Stray kids and skinship: an interactionist perspective on queerbaiting as fan service in K-pop

Bigbie, Savannah Renee (2023) Stray kids and skinship: an interactionist perspective on queerbaiting as fan service in K-pop. Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University.

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Abstract

The K-pop industry has standardized the establishment of parasocial relationships among fans and K-pop idols and has seen increasingly global success with this marketing strategy. Despite language and cultural barriers, fans all over the world feel a connection to K-pop idols and will interpret their actions in ways that are subjective to the fan’s own perspective. As of 2023, there are little to no successful K-pop idols that are openly queer. Fans engage in resistant readings of idols’ behavior as a way to project their own meaning onto the idol’s intentions, but this projection is constructed and encouraged by K-pop companies themselves through subtle tactics such as queerbaiting. With the successful K-pop boy group Stray Kids and their variety series 2 Kids’ Room, the methods in which these readings are encouraged by producers are analyzed through the lens of symbolic interactionism. In this thesis, the dialogue between the members is analyzed for sociological themes as well as the frequencies of visible touch occurrences (VTOs) where the members are shown engaging in touching or skinship on camera. The discussions of the members in the series reveal sociological themes such as body image and weight, masculinity, and expressions of emotions and hardships. These themes as well as the presence of queerbaiting are used to inform this case study of fan service as a marketing tactic and establish why queer references in K-pop are delivered almost exclusively as implicit and indirect rather than direct representation.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	fan service; k-pop; queerbaiting; skinship; symbolic interactionism
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Social and Behavioral Science > Sociology and Social Work
Date Deposited:	03 Aug 2023 16:32
Last Modified:	03 Aug 2023 16:32
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/6086

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