5 Scary Cases Of K-pop Sasaeng Stalker Fans

By Karmen on 21 Jan 2020

Digital Editor

Has severe RBF but is fairly jolly and carefree on the inside. Degree of life satisfaction is heavily influenced by food.

While most K-pop fans are respectful of their idols' personal lives, there exists fans who stalk, invade their privacy and even physically assault them!

Keep reading to find out about five scary K-pop stalk fan incidents!

The K-pop industry tends to market its idols as fan's close friends or even their boyfriend or girlfriend. This seems to be done via a high level of interaction that idols have with their fans that creates the image of idols' "accessibility".

Photo from Pinterest

Constant updates on social media, reality shows, livestreams, fansigns, hi-touch events etc. are seemingly designed to create the illusion that idols have a personal relationship with their fans. Some idols even go as far as to say that they don't need girlfriends because their fans are their girlfriends!

Photo from Pinterest

This clever marketing strategy gives fans a strong emotional connection to their idols which encourages them to spend on albums, merchandise etc. While there is financial benefit to this practice, it may have also played a part in breeding a very scary type of fan known as the sasaeng fan.

Most K-pop fans draw the line between fantasy and reality and respect their idol's privacy, but there are also sasaeng fans who obsessively stalk and invade the personal lives of idols. It can be argued that the illusion of a relationship with their idols may have sparked their desire to get even closer to them.

There have been countless sasaeng fan incidents, including these five scary ones:

#1 BTS airport mobbing

It's not uncommon to see fans waiting for popular group BTS at the airport. Unfortunately, mobbing incidents are also uncommon!

While some fans don't participate in the mobbing and try to stop the more invasive fans, there's still a significant number of fans who would grab them and chase after them, making it difficult for them to walk and causing Jimin to fall over at one time. One fan was filmed at the airport trying to lunge at V before being stopped by a security guard.

#2 Taeyeon's attempted kidnapping

During SNSD's performance of Run Devil Run at the Angel Price Music Festival, a man entered from backstage and pulled Taeyeon off-stage. Fortunately, the man was detained by security and the police. Taeyeon returned to the stage to continue performing despite the scary incident and netizens praised her for her professionalism.

#3 EXO's attempted kidnapping

Photo from exo.smtown

Sasaeng fans once rented a van that looked similar to EXO's van and parked it where their van would usually be at. The members were about to enter the van but fortunately, their manager noticed something was amiss and stopped them.

#4 Jackson's car accident

Photo from Nyve via Weibo

In 2016, JYP Entertainment revealed that GOT7's Jackson was involved in a car accident while on the way to the airport in China. They also stated that the accident was due to fans chasing after him in cars which caused the dangerous situation.

#5 Taecyeon's bloody letter

Photo from gall.dcinside

This infamous incident saw 2PM's Taecyeon receiving a creepy letter from a fan that was written in blood. She wrote: "Taecyeon, you cannot live without me." Later, the fan claimed that she had written the letter using her menstrual blood. ?

Even with many of these incidents happening, entertainment companies seem reluctant to crack down on invasive fans. Idols themselves often opt not to press charges agains sasaeng fans and some even continue to acknowledge them as fans rather than as stalkers.

Fortunately, there are recent cases where the idol's company takes action against invasive fans like when JYP Entertainment announced that they would press charges against the stalker of Nayeon from TWICE earlier this year.