Platformization of fandom in the post-pandemic music industries
Kyong Yoon / University of British Columbia
Fans have been recognized as a core consumer group for the music industry. Critics have said that “the future of the music industry depends on how successfully it can build fandom” (Kim and Kim 2023, p. 204). Industry stakeholders–from labels to streaming platforms–have exploited dedicated fans’ engagement with music and musicians for market expansion. Increasing special features and add-on plans on streaming services demonstrate how music labels and platforms have adopted fan-targeted business strategies.[1]
The global rise of K-pop is one of the most vivid examples that illustrate the growing role of fans in the music industry and markets. Through the extensive circulation of online content, merchandise, memberships, and events, the industry has strategically leveraged digital platforms to facilitate global fan bases.
Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous synchronous online K-pop concerts were held and drew massive audiences. For example, K-pop group BTS’s global success has often been attributed to its worldwide fan community, known as ARMY, and its effective use of X and other social media platforms. BTS’s online concert held in June 2020 via the Kiswe platform attracted over 756,000 concurrent viewers from 107 countries, setting a record for the largest audience for a paid virtual concert and adding many new fan-club members (Frater 202).
During and after the pandemic, the K-pop industry has actively employed digital strategies to provide global fans with interactive user experiences while advancing superfan-targeted business models. In this process, major K-pop companies have attracted global fans to Korea-based, fan-customized digital platforms, whose services are distinct from those of US-based third-party platforms (e.g., YouTube, X, and Instagram). While K-pop companies’ effort to reach out to global audiences during the pre-pandemic period was largely reliant on US-based platforms, the post-pandemic K-pop industry has more rigorously developed and utilized K-pop-specific outlets for its fan-targeted business models, enabling the focused extraction and monetization of fans’ participation (Lee and Prey 2025). To boost global fan bases and their enthusiastic engagement with idols, major K-pop companies such as HYBE, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and YG Entertainment have invested in developing specialized platform services, moving beyond US-based third-party platforms. As these platforms offer specific features that appeal to K-pop fans, they have often been referred to as “fan platforms” (Keith 2023). Among several active platforms, the HYBE-run Weverse (since 2019) has over 10 million monthly active users and offers specialized features, such as updates on its affiliated K-pop idols, including BTS, access to idols’ special content and live videos, direct messaging to idols, and online shopping. Reportedly, about 90% of its traffic comes from countries outside South Korea (Stassen 2025). Similarly, another prominent platform, Bubble–the subscription-based messaging platform affiliated with SM Entertainment–provides fan users with exclusive content and an idol-fan messaging feature.
As exemplified by these K-pop fan platforms, whose features revolve around fan-idol parasociality, the K-pop industry has leveraged mediated human interactions to advance superfan-targeted business models. In particular, two popular fan platforms, Weverse and Bubble, illustrate how K-pop companies build revenue around parasocial proximity. In particular, Bubble’s interface resembles the most popular Korean messaging platform Kakao, thereby offering users an intuitive and intimate sense of messaging with idols as if they were communicating with their acquaintances and friends. Indeed, the interface appears designed to offer its users the illusion of one-to-one interaction and pseudo-intimacy with idols (Pyo 2024). By subscribing to a monthly paid service, which costs USD 3.99, fans gain opportunities to send “direct” messages to their chosen idol member, as if they were doing so in personal or group chats via personal messaging apps such as KakaoTalk.
In 2023, the Weverse platform also introduced a subscription-based communication feature, named “Weverse DM”, at the cost of USD 4.59 per month. K-pop idols are perceived by their fans as highly approachable and relatable figures, and these qualities have contributed to the rise of global K-pop fandom across geocultural contexts (Yoon 2017). In this regard, it is not surprising that the K-pop industry has strategically deployed its fan platforms, through which fan–idol parasociality is leveraged as a key revenue source.
The increasing popularity of fan platforms raises critical questions about how the music industries are integrated into the platformization of the media ecosystem. By monetizing parasocial interactions, fan platforms reveal a new form of capitalism that converts cultural practices into data and revenue. While deceptively performing as “neutral” infrastructure, the platforms attract more and more fans for allegedly direct messaging and communication across geocultural and linguistic boundaries. On the fan platforms, fans are encouraged to stay in touch with idols while being recognized as paying customers whose data and purchasing power are extracted.
The K-pop industry’s investment in and deployment of fan platforms may reflect a unique aspect of platformization: an attempt to move beyond the dominance of US-based platforms that shaped the early rise of K-pop and its fandom. Fan platforms can thus be seen as the local music industry’s effort to build sovereign platforms–spaces designed to contain and extract K-pop fans’ activities and data within K-pop company-managed platforms. This strategic shift to fan-targeted platforms has triggered growing criticism from both scholars and fans. While academics question the platforms’ monetization of fans’ attention, labor, and data (Lee and Prey 2025), fans have increasingly been skeptical about the user experiences offered by fan platforms, such as limited accessibility due to subscription-based models, in which major features, such as direct messaging and live translation, require monthly payments or additional service fees (Kim 2024).
Through the rapid rise of K-pop, the music industries have shown how superfans have been integrated into the digital platform-driven media ecosystem. These fan-targeted business models in the post-pandemic era reveal how fans are increasingly subject to the commodifying forces of not only global platforms but also K-pop-specific platforms—and how fans’ virtual spaces are monetized and institutionalized. The music industries have explored various strategies for their growth in response to digitalization and platformization. In this process, superfans have emerged as a core consumer demographic on the one hand, and as intermediaries who can reshape and revalue the top-down, industrial management of cultural industries on the other. The global circulation of K-pop fan platforms may show a contentious process in which fans’ interests and creativity are challenged by, and co-exist with, the commodifying forces of industry-designed platforms.
Image Credits:
- BTS Weverse page and its membership plan. Source: https://www.armyproject529.com/ask-ap529/weverse-army-membership
- BTS’ record-breaking online live concert viewership during the pandemic. Source: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2020/7/k-pop-sensations-bts-set-concert-live-stream-record-with-bang-bang-con-the-live-624548
- Similarity of Bubble’s chat room layout to Kakao Talk’s. Source: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/kpop-private-messaging/
- Weverse DM service, available through a monthly paid subscription. Source: https://x.com/weverseofficial/status/1722502547166863471
Frater, Patrick. 2020. “BTS’ ‘Bang Bang Con: The Live’ Claims Record Viewership for Online Concert.” Variety, June 14. https://variety.com/2020/digital/asia/bts-big-bang-con-the-live-record-online-concert-1234635003/
Keith, Sarah. 2023. “Digital K-pop Fan Platforms in a Cosmopolitan World.” in Introducing Korean Popular Culture, edited by Youna Kim, 33–43. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003292593
Kim, Jae-heun. 2024. Weverse Accused of Exploiting Labels, Fans with New Mandatory Paid-Membership Service. The Korea Herald, October 16. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/3495201
Kim, Suk-Young and Youngdae Kim. 2023. “The BTS Phenomenon.” In The Cambridge Companion to K-Pop, edited by Suk-Young Kim, 192–207. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108938075.016
Lee, Sanghwa, and Robert Prey. 2025. “The Labor Process of Relational Labor: The Case of the K-pop Fan Platform ‘Bubble.’” Popular Music and Society 48(4): 416–436. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2025.2492505
Nicolaou, Anna. 2025. “Spotify to Launch New Premium Service Aimed at Music ‘Superfans’.” Financial Times, February 15. https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/spotify-launch-new-premium-service-aimed-at-music/docview/3197860920/se-2
Pyo, Kyung-min. 2024. “Rise of K-Pop Fan Platforms Facilitates Fan-Idol Communication, Sparks Debate on Authenticity.” The Korea Times, March 2. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/entertainment/k-pop/20240302/rise-of-k-pop-fan-platforms-facilitates-fan-idol-communication-sparks-debate-on-authenticity
Stassen, Murray. 2025. “Hybe’s Joon Choi: ‘90% of Weverse Traffic Comes from Regions Outside of Korea. Most of Our Users Are Global Superfans.” Music Business Worldwide, April 3. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/hybes-joon-choi-90-of-weverse-traffic-comes-from-regions-outside-of-korea-most-of-our-users-are-global-superfans
Yoon, Kyong. 2017. “Cultural Translation of K-Pop among Asian Canadian Fans.” International Journal of Communication 11: 2350–2366. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/6303
[1] For example, in early 2025, various news reports revealed Spotify’s plan to introduce new add-on services, including high-quality (lossless) audio, early access to concert tickets, and advanced curation options for streaming. This new plan, provisionally named “Music Pro,” targets dedicated fans who are willing to pay for these specialized features (Nicolaous 2025). While the plan has not yet been implemented at the time of writing this essay, the Swedish streaming giant’s move aligns with the music industry’s increasing focus on fans and fandoms.
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