Are Western fans the settlers, the colonizers of K-pop?

Okay, I know that's a strong statement. But let's think about it. Most Western fans have been aware of K-pop for a hot minute. Japanese fans, Chinese, all those SE Asian fans who care so deeply about K-pop have been

supporting the outward expansion, the growth beyond Korea's borders of this industry for 20 + years.

Now you've got newly minted English-speaking K-pop fans convinced they get to decide --or even dictate-- to the industry and to each other. It seems like there is some

(perhaps totally unintentional) Western privilege and this has meant silencing of the Korean, East Asian, and Southeast Asian fans on whom this industry was built.

Now, there are some reasons for English-speaking Western fans to think they are the center of the universe--

the industry has long seen America as the Holy Grail. That success in America meant everything. Consequently when the Western media opens the doors a crack, K-pop jumps. And the Western fans have been super useful in taking that crack and pushing open the whole darn door.

So the industry (and the artists) are courting the Western fans through Western TV appearances, interviews in Western magazines, and so on, and of course this makes the Western fans feel like they are the important frontier. That their voices matter (more).

I ask everyone, please, listen to other fans as equals. English speaking fans are not more important. The opinions of English speaking fans are not more important. You're the settlers who arrived in the country that ALREADY had a population. Act like it. Learn the local culture.

Listen to the other fans, the ones who got there first. Respect their ideas. Hope for artists to appear on their local award shows, their late night TV shows, get interviewed by their local journalists. Support the artists giving love to those fans, too.

Yes, I'm American. But after living for 16 years in Korea, I know America is not the center of the world.

In fact, Korea is *still* the center of the K-pop world. But that's the topic for a different thread.

To be clear, I am *not* talking about long-term fans in the English-speaking world who did EXTREMELY important work to introduce people to K-pop-- in American many (if not the vast majority) of those fans were African-American.

I am talking about relatively recent fans who don't seem to see a larger picture that is emerging here, and agreeing with each other, push ahead as if the desires of fans in other areas is the same as their own desires.

And sadly I need to point out that for all the BLM indicators next to people's user names on K-pop Twitter, this seems to be an issue primarily of white fans.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread this is an issue of privilege understanding your privilege as a white American

is a complex process-- I know, I'm still working on it.