Inside the Magic Shop – reciprocity, sincerity and emotional labour in the artist-fan relationship
RM from BTS did a WeVerse Live earlier this week. In true RM fashion he went deep, not just talking about his hair, training routines and what he had for dinner (the most common WeVerse conversation topics), but how he’s been struggling with insomnia, anxiety, self doubt, and loneliness since his discharge from the military.
He talked about how he comes on WeVerse because he knows ARMY will give him love, and how he always feels that love is enough to get him through his struggles. Then he talked about the strangeness of feeling that way about a group of people he doesn’t truly know but nevertheless ‘believes’ in, and how he feels his ability to reciprocate the love he receives is ‘lacking’. It was raw and heartfelt and has made me reflect on the social contract between artist and fan—the emotional labour expected and returned.
On the other side of spectrum this week has been Taylor Swift. I’ve already talked about how this era is a struggle for me from a narrative perspective, but the bigger struggle (which has been a long time coming), lies in this same idea of a social contract. This week Taylor released no less than 28 ‘variants’ of her new album for sale. Her social channels have been wall-to-wall ads for slightly different versions of the same thing. In the past, she’s talked about how much she values her fans and how aware she is of the fact that they are the principle reason for her enduring success. But something about the wild heights of the Eras Tour, maybe, has caused her to forget that, because the focus in this era seems to be on exploiting loyalty for profit.
The Eras Tour was a collective experience. It was a celebration of her work, yes, but as a catalyst for bringing tens of thousands of people together each night to reflect upon their own journeys. For me it was weekend-long cathartic encounter group celebrating the concept of ‘girlhood’. She was the leader of the group but at no point did the experience feel like it was about her. My Eras weekend was about quality time with old friends; the thrill/ache of my first weekend away from my kids; the joy of hanging with my mum and sister, and the unexpected delight of meeting an adorable teen Swiftie in the seat next to me who’s since become my generation-transcending pal. In Taylor’s own words, Eras was where “fraternal souls sang identical things.” It was about connection, belonging and feeling seen in a crowd of thousands.
Back in Taylor’s earlier days, being a Swiftie meant the possibility of her sending you a Christmas present to say thank you, or inviting you to her house for homemade cookies before a new album release. Given the scale of her fame and success, it’s unsurprising this kind of authentic connection is no longer possible, but the replacements have become increasingly insincere and transactional. On Saturday night she sent hundreds of Swifties in 12 cities around the world on a treasure hunt to find orange doors that unlocked AI-generated YouTube videos with hidden words in them. When strung together, these words spelled out a line of poetry. When you typed the line into Google, it gave you a secret link to… a lyric video for her new single. There were kids up all night for it. To say the payoff was weak and disingenuous is being too kind.
Taylor’s talked a lot about how her fans love ‘puzzles’ and ‘easter eggs’ – and the marketing tactics her team dream up are very clever if you’re selling a brand, but not if you’re trying to maintain a parasocial relationship. These days being a diehard Swiftie demands increasing amounts of money, time and effort. The art no longer feels like a fair exchange, for me at least. It’s a shame because Taylor spent 20 years carefully building a powerful and authentic 1-to-many connection with her fans, and now all she seems to want to do is cash in on it. It’s hard to believe this is the same artist who wrote the lyric “the jokes weren’t funny, I took the money, my friends at home don’t know what to say.”
I compare this to my experience from the last two months of observing the BTS ARMY fan universe, and the differences are stark. One of the first WeVerse lives I watched was on Jung Kook’s birthday when he was talking about a stalker who’d recently tried to break into his house. This is what he had to say:
“I was watching the surveillance cameras when the police officers came. At the parking lot their footsteps were coming. She was suddenly in a hurry as the sounds came up. When she opened the door, there were the police officers. I was watching everything. She said she was my friend… ARMY, you all are my family and friends, but I felt sad. Thank you so much for supporting me, but why did she have to face that situation? Anyway, don’t come to my house. Do you understand? If you come you’ll get locked in. There’s no other way. You have no option but to get arrested.”
I was quite struck by this. He was ostensibly warning fans not to come to his home (fair enough, JK), while also thanking them for their support, and lamenting how the strength of the BTS fan connection results in some taking it too far and harming themselves in the pursuit of a fantasy. I thought it was a remarkably empathetic response to a scary situation, and couldn’t help but reflect that the way K-pop idols view the artist-fan relationship seems different to their western counterparts. I’m not deep enough in the world to understand if this is an industry-wide phenomena in K-pop, or unique to BTS members.
The key difference here is cultural. I’ve spoken before about how my very brief time in Korea impressed upon me how much Korean people value reciprocity, and how they show respect through effort. One of the best things about discovering other cultures and languages is when you come across untranslatable words and concepts because they reveal so much about what people value. Unsurprisingly, there are many beautiful Korean words focused on care, effort and kindness.
The concept of sincerity in Korean, particularly in a work context, is about showing effort, diligence and integrity through your actions. The word 성실 (seongsil) means both diligence and integrity. In Korea a “sincere” person is someone who works hard, keeps promises, and shows reliability over time. Then there’s 진정성 (jinjeongseong) which is like emotional integrity: not faking feelings, acting with heart, saying what you mean.
Together, these two words create a kind of moral imperative: that your actions and behaviours should reflect your heart and mind. Cognitive dissonance? They don’t know her.
Another Korean word I love that’s related to kindness is 정 (jeong). It’s essentially a feeling of affection that develops over time through shared experiences and care — between family, friends, colleagues, or even fans and their idols. It’s like a combination of warmth, duty and empathy. In Korea, 정 (jeong) is seen as important for maintaining collective harmony (inhwa, 인화).
Why does the idea of a society that values collective harmony makes me want to weep? (answer: it’s 2025)
Here’s my favourite Korean language discovery: 은혜 (eunhye), which roughly translates to “grace” (one of the more beautiful and under-utilised English words). The meaning is broader than one English word can express, however, because it also contains a kind of emotional indebtedness—except that this is the kind of debt you repay with gladness over time. 은혜를 갚다 (eunhye-reul gapda) is like a kind of karmic, emotional balance that feels the opposite of transactional.
In essence, these two ideas of 정 (jeong) and 은혜를 갚다 (eunhye-reul gapda) are about emotional reciprocity—where an act of enduring kindness towards someone must be repaid in kind.
English feels like such an inadequate language to convey these ideas, but understanding the Korean concepts behind these words goes a long way to explaining why the K-pop fan experience is so different. It’s a commercial machine built on top of real cultural norms that are relational at heart. It feels different because it is. The idea of ‘fan service’ is literally built into the business model.
BTS members speaking to and interacting with ARMY at concerts, fan events and livestreams is part of their job, but the way they go about it reflects who they are as individuals within their cultural context. The very traits they display are the ones Korean culture upholds as having the highest moral value. Conversely, American culture values individualism and commercial success above all other things, which is so abundantly clear in Taylor’s latest album release. I saw one long-time fan say on TikTok today (in a post titled: life of a showgirl, death of a Swiftie), that he used to support an artist, but he increasingly feels he’s been tricked into supporting a corporation.
If I hadn’t fallen down the BTS rabbit hole 2 months ago, would I be having such a strong aversion to the predatory capitalism in the Life of a Showgirl roll out? I don’t know. But I’m grateful that it happened because BTS are absolutely filling a void left by my retreat from Swiftieism (let’s talk about my fundamental need for a pop culture fixation another day).
The more I lean in, the more I understand that the BTS’ ARMY are like the 8th member of the group. The experience of BTS is relational to its core—built on more than a decade of 정 (jeong) and 은혜를 갚다 (eunhye-reul gapda) between the fans and the members. This emotional reciprocity plays out through in-jokes, traditions and careful planning as much as it does through BTS’ music and performances.
The members talk about their fans as each being a universe (in Mikrokosmos). They talk about how they aren’t purely motivated by a desire to be the best at what they do but also to ease the suffering of their fans through their music (in Magic Shop). BigHit/Hybe carefully construct fan projects to increase this sense of connection, but both ARMY and the members make these moments real and enduring through 성실(seongsil) and 진정성 (jinjeongseong) — by showing up repeatedly with authenticity, sincerity and enduring grace.
The more I learn, the further down this rabbit hole I fall. Perhaps it’s time to get a digital ARMY membership. Lol.