K-Pop Fanship and Fandom: Relationship with Self-Esteem and Social Connectedness as Psychosocial Benefits

Abstract

The enthusiastic and ardent fandom of Korean Pop Music is contagious and at its peak. People all around the world, despite the racial, geographical, and cultural differences, follow the various musical bands, and researchers have recently found fascinating associations between K-Pop Fanship and psychosocial benefits. This quantitative correlational study aims to be topical and intends to explore the relationship of K-Pop Fanship with self-esteem and social connectedness as psychosocial benefits. It was hypothesized that K-Pop Fanship will be positively correlated with self-esteem and social connectedness, and the level of Fanship in 12- to 20-year-old fans will be higher than in 20- to 28+-year-olds. A total of 599 individuals from various continents of the world, through volunteer sampling, participated in and completed a comprehensive online survey that measured the K-Pop Fanship, self-esteem, and social connectedness of each participant. The results indicated weak and insignificant correlations between the variables, and there was no difference found in the level of Fanship among the fans. The negative impact of unrealistic beauty standards, excessive idolization of the artists, and a globally higher ratio of female fans could provide an explanation for the findings. However, a significant positive and moderate association was found between self-esteem and social connectedness. It is plausible that K-Pop Fanship served as a moderating variable in the study between the other two variables. Therefore, the interesting inferences of the study stress the need to conduct further studies, both causal and correlational, to unveil other variables that are either caused by or related to K-Pop Fanship. Limitations, suggestions, and implications are also discussed.