Sasaeng Fans

Hi friends, though this post is long and you are not interested in kpop, I hope you can read it.

--DBSK (TVXQ) earned a Guiness Record for the biggest fanclub in the world but...

--Sasaeng Fans are such a serious problem that Korea is going to pass a law to curb this issue!!

*I noticed a lot of foreigners visiting this page, sorry for the large amount of Singlish (Colloquial Singaporean English) and some mandarin used here. Too used to writing Singlish. Oopss..

Continuing about Kpop culture, I am posting about Sasaeng Fans which is yet another strange phenomenon in Kpop. I read somewhere that when a new singer debut in Korea, he/she will immediately attract fans, anti-fans and sasaeng fans.

Fans are good but anti-fans and sasaeng fans are crazy. Some anti-fans might not be crazy and do crazy things but in the first place why would someone want to be an anti-fan. If you don't like a particular singer then that's fine but it isn't neccessary to form a club and go around bashing that singer online or offline.

What is a Sasaeng Fan?

Sasaeng Fans are in short, phsychotic stalkers. They love the celebrity so much that they stalk them, break into their homes, chase them in cabs and do lots of crazy stuff that normal fans like me cannot understand. You might think chey.... this is like so common but no. The things they do are WAY WAY beyond your imagination and that is why I am blogging this. If it's common then I won't write about it liao... :D

Lying on the road to prevent their idols from leaving.

The purpose?

After the sasaeng fan did something ridiculous, she will go back and blog about it and other sasaengs will be green with jealousy. They will then try to do something even more ridiculous to show off.

I am going to write about DBSK's sasaeng.

DBSK is like the king of Korean Wave. Though I am an ELF, I have to admit that DBSK is truly the king of Korean Wave. And by the way I love DBSK's name. DBSK stands for Dong Bang Shin Ki, meaning 东方神起, Rising Gods of the East. So poweful, the name!!!

They have two official fanclubs in Korea and Japan, known respectively as Cassiopeia and BigEast. Cassiopeia even earned a Guinness World Record in 2008 for its size and is said to be one of the largest fan clubs in the world, boasting 1.5 million fans in Asia and 5.5 million worldwide!! How crazy is that??? 5.5 million is like the population of Singapore!!!!

But the more fans you have, the more anti fans and sasaeng fans you will have too. As some articles show, DBSK has like 150 sasaeng fans stalking them 24/7. I am not going to mention when all these happened because I am not a Cassiopian, I don't have all the details, I am afraid I might write the wrong thing.

And I only writing mainly on DBSK's sasaeng fans because I think they have the worse case and the trend worsened during their times, think because of their immense popularity, they have the worse sasaeng fans.

Case 1: Taxi Chasing

Taxi chasing is pretty common in for celebrities but for DBSK it's not just simple taxi chasing. In Korea, there are professionl Sasaeng cabs. They charge about SGD800 per day. These cabs will go over 160km/h, make illegal turns just to chase the stars. It's illegal of course but the cab drivers themselves say that the money is good so they can't refuse. The drivers even have connection with other sasaeng cabs so they will know where the stars are and where are all the recording studios etc.

You might ask how the fans get the money since they are student. Well, some of them went into prostitution or did 'favours' for the cabbies to make up for the difference!!

Some of the drivers signed contracts with fans to PURPOSELY crash into members' cars. So the members got no choice but get out of the car and the sasaeng fans will have a chance to see them up close.

A fan once witnessed 18 cabs chasing after DBSK's van. They even put GPS on the star's car to track their position.

Once Changmin got off the van to approach the cab and ask them stop chasing but the fan quickly close the window and Changmin's hand got stuck, started bleeding.

The fan later went back and blogged that she is happy about it and it's rare to make the members bleed.

Even if the company or the DBSK don't disclose their schedules, the sasaengs somehow will know and they stalk them like ghosts. So the members stop going outside, they stop meeting other people. I think the fans might just beat up any girls who met the members.

Can't see anything odd? Look at the window behind.. Like freaking GHOSTS!

If I post this picture without captions, I think people will think this is a ghost's photo.

Case 2: Stalking

By stalking, I don't mean just normal following around in cabs as mentioned above. Sasaengs take it to a whole new level. They install CCTV in the DBSK's carpark and across their balcony!

This is Yoochun, DBSK, he just got home and got out of the car. Then he 鬼鬼祟祟 look around to see if got sasaeng fans around. But he didn't know that his movements are already captured by their CCTV. IN HIS OWN CARPARK!

Another CCTV of the sasaeng fans capturing the balcony of DBSK apartment.

One of the members loitering outside his own house... I have no idea why someone will be loitering on the balcony of his own house. Poor thing, can't even enter his own house at ease.

The members will also have their handphones suddenly blocked for a day because the sasaengs (i don't know how they do it) stopped their phones and printed out their call lists. Then they will call up each number to find out if it's a girl or boy!

One of the members changed phone numbers and 5 min after changing, he received an sms 'why you change your number? You think I can't find you? hahaha'. It's so damn creepy!!

One of the members (think it was Jaejoong) smsed Yoochun that he is at the riverside, asked if he wants to join. Then he received a reply from an unknown person 'who are you? Why are you asking yoochun out?'

The sasaengs even find the numbers of the members' family members! I don't know what for. Seriously.

They also broke into DBSK's apartment and steal their things and kissed the members when they are sleeping. Once a member was sleeping and in the middle of the night, the sensor lights were flicking on and off, when the members checked, there was a girl standing there alone in their house. Freakish!


Even took picture of the member in a all-male sauna.

They hacked into their computers to find out what songs they listen to and what websites they visit.

They even stole their IC number to register in dunno what website and do dunno what shit with their ID.

WHO NEEDS PAPARAZZI WHEN YOU HAVE THE SASAENGS?? In Korea, there isn't any paparazzi cuz they don't need. Sasaengs are way more resourceful.

Case 3: Violence on the singers

I don't get it. I would have never ever think of slapping Ekin or Suju. I would never ever want to make them upset but these sasaeng fans used violence on the stars. They sometimes pull their hair around trying to pull some off their heads to keep as souvenirs!

One of them slapped:

There was once Changmin and Jaejoong went to a public toilet but sasaengs wanted to follow them in to get a video footage. Changmin and Jaejoong scolded them for this. Later on the sasaeng hit Changmin with a bag of ROCKS on his shoulders. Changmin started crying when the other members approach him to help.

Changmin hit by rocks by a crazy fan. Is she even a fan at all????

Changmin crying on the street while being surrounded by sasaengs.

One sasaeng was almost hit by a car while following Yunho around and Yunho saved her. After this, other sasaengs started imitating her, trying to get saved by a member. Some sasaengs are known to jump into the path when members are driving. Some even ask the members for compensation if they are hurt or pretend to be hurt. 

When they are close to the members outside, they try to grope them. Just grab! Any parts! Even the private areas they will just grab!! This is sexual harassment!

Case 4: Ridiculous Gifts
-Collected Menstrual blood, used pads etc
-Using menstrual blood to write letters
-Pubic hair
-Underwear
-Shit and urine at their doorstep

I don't understand why they shit and urine at the doorstep? I tot only dogs do that??? I will be totally grossed out if I find shit at my doorstep.

Once some sasaengs sneaked into an excursion held for movie students to see the movie sets. They paid $3000 to get into that school and joined the excursions. At the movie set, Jaejoong was so scared and disturbed that he ran out, and he got really pale, panting like crazy saying that “I know them.”

Now the managers are getting aggressive at the fans. They spray insecticide, pushed them and sometimes slapped them. The fans who got hit felt proud and announced that they got hit by the manager.

There are now even professional companies set up to help the fans investigate on stars. I saw online one of the fans offered $100k to get the underwear of her fav singer.

And these stars have been living like that for 9 years. It's a wonder that they didn't go crazy.

Finally, one day one of the members exploded.

His voice was recorded by a sasaeng fan who was caught by him. He was scolding her and presumably hit her on the head.

He said something like this (I copied off another site):

following me around and contacting me... it's really fun for you guys...
really fun... never really thinking about how much stressful it is for us
I'd rather become normal and live without any of this
Anywhere I go someone follows
anywhere I go someone calls me
Anywhere i go someone calls me and they're like
where are you...you're there right? always living and and running away in this anxiety
am i a convict?

Bitches when i go around all day you'll follow me and what, you guy's call the police because you can't go home? shit, why do you follow me? you're saying that I can't go home? you have that much time? Fucking Bitches I only sleep 3 hours a day, what for a week, you guys are saying stuff like, oh Jaejoong’s like vapor, how can he escape so well, you guy's then call me and text me...it's also posted on blogs constantly. I always read those blogs that you do, who went to the hair salon and what time Changmin did this and Yunho did that, you guys know everything like fucking wizards. Do I have to check your blogs every hour and every minute when I move? Am I the president?
So you know why I bought my car RA? I bought it to lose the taxis, I bought it to lose the taxis but I just couldn't bitches there were too many taxis, those fucking taxis really just rolling over for money and follow me to the extreme, you guys spend that money to the extreme and follow me.

The text was pretty long but I copied only part of it here. Anyway you get the picture. He exploded and started trashing it all out on the fans. Anyway they also poor thing la. Their company didn't treat them well. They only get like 5% of the money they earned. The rest were given to the company. Like if they sell more than 500k albums then the company will give them some money but they never hit 500k for the first few albums so they get $0.


In another account:

All of us 5 members have experienced it; we cried at home, we cried on the streets, we were involved in car accidents, but all we saw across the glass windows of the PRIVATE TAXI CABS were smiles and smirks.

“It’s just...to much....I hate it.”
“the people in front of my house....I can’t think of them as anything else than antifans”
“ah...FRUSTRATION!!! the people in front of my house...Please go.”

When asked what they want to do in their next life, they answer is:

"I don't want to be born again in my afterlife (I don't want to be reincarnated)"

Super Junior also have Sasaeng fans but I think either they didn't explode or they just keep tolerating because there isn't much news about this.

Heechul did tweeted about sasaengs not so long ago though:

Don't come in front of the house or the borough office... I don't think I can do this. I still have trauma from my car accident and it is scary, driving away like my life depends on it. I can't help it because I only have one life

He is in the army now and I think it's not appropriate that the sasaengs keep following him to the workplace right, he might get punished for that. And also the stars are known for driving dangerously to escape the sasaengs and thus there were lots of car accidents. If you google kpop idols car accident, I think you will get a long list.

Anyway someone wrote a super long document on this matter before and I was rather fascinated after reading it and thus I blogged it here. This is the link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QXbyYQjPbfXtdcRF4Uh9k-2wx_VUHzfbjV80ZnwsRHg/preview?pli=1&sle=true

http://www.gokpop.com/news/what-jyj-dbsks-sasaeng-fans-had-done-list-of-crazy-activities::10789.html

Though I was also a crazy fan last time, I never did such things! I did went to the airport to send Ekin but I didn't slap him. In fact we just waited quietly and when the manager came, we talked to her and Ekin went toilet. We talked to the manager asking about Ekin's future schedules until Ekin came back from toilet. He even talked with one of the fan's daughter. After that he bought some cakes, we took a photo and he went in. That's all. Nothing as crazy as throwing him a bag rocks.

Also I heard that these sasaengs take advantage of international fans because we dun speak korean. They tried to bully and extort money from these foreigners to sustain their crazy activities.

Looks like I have to be extra careful if I wanna go to Korea for Suju's concerts....