Sasaeng?

Hello readers!

Everyone knows artists and fans cannot be separated. One of the reasons for an artist to be successful and famous is because of the fans. Fans would buy the album and attend a concert to support the artist. But without us knowing, there’s a dark story behind a fans world. Other than supporting their artists, there are fans who would sacrifice everything for their favourite. Everything means literally EVERYTHING. That includes their money, life and death. They are called “Sasaeng fans” (사생팬). Sasaeng means crazy and overly obsessed. In k-pop world this matter has been quite a concern. Their obsession towards their favourites has gotten to the point where they are willingly to skip school and follow them 24/7 every day. These sasaeng fans usually aged 13 to 17. K-pop idols have received so much suffering from the sasaeng fans.

The sasaeng fans are more likely to be more a stalker than a fan. They follow their idols off the idols’ schedule. That differ them from normal fans. They even wait outside the idols’ house just to get a close look of their idols. There are cases where they invade the idols’ personal space, break into their house and hotel rooms. They also try to kiss and steal idols’ private items for instance. It has gotten creepier when a fan broke into an idol’s house and stole the urine of the idol. Underwear, strand of hair, these are all normal things for them to treasure. Read this “11 Extremely Disturbing Sasaeng Stories From Idols” for more shocking and terrifying stories.

A sasaeng fan selling an idol's urine.

To be a sasaeng, they need to have a fortune of money for high quality cameras and to hire a taxi. They hire a taxi to chase their idols which sometimes lead to serious traffic accidents. And to my surprise, they spent about RM 1000 to RM 2000 to rent a taxi for the whole day. You must be wondering, where they got all the money from? I figured out that they do part-time jobs, and some of them do prostitution and pay the taxi with their body. A local South Korean newspaper reported one fervid fan spent about 1 million won (about RM 4000) per month to chase the idols around. This is the reality that scares me which I didn’t know is happening. Plus, most of them are still students. Students which supposedly to study for their futures but ignoring all of that just to get recognized by their idols. I’m glad my obsession towards BTS is not that extent. I mean we all can have idol to look up to but everything has a limit. Even the idols are normal human-beings. They deserve some space and a normal daily life. Check out the videos for more information:

Part 1

Part 2

#kpop #facts #fans #obsession