how much fan is too much fan

This weekend’s schedule pretty much meant that my weekend was over before it had even begun: 3pm–6pm events on both Saturday and Sunday. A schedule like that means that, apart from attending whatever event/activity/appointment it is, I get nothing much done. There’s not enough of a stretch of time for me to get into anything substantial in the morning so I end up faffing about in Waiting Mode before it’s time to head out, and by the time the event/activity/appointment ends, my brain is too fried to do much else except zonk out. Case in point: today’s event ran late and it was around 9pm when I got home, and I wanted to write this newsletter then, but I’m only just getting started now—at midnight. And I’m still struggling to remember what I’d wanted to write about this morning (but didn’t because it took me too long to get my act together and I ran out of time).

After I write this, I’m going to switch off the main room light, snuggle into bed, hug one of the large SKZOO plushies that showed up on my doorstep a few days ago* and play some cosy games for a bit.

* I say “showed up on my doorstep” as if they spontaneously appeared seeking adoption. The truth is that I pre-ordered them months ago—on 8 May, the day K Shanmugam doxxed me in Parliament, to be exact—as one of my many shibal biyong impulses and almost completely forgot about them.

Last night, wearing an oversized Stray Kids T-shirt I’d got from a group order organiser’s list of items she was trying to clear and hugging these official Stray Kids SKZOO plushies while listening to a new song (embedded at the end of this newsletter) released by Stray Kids’ Han Jisung on his birthday, I started to wonder if perhaps I was being Too Much. Especially for someone who’s about to turn 36.

I’ve enthusiastically participated in fandoms before—I was big on Lord of the Rings, then Doctor Who. I even almost did a Masters degree on Doctor Who fandom (I think I’ve mentioned this before, yes?) And I did have a bit of Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who merch (official or fanmade) but nothing like what I have for Stray Kids these days. I suppose that’s partly because none of my previous fandoms have produced merch at the same volume—that is, intense, redonkulous and frankly excessive—that the K-pop industry does. And also because the last time I was so deep in the rabbit hole of a fandom, I still had to rely on my parents for an allowance, so I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford/was too scared of getting yelled at to buy much stuff anyway. But now I have Adult Money—not a lot of it, but enough to create a budget that allows for some splurging**—and I’m getting these things for the dopamine rush. Because fuck it.

** Yes, this includes not very Sensible Adult^TM occasions where I’ve forgone proper food and eaten instant noodles to make up for the fact that I spent money on a plushie or a bag earlier that day.

As my bestie Gayathrii says:

But is it Too Much?

I’m not the sort of fan who really likes to publicly flaunt that I’m a fan. I have K-pop photocards, but I keep them in a binder that I stow away in my bookcase and never bring any of them out. Sometimes I get stickers that come with album purchases and what not but I only ever use the graphic/cartoon ones, never the ones of the actual members. I’m wearing the oversized Stray Kids shirt as a sleep shirt at the moment because I’m not sure yet if I’m going to wear it out. One of the reasons I love SKZOO is because it’s an “if you know you know” thing that other Stays will pick up on, but anyone else will just think I like cute plushies and I’m happy for them to never know the full extent of my fan-ness.

I’ve been thinking a little about why I’m this way. The best I’ve been able to come up with is that it feels like there’s just something a little embarrassing about being seen as too much of a fan. Like I’m worried that people might think I’m irrational, delusional, hysterical. Like there’s something unsophisticated—unintelligent, even—about being a ‘rabid’ fan. Like people might think less of me somehow: oh I thought she was supposed to be a public intellectual but she’s just an airhead fan. And, if I’m being really, really honest with myself, it probably also plays into a personal insecurity and anxiety that I’m actually dumber than many of my peers—that while they’re posting critical and crucial things about the state of the world, thinking very deeply about changing the world and quoting influential critical theorists I’ve never read, I’m just here playing with dolls and making K-pop in-jokes and not at all living up to the Journalist, Activist, Important Voice that people think I am.

Yet I know that if someone else told me they were a little embarrassed about showing how much of a fan they are of something, I’d tell them not to give a fuck and embrace it and be happy. I’m fully aware of how the disdainful formulation of the ‘hysterical fan’ is almost exclusively used on girls and women, dismissing the things we love as silly, bimbotic or dumb. Men and boys, on the other hand, get to go around proudly wearing the jerseys of their favourite football or basketball stars or be decked out in sports car in merch with no shame. Personally I think it’s stupider to be a fan of a car than a K-pop group who can sing, dance and produce their own music, but whatever rocks their boat. And that’s precisely my point: why should any of us be embarrassed or ashamed about openly loving the things with love? (As long as they’re not, like, super problematic—if you’re, say, a fan of Donald Trump or Chris Brown or someone like that, then yes be embarrassed and keep that shit to yourself.)

I know the theory but can’t apply it to myself. It comes from a self-consciousness that’s deeply embedded in my bones. I probably don’t need it, but also don’t really feel like it’s something I definitely have to do something about. Maybe it’s just part of my personality that I’m not comfortable with these public displays that feel, at least to me, Too Much. I’m not going to force myself to do anything that I feel awkward or uncomfortable with, even if I know, theoretically, that this isn’t something I should feel like I have to be embarrassed about or ashamed of.

It’s just as well that the Stray Kids concert in Singapore is in two weeks’ time. I can work it all out of my system and nothing I wear or say or shout or sing in that space will be Too Much, because we will collectively be a stadium of Too Much, but also, as they say in that absolute banger ‘TOPLINE’, we don’t give a f––

But my God I really have a lot of SKZOO merch eh

~ vibes ~

I was lowkey invested in the birthday of a person I don’t actually know, but he dropped a new song yesterday so it also felt like it was my birthday.