A South Korean rapper against RPS (Real Person Slash) culture in K-pop fandom caused controversy?

Recently, an 'RPS incident' has caused controversy in K-Pop fandom and it has become a social issue. RPS or RPF is a short form of Real Person Slash/Fiction, a term that fans writing some romantic fictions about their favorite celebrities to fulfill their fantasies, mostly including homosexual relationships and sex scenes (Ock, 2021). RPS was found in the 1970s (Riley, 2021), it is also a pop culture and a vice culture in K-pop fandom and raised in the 1990s. K-Pop artists, also actors, entertainers, or comedians are also the main character of those fan fiction. The writers mostly publish it privately on some website which required password or identity/age verification, to avoid the non-fans or minor to read it. (Figure 1)

Figure 1: 2 RPS Fictions that require password or age verification on Postype.com

On 10th January, a South Korean male rapper Son Hyun-Jae (Simba Son) criticized a person who wrote fanfiction on Postype.com that describing him as a homosexual with a serious sexual habit, saying that the fanfiction was insulting him, then claim that ‘#알페스는_성범죄다’ (#RPS_is_Sexual_Crime) on social media. Afterward, people found out the fanfiction is not writing about him, it was a story pairing about Hyun-Jae and Eric Son, two members of the K-Pop boy group 'The Boyz', who have the same name as Son. Therefore, Son promotes it in another way because of his misunderstood, he raised a petition on Cheong Wa Dae Petition, which is a platform that provides people to raise a petition to the government. If the number of petitioners exceeds 200,000 in 30 days, the government needs to respond to the issue (Cheong Wa Dae Petition, n.d.).

Son demanding ‘Please strongly punish users of PRS who sexualizing underage male idols as a soother’ (Son, 2021) and he labeled RPS as sexual harassment and an unspeakable sexual crime to everyone as Nth room case, a serious social issue in South Korea. Some famous rappers support him and encourage their fans to sign the petition against RPS culture with their fame. Undoubtedly, it arouses the concern of the whole K-Pop fandom, almost every K-pop group is having an RPS culture between their fandom, if government punish them, there are so many people will be jailed.

Figure 2: Son’s RPS petition on Cheong Wa Dae Petition, number of petitioners: 216,671 (Captured date: 2/2/2021)

Because Son mentioned Nth room, many people were misled and thought RPS is something related to Nth room, which sexual exploiting people. Therefore, his petition had received over 100,000 signatures in one day, and until now, there are more than 200,000 people signed in less than 30 days. (Figure 2)

Commentary

Although I do not read RPS fanfiction, I still support freedom of creation, everyone has their favorite person, enthusiastic and write a story about their favorite artist is not wrong. As a fan of that boy group, I enjoy receiving the happiness that this fandom gave me. However, some excessive content may offend others, but if it is not delivered publicly and does not disturb artists, I think it is acceptable and a creative way to support them. Finally, respects each other is the most important, and distinguish reality from fantasy while reading fanfiction because the artist has own right to choose their sexual orientation.

Any thought on RPS or fanfiction? Let us know in the comments!

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References

Cheong Wa Dae Petition (n.d.). FAQ. Retrieved 2 February 2021, from https://www1.president.go.kr/petitions/FAQ

Ock, H. (2021). Controversy grows over ‘real person slash’ sexualizing male K-pop idols. Retrieved 2 February 2021, from http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210113000408

Riley, T. (2021). The Dubious Ethics of “Real-Person Fiction”. Retrieved 2 February 2021, from https://medium.com/s/darkish-web/the-dubious-ethics-of-real-person-fiction-5cd6bd498c16

Son, S. (2021). 미성년 남자 아이돌을 성적 노리개로 삼는 '알페스' 이용자들을 강력히 처벌해주세요. Retrieved 2 February 2021, from https://www1.president.go.kr/petitions/595551