Global Fandom: Hattie Liew (Singapore)

Hello! I’m Hattie, and I’m a recent graduate from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where I completed by doctoral dissertation on anti-fandom in microcebrity culture (aka people who hate on internet celebrities). Fan Studies, internet cultures and popular music are my main areas of research. I come from Singapore, a city-state of 5.7 million located in South-East Asia. 

Two points should be considered – the fragmentation of popular media and the ubiquity of digital technology – to make sense of fandom in Singapore (in this post, I refer broadly to pop music fans). Firstly, the popular media market in Singapore has always been fragmented, even before the advent of the internet. Having four official languages (English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil) in a multicultural society meant that the media had to procure and/or produce diverse programming. Singapore is also an important market for regional pop culture exports, like Cantopop (Hong Kong), mandopop (Taiwan), j-pop (Japan), and more recently k-pop (South Korea). Today, this fragmentation is more pronounced, with streaming services highly accessible and affordable to the average Singaporean. This includes platforms familiar to the English-speaking audience such as Apple music and Spotify, as well as platforms like Viu and KKbox which focuses on Asian content. Secondly, even though it is not news that digital technologies, especially the internet, has transformed fan cultures worldwide, it is important to note the average Singaporean’s near ubiquitous use of such technologies. For example, mobile phones have a penetration rate of 149.9%1, with more than 93%2 of internet users also accessing the internet on their phones. Mobile apps for direct messaging and social media such as Whatsapp (98%)3 and Facebook (over 80%1) enjoy a high penetration rate among the general population. This indicates a critical mass of users and general user proficiency among the population, including among fans.

The context of media fragmentation and high reliance on digital technology, coupled with the city-state’s small population gives rise to fandoms that tend to be small and diverse. They often have a global/regional orientation, even for fans whose object of fandom is Singaporean, and the ability to cleverly use digital platforms to engage in fan practices. At least three observations, which revolve around connectedness and sociability, can be made about fans in Singapore. 

Firstly, fandom in Singapore is oriented to a larger fandom “out there”. Of course, when individuals identify themselves as a fan, they are connected with others around shared taste and consumption. However, the Singaporean fans, recognizing their small group size, actively seek to construct fan experiences consistent with those outside Singapore. A common way is to import fan practices to experience fandom as it is experienced by their overseas counterparts. K-pop fans are a perfect example of this. For instance, fans would engage in “cup sleeve events”, which originated in South Korea and are events to celebrate a milestone or an important date, such as a showbiz anniversary or a birthday. It is typically held at a café, where part of the premises is thematically decorated with official and fan made merch, and fans get a cup sleeve with their idol’s picture printed on it. In Singapore, k-pop fans have taken to organizing small scale cup sleeve events at Korean-owned cafes, spending a small amount of money (~USD$75) to organize them. Replicating fan practices from elsewhere is sometimes misunderstood by those outside the fandom as a lack of imagination or a lack of proficiency to organize large-scale events. Instead, these fans should be recognized for their resourcefulness and creativity in their attempts to create commonality in their experiences with others outside their locale. 

Secondly, the images of enthusiastic fans typically seen in mainstream media seems to be absent in Singapore, and the country’s fans (and audience in general) have been labelled as lukewarm or dispassionate. However, it can be said that many fans like privacy rather than visibility. My own research with online fan group chats on Whatsapp showed a preference for small, closed fan groups over large public ones such as those on Facebook or on forums. While fans do participate in physical events and engage in social media activity, such as following official accounts, running fan accounts and posting on their own feeds, it is common to keep fan activity away from the eyes of the public. Understandably, fans enjoy virtual co-presence, exclusivity, close relationships or authenticity that closed chat groups offer. At the same time, these groups are also a way to manage fandom’s place in the individuals’ life in a pragmatic society that often sees fandom as something childish and to be frowned upon. Fans then opt for closed chat groups because their participation in fandom is invisible to those around them, for using messaging apps on the phone is an extremely unremarkable behavior. However, this does not mean that the fan experience is watered down. Despite the groups being small and closed, fans are able to engage in complex cultural and social practices. These include gaining status within the fan ecology and archive building, which are fan practices also found in different contexts.

Thirdly, there exists a blurring of the line between fan practices and the fan’s microcelebrity practice. By microcelebrity, I refer to Marwick’s 4 definition of it being “a practice whereby people present themselves as public personas, create affective ties with audience members, and view followers as fans”, regardless of whether there actually are people watching. A fan’s microcelebrity practice differs from previous forms of fan accounts on social media, which are more akin to fan websites or fan zines that focus on the object of fandom rather than the author of the site/zine. What I am referring to is the fan’s performance of being a fan on social media, often with the intention of gaining more followers. This is rather visible on tiktok as the platform’s affordances and norms are conducive to music fans’ microcelebrity practice. This includes fans doing dance covers, duets, edits, tiktok challenges and regular social media posts (e.g. video selfies) overlaid with music. In this case, the labour of the fan in creating these cultural artefacts can be considered both a gift to the fandom and/or for their selfish needs. While it may be true that the blurred distinction between fan practice and microcelebrity practice is reflective of a general emphasis on self-presentation and individuality across societies, fans in Singapore present the opportunity to observe such practices because of the high adoption rate of social media platforms which support music and short-form video and the general digital proficiency of individuals to create content (e.g. Instagram and tiktok with >65% and >27% of those aged 16-64 using these platforms respectively1).

In closing, I would say that mainstream fan culture in Singapore largely mirrors the general character of the city, for example in its global/regional orientation, and that fan practices are currently shaped greatly by the affordances of digital platforms dominantly used by its general population. 

 Hattie Liew is a recent graduate from the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, SAR), where she completed her PhD dissertation on anti-fandom in microcelebrity culture. She previously graduated from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) where she completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees, and is currently working as a research staff there. Her research interests include fan studies, microcelebrity culture, internet cultures, and popular music. 

1 https://wearesocial.com/sg/digital-2021-singapore

2 https://www.imda.gov.sg/infocomm-media-landscape/research-and-statistics/telecommunications/statistics-on-telecom-services/statistics-on-telecom-services-for-2021-jan

3 https://blackbox.com.sg/everyone/2021/03/15/communications-whatsapp-not-much?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=communications-whatsapp-not-much

4 Marwick, A. (2007). Microcelebrity, Self‐Branding, and the Internet. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 1-3