other and if they weren’t the fans thought that they were cheating. Mnet tried to step in and say that there was an error in votes and they were working on fixing them.
A quote from Mnet “The page was closed, but someone gained access through some kind of negative method. Because of this, there was still access and the vote count went up causing the voting page to be opened once again. We need to confirm where this method was activated from, but only the tallied data up to 9 P.M. was reflected in the final scores.”
The fight continued until one EXO fan posted a video of herself burning a photo of BigBang’s Taeyang with EXO’s “Mama” playing in the background. Other EXO-L’s were shocked at her actions and expressed their outrage toward her actions.
Girls Generation’s SONE’s versus Twice’s ONCE’s
Back when Twice was debuting after the lineup of Twice was chosen in their survival program “Sixteen”, their success was skyrocketing as they began their music journey. But the SONE fandom and many others kept finding various similarities and comparisons to Girls Generation from Twice’s Discography. Netizens commented “Since Twice is also a nine-member group, people are calling them the next SNSD. Who Do You think is there is an equivalent in SNSD?” “What’s a Twice?” “Who the fuck is this Twice everyone is making threads about and can someone post their MV so that I can make an actual judgement?”
Onces targeted back with things like “It’s funny how this group have 9 members and all SNSD fans are so salty. Twice is going to end SNSD’s career when their debut”. “SNSD is old, people don’t care about them anymore, Twice is a new young group with 9 members, I prefer them. SNSD need to separate already, it’s time.” The similarity of their fandom names came into play later on, even though the names have different meanings, the sound and pronunciation are both very familiar, SONE (Sowuan) and Once (Wuans). Both groups came to their popularity with their cute/ aegyo image.
In 2015, The issue of Twice being a “cheaper copy” of SNSD received a spotlight moment during their promotions for “Cheer Up”. Although the concept of a cheerleader has been used in a lot of groups, netizens were starting to say that there was a strong resemblance of SNSD’s “Oh” to Twice’s “Cheer Up” and also claimed that SM Entertainment was getting copied by JYP Entertainment for the group’s concept and style. But after all the comparisons and similarities, the real fan war between Once’s and Sone’s began after Twice was called “The New Nation’s Girl Group”. Twice were starting to become the most popular girl group in the new generation of K-pop and Sone’s were very angry that Twice didn’t have even two years in the industry at the time and fans started to call them by that title.
Not only Sone’s but other fandoms were shocked and offended on South Korea’s decision to start calling them with that big and important title. Sone’s and other fandoms started to express their disagreement saying the differences in between both groups and the true reality of Twice. This also offended Once’s, who also started to write truths about SNSD’s popularity and more offensive stuff.
Twice is currently considered one of the top girl groups in the world right now but SNSD will always have that legendary spot since both groups have had a HUGE rise in success in their careers and have gotten some of the biggest and highest-ranking awards for their groups.
Blackpink’s Blinks versus BTS’ A.R.M.Y Twitter War
Currently happening, There is a HUGE fan war happening between Blinks and A.R.M.Y. You might have heard about the outrageous tweets and conflicts happening on K-pop Twitter between these two fandoms. Lots of Blinks recently started to spread hate about the BTS members and it even went as far as Blinks making a group space telling horrible jokes and hate speech in the name of an “opinion”. What were they talking about you may be wondering?
Blinks went as far as making rape jokes specifically targeting Jimin of BTS and even made rape jokes about the A.R.M.Y fandom as well. Not only this but constant body shaming, slut shaming, fat shaming, transphobic, and xenophobic comments about the members of BTS. A quote from the Twitter user fetishpinks from Twitter said “I actually have a very valid opinion, I think Jimin of BTS is in fact a woman. I have never seen a buldge in his pants so I think he has a vagina. or maybe the myth about asian men and their “down there” area is true.”
The Blinks also made jokes about Taehyung’s dead grandma with hurtful photos and quotes as well. In another group space on Twitter, there were very racist comments against A.R.M.Y’s in the group space. With all this, it lead to a hashtag going on viral on Twitter for #blackpinkdisband which it was never the girls’ fault so, the fandoms are just really at each others’ throats.
Luckily, more positive hashtags have been active lately on Twitter and no harm was done to Blackpink or BTS. But personally, I don’t think A.R.M.Y and Blinks will really have peace in this war.
Treasure’s Treasure Makers versus Enhypen’s Engenes
Treasure and Enhypen’s fandoms are constantly fighting over, view streams, awards, and now lightsticks. Both groups were formed by a survival show that was made by their companies and both debuted in 2020 and won many Rookie Awards. Apart from this, they really have nothing in common.
People have said that they fight because of their classic HYBE versus YG rivalry but a part from that there’s honestly no reason. Both groups have extremely talented members and have their own specialties but the fandom can’t seem to see that at all.
New Jeans’ Bunnies versus Baby Monster Fans
Now, for me personally, I think this has to be the weirdest fight, because why is a fandom of a newly debuted group fighting a fandom of a group that hasn’t even debuted yet?
Bunnies are comparing the likes and engagements on Baby Monster’s post to be privileged while Baby Monster fans are saying that Baby Monster will end New Jeans. This situation is very similar to A.R.M.Y versus Blinks and is another classic representation of the HYBE versus YG rivalry.
Aespa’s My’s Versus ITZY’s Midzy
This fandom war started because of the titles of 4th generation leaders that was announced recently. The groups don’t even have similar styles of music, styling, or concept and the groups have very cute and adorable interactions with one another yet the fandoms are always fighting.
Now, I am sure there are plenty more down the line as many more groups are debuting daily and their fandoms are growing. A lot of the time it really affects the artists and groups that work so hard for us to give us great music, fun variety content, and more on top of them being human beings. There have even been times, idols have stepped in to shut down the fan wars. Here are 2 examples.
Bangchan of Stray Kids
As Stray Kids are one of the most successful K-pop groups next to BTS belonging to the 3rd and 4th generations of the K-Pop music industry. Their fandoms A.R.M.Y and Stay have been in many fierce fan fights for a long time now. The rivalry was brought to an end during an episode of Chan’s Room on January 8th, 2022. The leader made countless praises to BTS calling them legends and removing any doubts about BTS’ contribution in paving the way for K-pop into the mainstream music industry. Both A.R.M.Ys and Stays who saw the video clips couldn’t help but give Bangchan a ton of support and commented about his kindness and humility towards BTS.
Rose of Blackpink
BLINKs and ONCEs are another set of two fandoms that have engaged in intense fan wars multiple times on social media platforms. Both of these groups are third-generation idols and have many incredible achievements. The “TWICEPINK” friendship broke when the internet saw that Rose and Chaeyoung went on a cozy dinner date together in Itaewon, Seoul, South Korea. The duo have interacted at award shows before and many other events which showed how close the idols really were and how they don’t let the toxic rivalries stop them from having fun in their daily lives.
As you can see from the post, the fandom wars in the K-pop community have a wide range of severities and how each one deals with the issues. Now, I personally think that this behavior between the fandoms needs to stop, many of these groups and artists are close friends and often hang out and work together on many projects. A lot of these fights are honestly unnecessary and do more harm than good.
So, before you make a very hateful comment on another group’s forum page, Twitter, or any other social media site, remember that these idols just want you to enjoy the music that they put out and not focus on the negative of things while being a fan of theirs.
If you happen to come across a fandom war that is currently happening, don’t feel like you need to make your input, just simply ignore it and move on from the situation at hand. With all the things that happen in the K-pop world, I’m sure you can find another thing to distract you.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this topic about fan wars. I will see you in the next post!
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