feeling disillusioned after kcon this weekend.
I attended KCON LA on Friday from out of state as a relatively new fan. My favorite groups are &TEAM and TXT. I had a couple experiences that made me feel disillusioned as a Black fan:
1. Olive Young ignoring the existence of dark skin people: The biggest sponsor at KCON was K-beauty brand Olive Young. They had a whole floor dedicated to beauty products with booths and free products. My friend wanted to try this one booth that gives you a color analysis. It was basically a couple screens where you answer questions about yourself and they tell you which colors look best on you with descriptions like “autumn neutral” or “spring light.” As we are waiting in line, I saw that the darkest color profile was “winter dark.” I also noticed that the first question on the quiz was to pick the skin tone that most closely matches your own from the pictures on the screen. There were four options. Two fair-skinned Asian women, one white woman, and one woman who had the same skin tone as Zendaya. No people who looked like me, a dark skin Black woman. I joked to my friend who also noticed the lack of variety, saying “I better not get winter dark, hahaha.” When I took my quiz it was a bit awkward because there was a lady there to help walk you through it. On the skin tone question I pressed “other.” Why have “other” when you can just show more pictures than only 4 skin tones? The next question asked to pick the makeup look that fits your vibe. All of the women were Asian, which is fine, but there were like 12 different pictures. Why 12 different pictures for the makeup question but they couldn’t be bothered to put more than 4 pictures of light skinned people and an “other” option on the skin tone question? Anyway, I got autumn dark. Shocker. It was all the dark colors. I know the color analysis is not serious and just for fun, but did I only get dark colors because I’m dark skinned?
2. Idol wearing a durag and braids: Later at the MCOUNTDOWN concert, Treasure performed and one of the members (l believe it was Hyunsuk, video here: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8WYSBjE/) was wearing braids and a durag. A white fan in front of us was pointing to him and telling the people in her row that “that one said the n-word.” The fan sat down during the performance but her friend and the people that she had told were like “oh that’s terrible” and kept dancing. Taki, a member of &TEAM, was also wearing a bandana, just disappointing and weird. Icing on the cake was that &TEAM and Santos Bravos did a special joint stage where they payed homage to BTS by performing “Hooligan,” I song which I personally dislike because, what exactly is a hooligan and why are they wearing ski masks in the music video? (Also the AAVE used in the lyrics makes me cringe). Anyways, I knew going into this that the styling choices for idols can be weird, but seeing it right in front of me was something else.
3. Weird fan interaction: After the convention, I was sitting with my friend and asking her if we could get food at the 7/11 across the street. A white lady sitting next to us over heard and was like “oh yeah, there’s food at 7/11” and I explained we don’t have 7/11 where I’m from. She said she was from a state near where I am from but now lives in Cali. Then out of the blue she goes, “And don’t worry, they won’t mess with you.” I ask what she means and she says, “Oh, the homeless people. They won’t mess with you.” Mind you, all she overheard us saying was that we wanna go to 7/11. No one was even talking about homeless people. I was kinda awkwardly like, yeah, I think we’ll be okay. Then she goes on to say there were a lot of creeps when she visited the city I am from. And I was like, “I’ve never seen any “creeps” when I go into the city, but I live in the suburbs of [city].” She replies, “oh yeah I can tell you’re from the suburbs.” What does that even mean? It was almost like she was trying to say that the “homeless people” won’t bother me because I am Black, and I’m “one of the good ones” because I don’t sound like how she thinks a Black person should sound. This, coupled with the fact that I didn’t see as many Black fans at the con as I thought I would, made me feel a bit out of place.
I am writing this the Saturday morning after. Tomorrow, I am going to go back and see TXT perform. But I know I will have to sit through more of this nonsense (All Day Project, the group with noted cultural appropriator, Tarzan, is also scheduled to perform.) I have been a casual fan for about a year now, and I knew K-pop was generally anti-Black despite being heavily inspired by Black culture. I thought I could ignore it and just enjoy the performances and the groups I like, but my experiences this weekend put me off a bit. Interested to know if anyone has had a similar experience.