Stop Babying Idols: Let Them Be Adults

Bottom line: babying idols is weird. Don’t do it. First of all, most idols are adults. They are not children, and they do not want to be treated as such. It is especially strange if they are older than you. A large portion of the kpop community is teenagers. Babying an idol who is ten years older than you is really weird. Additionally, there is another issue I'd like to address. Not so much coming from the fan side, but from idols. If idols want to be treated like adults, they'd better act like it, which includes taking responsibility for their actions. Idols should not be letting fans defend lazy performances, poor vocals, or anything like that. They are also supposed to be professionals. Concerts are not middle school recitals; they are performances that fans are paying to go to. And if you haven’t heard, concerts are expensive. If an idol is injured or sick, that’s a different story, but they should have the highest level of professionalism and should be giving these performances their all. In addition, when it comes to controversy, idols better acknowledge what they did, apologize, and take the time to understand what they did wrong, or why some might have been offended, even if they don’t agree. I’m going to use Hwasa’s university performance, where the parent-student association called the police on her because they thought it was inappropriate. (Just to get my personal opinion out of the way, I personally think that calling for an investigation by the police was a complete overreaction. It was an adults-only performance, and what she did was not even that bad.) Hwasa was supposed to be the professional; she should have been the bigger person. Her dismissive response was not okay (I can’t find exactly what she said). Objectively, she was right since the chargers were dropped, but she should have at least acknowledged why some might have thought that it was too inappropriate for a university festival. 

The Second thing I want to talk about is agyeo. If you don’t know, agyeo is when idols act cute and do baby voices. This often happens on variety shows to appeal to fans. It is clear that most idols don’t like doing it, and even if an idol likes to lean into their cute side as part of their image, it is still really strange when they are being forced to sing nursery rhymes in a baby voice. Even though most idols don’t like doing it, they are still encouraged to do it because fans like it, and companies are trying to play into fans' desires. This is because their main objective is to perpetuate parasocial obsessions that fans have with idols. These companies are businesses, and their main objective is to make money. Perpetuation of parasocial relationships encourages fans to continue to buy merchandise, listen to music, go to concerts, and interact with their content. Side note - I’m sure there are creeps out there that this appeals to, but i’ve never actually met a fan before that genuinely likes agyeo, so I’m not sure why it is still encouraged for idols to do.