Why do I see East Asian music videos popping up randomly on Twitter?

TWICE, a group commonly found in Twitter fan cams

The Internet is filled with stars and their stans (basically, fan accounts that dedicate the entire account to post videos and photos of the star/idol). Often they just post the videos and photos in their own profile. Sometimes, they post them as a reply under popular posts, hoping to get more views.

There was a time when K-Pop stans were sharing fan cams to completely random Twitter threads that have no relevance to them. Their only aim was to increase the views of their idol's videos and the reach of the idol. These stans are not necessarily from South Korea. Their love for K-Pop music unites them. Their posts' had a short lifetime since others find it quite annoying and report them instantly for spam every time they post.

10M views for this iconic Jihyo Fancy fancam
🎉🎉🎉pic.twitter.com/jHfbIcKh9W

— Netichi 🍭☺️ | JIHYO 앙글이 💛 (@TwiceHyoLeader) August 20, 2020

 

Then came 2020

Like everything else of 2020, K-Pop fan cams unexpectedly faced a paradigm shift. They formed as a left-leaning political force in the USA. From what I know, this change happened in a decentralized manner. There was no leadership or careful planning. What they did was simple. Many random stans independently targeted hateful hashtags, and then post a cute fan cam of their idol with the respective hashtag of their idols -- for example,  #TWICE. Then everyone else of the idol's hashtag did the same. #[IDOL-NAME] #[HATEFUL-TAG] and boom, the hateful hashtags became music libraries! K-Pop won, hateful hashtags lost.

Instead of stanning racism, y’all should stan Twice #WhiteLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/creXfqMh7K

— @k._.wallpaper on instagram ♕ (@chaeryeongsyuna) June 3, 2020

Interestingly, this pattern also extended to J-Pop and C-Pop to a smaller extent. For example, I noticed a few fan cams of #SNH48 C-Pop girl group popping up to dilute the racist hashtags. Eventually, K-Pop stans also conquered TikTok. People started noticing only after the stans had already made a difference in the USA political scene.

 

 

Consequently, people's perceptions changed. Most tweeps (i.e., Twitter users) started to see the K-Pop stans more and more positively. People stopped marking fan cams as spam. I certainly stopped reporting them altogether!

I decided to test this. I tagged #Twice on a hateful post from a "verified" account. Yep, I got the response back from some stans as a video reply.

 

Another time, I had an interaction similar to this:

 

Stan: People should be kind to each other #[HATEFUL-HASHTAG] [A random video from TWICE].

Me: That's a beautiful video, thanks for your service.

Stans: Thanks for your kind words. #[HATEFUL-HASHTAG] [Another random video from TWICE]. 

 

 

It works

The stans are diluting hateful hashtags, taking over the Internet with their cute fan cams. You may consider it a spam. They even risk an account suspension, as indeed their behavior fits the typical profile of a spammer. But they are always harmless.

 

Such replies annoy a racist or a troll.

It goes like this: 

 

Racist: [some nasty stuff]

Stan: [random-fan-cam]

Racist: [some more nasty stuff]

Stan: [another-random-fan-cam]

 

The racist gets all worked up and loses his/her energy. But a stan doesn't lose his/her cool. The racist says nasty things to them. He/she will get a reply, yet another fan cam. You may mistake the stans as bots. But they are not. They are cool people out there, conquering the Internet with fan cams.

K-Pop fan cams are the new cat videos of the Internet! Yes, 2020 y'all.

 

Now, if you see me replying on Twitter fights with K-Pop, C-Pop, or any random music videos, you know where I got the motivation from.

 

The sexual tension between random trolls replying to my tweets and my YouTube playlist.https://t.co/N74R9IQsF4

— Pradeeban (@pradeeban) August 23, 2020

For actual Twitter wars, we shouldn't give too much variety in the videos in our replies. That derails the purpose. Best to stick to one artist or a girl group such as #TWICE. For added moral support, add their recent tags. #TWICE_Beyond_LIVE#트와이스#MOREandMORE

The Jeju Algorithm

I like to travel with minimal or random plans. Traveling to Jeju was remarkable. But it did give some challenges in unplanned random moves, due to the language barrier. Google maps were showing in Korean. It is easy to read sentences in foreign languages as long as the language is written in a script that you can read (such as a Latin script). But that is not the case with Korean.

The locals in Jeju were amicable and came towards to help us with directions even without we asking. But unfortunately, most of them were able to speak only Korean. Then, there are information screens in every other bus stop. Though they are supposed to work in many languages including Korean, English, and Chinese, the touch screen was not working correctly, and it was nearly impossible to change the language in many of those machines. Buses had the information in English, such as the next stop, and the stop after that.

We had to go to a place in the main street. We know that it is a straight line. But several buses were going on the road along the direction. We decided to get on a random bus. We planned to stay on the bus as long as it goes straight. But unfortunately, at the next stop, it turned to a side road in the right. We got down and returned to the main street, and boarded another bus in the next stop. This bus also turned left after two stops. Finally, we asked a foreigner. He did not know the location that we are talking about. But when I told him that we need to go in a straight line, it is probably number 105 (not the actual number he mentioned. I just forgot what he said at this time. So let's assume that is 105 for the sake of this blog post). He warned us that he is not so sure. Then we were waiting. Another bus came. But not number 105. We decided to continue our Jeju algorithm. Our Jeju algorithm works with limited knowledge and certain assumptions. The path is definitely in a straight line, and there is at least one bus that reaches the destination. There is, of course, no direct bus between our origin and destination. We boarded this bus though it is not number 105. Luckily, the bus indeed took us to the destination. Not bad. We reached the destination by using three buses. Ideally, we should have used only two buses. But as our algorithm is not optimized, we ended up with three buses. :D Our return trip was tuned with the knowledge gained, and we returned merely with just one transit (using two buses).

Though this was not, of course, an optimal experience (we wasted some time and money for the bus fare for each leg of our trip). But it did leave us with some exciting memory to talk about for the years to come. :D

Inconsistencies at the Airports

Raspberry and Green Tea KitKat from Jeju

Airport security can be confusing. In the US airports, you should remove your shoes and belt, and also take out the laptop and big tablets from your bag, as you pass through the security scanner. Elsewhere, it is not necessary to remove your shoes as long as the shoes do not look bulky or big. In China, I found that removing belt is not necessary. However, in addition to the laptop, you should also take the camera, power bank, and umbrellas out. It is interesting to note these differences though I am not quite sure of the reasoning behind these choices.

Traveling is always fun, though preparing for it and its aftermath are not always fun. Due to deadlines and busy schedules, I usually have to work while on travels too. This time was no exception, with a deadline to submit my paper coming close by. However, it is all good memories.