Since the regime quashed China’s version of the K-pop industry in 2021, an underground ‘alt-idol’ culture has emerged, championing freedom and experimentation
Over the past decade, “idol” culture has turned east Asia into a pop music powerhouse as global audiences have flocked to Japanese and especially South Korean groups. Formed and exactingly trained by big entertainment conglomerates, bands such as BTS and EXO have blown up internationally thanks to bombastic songs, sensational dance routines and marketing campaigns designed to build a parasocial relationship between performers – idols – and their fans. Their neighbour China, however, the population of which is roughly eight times that of Japan and South Korea combined, has produced few groups with similar fame.
Until 2021, Chinese versions of Korean idol-training shows – think The X Factor with considerably more challenging choreography – were gaining huge audiences. But the shows, and the fan culture they inspired, drew the ire of the Chinese government. It cracked down on “toxic” fandom, an initiative that included banning idol-development shows. “It was an excuse to regulate the internet,” says Emily Liu, who runs the popular idol newsletter Active Faults. The government has also unofficially prohibited Korean pop idols from performing in mainland China for the last decade due to geopolitical tensions.
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