JAKARTA – Indonesian fans of Korean pop bands are making headlines for all the right reasons, wielding their influence to promote social and green causes in the archipelago and getting businesses to adopt more eco-friendly practices.
Numbering in the millions worldwide and in the hundreds of thousands in Indonesia, their ability to quickly mobilise en masse has made K-pop fans increasingly influential online and offline as they rally to support their chosen causes and petition their cases, experts say.
And businesses are starting to take note of these fans as a force to be reckoned with.
Among them is South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor, which recently dropped a deal linked to coal power in Indonesia after concerted efforts and a petition kick-started by Kpop4Planet – an environmental group founded in 2021 by two K-pop fans, Indonesian Nurul Sarifah and South Korean Lee Da-yeon – which garnered about 11,000 signatures in two months.
Hyundai’s decision to end the deal was welcomed by Kpop4Planet, which said: “It is the victory of thousands of K-pop fans who genuinely care about the climate crisis, especially those in Indonesia who have felt the real impact.”
Ms Nurul, 24, told The Straits Times she hopes that going forward, Hyundai’s green investment will support “just and clean” energy transition in Indonesia.
In April, Hyundai announced it had scrapped plans to purchase aluminium for its electric vehicles (EVs) from Adaro Minerals, a unit of Indonesia’s second-largest coal miner Adaro Energy. The deal drew flak from environmental groups as Adaro Minerals’ aluminium smelter would be powered by a new 2.2-gigawatt coal-fired power plant.
The memorandum of understanding signed in 2022 with Adaro Minerals gave Hyundai the right to purchase low-carbon or “greener” aluminium from a hydroelectric-powered plant. However, the hydro-powered plant is expected to be up and running only in 2030, so in the meantime, the aluminium would be produced at a coal-fired smelter.
In 2021, co-petitioner Korea Beyond Coal – a coalition of civic groups calling for South Korea to stop using coal power – teamed up with Kpop4Planet to raise awareness about the plans for a coal-burning power plant.
The plant was to be sited near Maengbang Beach, the photo shoot location of one of the album artworks for K-pop band BTS’ hit songs. Hence, it is a popular destination for the band’s fans.
Although plans for the power plant itself are still going ahead, green groups said they managed to raise considerable awareness about the environmental issues caused by coal power, while teaming up with K-pop fans.
The global legion of K-pop fans exerts immense influence due to their numbers, social media reach and purchasing power. As at 2022, South Korean content exports including K-pop and other pop culture forms such as television serials and movies had an estimated worldwide value of US$12.45 billion (S$16.8 billion), according to South Korea’s Ministry of Culture and Sports. South Korean pop culture fans totalled more than 225 million across 119 countries in 2023, according to the Korea Foundation.
Around the world, K-pop fans have taken part in protests and promoted social and political causes, even emerging as an important ally for the Black Lives Matter movement in the US.
“Indonesian K-pop fans, who are usually part of the upper-middle class, have strong purchasing power, and companies that want to maintain a good relationship with them can be influenced by their economic power,” Mr Yohanes Widodo, a communication studies lecturer at the University of Atma Jaya Yogyakarta, told ST.
These K-pop fans can also influence public opinion with their massive social media power, making it possible for them to affect the reputation of certain companies or brands, he said, adding that companies “may take into account the reaction of K-pop fans in their business decisions”.
While it is difficult to pin down an exact number, Indonesia’s K-pop fans number in the hundreds of thousands, experts say. The local Instagram accounts of two of the most popular K-pop bands in Indonesia, BTS and Blackpink, have more than 177,000 and 261,000 followers, respectively.
In 2023, entertainment industry data from US company Luminate, which tracks the top 100 K-pop artistes’ releases globally, showed that Indonesia accounted for 7.4 billion, or 8.2 per cent, of the 90.4 billion songs (audio and video) streamed from January to September 2023. This makes Indonesia the world’s No. 3 consumer of K-pop streams after Japan and the US, which accounted for 10.8 per cent and 10.2 per cent, respectively.
Source link : https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/indonesia-s-k-pop-fans-get-real-wielding-their-clout-for-social-and-green-causes
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Publish date : 2024-06-02 03:00:00
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