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K-pop isfinally colliding with U.S. politics.
Politicians and media on both sides of the aisle are bewildered and confused by the K-pop revolution.
Conservatives are clueless: A Fox News segmentreferredto fans of the group K-pop who ruined Trumps rally.
So lets start with the basics: K-pop refers to Korean pop music.
Middle Easterners, who were also fans of other Korean pop-culture products like TV dramas, soon followed suit.
The path of K-pops international development offers a clue.
Today, the K-pop fandom in the U.S. is not very Korean, and not that young either.
K-pops message is another factor.
But that does not mean K-pop idols are entirely disconnected from their fans activism.
Since inception, contemporary K-pop has emphasized empowerment, self-confidence, and social consciousness.
Since then, self-confidence and social consciousness have been a running theme in K-pops artistry.
The symbiotic relationship between K-pop stars and their fans also makes the fandoms transition to politics easier.
In some ways, the experience is more like being a fan of college football.
The net result is an unusually participatory pop culture experience.
This experience of organization and participation neatly maps onto political activities.
So far, K-pop fandoms energy has centered around Black Lives Matter.
But what if that energy was channeled not to a cause or a movement, but to a person?
Moons constituency displays dynamics strikingly similar to a K-pop fandom.
To the uninitiated, this may seem silly, or worse, a cult of personality.
But like K-pop fans, Moon Jae-ins supporters are not supporting the president because of his good looks.
The K-pop fans of America are disproportionately young, female, and multicultural the demographic of the future.
