i followed NEWS winter party Diamond Tour from october last year to beginning of this year, and tohoshinki is currently having their tour too. last week they went to Kobe and this week would be Saitama. i've joined the (i think) major communities for both news and tvxq in hope of being able to follow closely what the idols are doing. but, different fandom, different idols and different fans, ne? i'm still new in tvxq comm, but while reading my f-list (and contents of both commas), i've felt the difference already.
firstly, similarities. of course, fancams, fanaudios, papparrazzi pictures and stories, ne? how else would fans brag about their encounter with the idols apart from those. usually they go to the cons, take pictures of con venues and goods (light sticks, pamphlets, uchiwas, whatever they happen to buy), some would sneak in recording device and somehow a recording or two of the performance would leak to the net, and they would later write about the con from their point of view.
the difference is the way they call this 'story' that they write. in NEWS fandom, we call it "fan report" while as in tvxq fandom it's called "fan account". but no matter what it's called, stories written by fans about tour concerts are highly sought after. fans loove to read more about their idols, and since no magazine or newspaper ever covered enough of it (how could they just write a simple, "
XXXX is going to perform in YYYY venue at ZZZZ time. XXXX group is blablahblah" kind of article when they're performing differently at different venue at different time each time? simply not enough!), fans resort to fans who would write (in extensive details!) about their idols.
fan reports vary in format and content, because it's a semi-personal reflection of the concert. we see the concert from the eyes of the writer. that's why a good fan-report writer who goes to a lot of cons is very precious. they have the ability to transport us, the readers, to the venue, to the concert, and sit there with them throughout the concert. some of the best fan-report writer i've encountered wrote about anything and everything related to the con: the journey to the con venue (and collectively noticing numerous other fans heading in the same direction), the venue itself, other fans, the performance, what happened in the performance, how it ended, highlights of the con, random observations, conclusions taken from random observations, everything! i'm talking, of course, about
daelite-san. by the end of reading her fan-reports, i felt like i've been there in person, watching the cons myself. and since she went to A LOT of NEWS cons in their last tour, i felt like i've somewhat followed their tour too ^^
by the way, i don't think daelite-san post her fan reports up in the community. so, i guess i have to ganbatte and start fishing out good fan-report writers in the tvxq comm for tohoshinki's current tour.
another difference in the fandom is, of course, the fans. i think youtube has a lot of evidence of this, but some of tohoshinki's fans are really quite wild. i don't usually see NEWS getting mobbed by fans, they almost always able to keep their distance away from fans who are waiting in airports, perhaps that's why they can afford a smile and a wave or two to the fans. but tohoshinki has maniacal fans who take pics right in front of their faces, who come close just to throw a bag at them and so on... it's really quite scary...
which is why when
ayase123-san went to Haneda airport and happened to catch them coming back from korea (they only have 2-day break, and i bet they weren't resting when they were in korea!) and able to catch them with her cam, it's so relieving to see them being able to exit the japanese airport in peace. especially since junsu is still on the wheelchair.
everytime i see idols getting mobbed by fans (usually it's at airports), and they show their not-idol-like side and fans retaliate and other fans support them by saying that the idols are nasty, i feel like knocking the fans' heads to the wall. come on, people, idols are HUMANS too! and you are humans too! try imagining your life being published onto the net 24/7, every single gesture is photographed, every single person you meet is written about, every single place you went to gets featured in some fan blogs or forums, imagine that your life is not yours anymore but your fans'...
it's a crazy job, being an idol. they're not selling a product, a service or technique, they're selling themselves! and still we can't get enough of them! we want more, more and more! try having that kind of lives and imagine one of those little papparrazzi creeters suddenly stood right in front of you with a camera 25 cm away from your face and clicking, see if you wouldn't explode!
you know they're adorable people if they're not cornered. give them space! and some privacy while you're at it. stalking them to homes sounds like a perfect thing to do to brag to your friends and the rest of the fandom (heck i was planning to hunt yochan's house down if one day i'm in LA -_-) but you're just making them miserable. yes, they might be grateful for the gestures at the start of their carreers, but once they got big (and, yes, tohoshinki IS big now), such gestures will become a burden and, soon, a hindrance and, finally, a source of misery.
if you love your idols enough, try giving them space and privacy. be more like the fans at the haneda airport in ayase123-san's fancam. they wave to them and show their excitement, but they stood still. ...well, at least most did. i know it's impossible, and perhaps ayase123-san only got realllly lucky that most other fans didn't know they would be coming at haneda and thus no mobs were seen. but at least try and be one of the more sensible fans. there are sensible fans out there, in fact i think that most of us are sensible. it's just that the crazier and more lunatic ones are the ones who are always remembered. it's kinda sad at how they looked more at peace when they came to japan than when they went back home to korea.
gee, i didn't start blogging to give a lecture like this O.O after all, goodness knows what i would do if i happen to catch any of my idols live in person -_- but hopefully, at that time, i would still be able to keep my senses and not storm all over them like some mental-ward escapee.
it's enough that they have numerous crazy fans out here who does crazy things like watching their clips 24/7 from youtube or making GIfs out of their clips like nobody's business, but at least we don't disturb them or stalk them, ne?
okay, parting gift before i go to school:
yoochun imitating junsu's famous gesture from Balloons MV xD
