Have you ever noticed eager fans cheering for their favorite idols or seen your friends talking about Asian dramas and just think that living in East Asia would be “perfect?” Seeing fans buying merchandise to seeing fans stalk idols, the obsession is alive as ever.
In recent years, there has been a skyrocket in East Asian content, ranging from Korean pop groups to beauty trends. Supporting East Asian entertainment has been crucial, considering the racism and violence many endured in the past, such as during COVID-19. While it is impressive how many people continue to support East Asian entertainment, do some fans take it too far?
Social media is one of the main reasons that East Asian culture is now more accepted than before. Shows like “Fresh Off the Boat” portray the experiences of East Asians who were laughed at or bullied because of their culture, appearance and heritage. Now the culture that was once looked down upon and mocked has now been praised and considered trendy. Instead of shying away, creators are sharing their recipes and posting makeup tutorials on popular East Asian makeup styles all over social media, receiving praise and popularity.
Idols and artists from East Asia have reached a wider audience past their home country, with many fans listening to their music and podcasts, watching their dances and creating fan bases due to their love of idols. Idols are purposely portrayed as cute and charismatic, a Korean cultural attitude known as “aegyo.” This flirty, playful behavior is used in entertainment spheres to attract fans and has helped many gain popularity.
Unfortunately, this attitude has taken a disturbing turn, going from admiration to obsession. These intensive fans, or better known as “sasaengs” in Korean, have obsessively engaged in fetishizing, stalking, making inappropriate content and invading idols’ privacy. Consequently, the trauma has caused mental health crises and even led some idols to leave the industry.
It is not just idols that many are fetishizing in the media, but also other East Asians on a daily basis. Hollywood has a tendency to portray East Asian characters with typical stereotypes. Hollywood’s display of East Asian stereotypes through insensitive humor has left a lasting impact, blurring the line between the fictitious representation of these stereotypes and reality.
For instance, a harmful stereotype of East Asian women is that they are submissive, quiet and sexual. In “The World of Suzie Wong,” an American artist Robert Lomax meets a young Chinese woman Suzie Wong. The movie is centered around their love story, but Wong is portrayed as helpless, sexualized and an object, while Lomax is the “white savior.” Such films not only perpetuate stereotypes, but East Asian women are put out to be objects and in need of a savior. These harmful stereotypes displayed in films have fostered unhealthy obsessions surrounding East Asians.
Anime and other online cartoons have also reached a worldwide audience, with many enjoying the art of different creators. The intense plotlines and graphics attract fans into watching. While the diversity of different cultural entertainments is amazing, a large portion of anime is sexualized and fetishized. Anime over the years has been created to appear to make their characters more attractive and sexualized to attract viewers. One may even argue that some shows focus more on how attractive and sexual a character is rather than the plotline.
While popular Asian dramas such as “True Beauty,” “Extraordinary You,” and “Boys Over Flowers” display East Asian culture beautifully, they also tend to display lifestyle from a preferable perspective, exaggerating reality. Fans then become obsessed with the idea that the character’s life is realistic.
However, what fans fail to realize is that dramas tend to leave out important details to pay more attention to the plot, like the harsh pressure and stress an East Asian student endures. It may seem like common news to many that East Asian schools are very academically intense, but it seems to be a fact ignored by fans. There have been trends and posts centering around the obsession of East Asian schools and even the desire to attend these schools. The stress and pressure are simply disregarded and covered by dramas that glamorize East Asian schools and lifestyle. As a result, students’ hard work is overlooked due to the unrealistic obsession over East Asian schools.
Stress and pressure also expand past academics, with the demanding East Asian beauty standards being discussed for their extreme measures, emphasizing pale white skin, a V-shaped face and an extremely skinny figure. What the beauty standard fails to realize is that the unhealthy limits many go through just to fit in should not be normalized, and definitely not fetishized.
The perception of East Asian culture has led to an obsession and a trend. While the beauty and arts of the culture are meant to be appreciated, the differentiation between admiration and infatuation is essential to address to create a more respectful understanding of East Asian culture and lifestyle.
