Abstract The purpose of the investigation is to examine the negative impacts of K-pop idols striving for perfection and consistently exposed to the idealised online self-presentation to gain clout in the community. This topic is related to the stream of communities and social media and the key concepts for this paper are influencer marketing, self-presentation, social perception and celebrity worship. This paper proposes false self-presentation, social perceptions and celebrity worship syndrome are the negative impacts on the community.
Social media provides users an interactive portal to interact and stay connected with other users virtually without the limitations of time and space by creating and exchanging user generated content. The advent of social media has created and developed influencer marketing, which led to the rise of social media influencers. The term “social media influencers” is used to describe social media users or individual content creators who become popular due to user generated content (J. Kim & M. Kim, 2022), and have power as well as privilege to reach a wider audience and persuade others. According to Abhishek and Srivastava (2021), with the global increase in social media usage, many businesses very much depend on social media and apply influencer marketing strategy to improve brand awareness as well as build consumer trust and loyalty. K-pop idols are a great example in influencer marketing as K-pop is now a truly global phenomenon, which we call the Korean Wave. Moreover, K-pop idols are more focusing on the visual elements and can be considered as an appearance focused culture, thus they are the preferable option for businesses collaboration. The social media influencer marketing makes the social media users to feel more connected with their favourite celebrities due to the direct interactions in social media and more authentic when getting involved in celebrity endorsements (J. Kim & M. Kim, 2022). Instagram is one of the top influencer marketing social media platforms that focuses more on visual aesthetics and images, which is suitable for the exposure of branded products and services, personal and lifestyle images as it can easily attract potential consumer attention. In this case, many K-pop idols had begun to use Instagram to build a strong social media presence, enable fan interactions, attract brand deals and for advertising purposes. Jin et al. (2019) state that the Instagram influencers could be called as the Instafamous, and they normally have social interaction and aesthetical presentation abilities in developing idealised online self-presentation and identities to attract audiences. However, the way K-pop idols strive for perfection and consistently expose to the idealised online self-presentation in Instagram to gain clout in the community have led to the negative effects such as false self-presentation, social perception and celebrity worship syndrome.
Firstly, the excessive idealised self-presentation of K-pop idols and their pursuit of perfection on Instagram can lead to false self-presentation. As mentioned previously, visuals are the most important part of K-pop and it mainly focuses on presentation and imagery, thus the Instagram features and functionalities which are mainly visual and image based are effective tools for the K-pop idols in presenting their ideal self. The photo filters provided in Instagram encourage users to edit and transform the appearance of their images in order to create their desired visual style and idealised images (Ferwerda et al., 2016). For example, users are able to look slim or fit after photo editing and seem to have delicate facial features like thin face or high nose by applying photo filters or effects. However, the idealised online self-presentation is not just focusing on images like selfies, portrait photos or body images, but also the content itself such as the posts, stories and reels that related to user’s lifestyle and interests. Mun and Kim (2021) state that social media users lie about their physical appearance, age, background and interests when presenting themselves is a normal situation in online environments nowadays as they wanted to be more appealing to others and make a good impression on others. This leads to the situation that the ways users present themselves on social media by posting images and content can easily affect the number of likes and followers. For instance, when particular brand posts images that showcase the collaboration with K-pop idol on their official Instagram account, they tend to receive more likes, comments, shares and even get more followers. Therefore, social media users tend to put more effort in photo editing, apply social cues like branded product or content and post positive contents to seek for attention and receive more likes and followers. The way K-pop idols pursue perfection and expose idealised online self-presentation can be understood as their desire to get approval and gain recognition from their followers or audiences based on their value and ability (Mun and Kim, 2021). The excessive photo editing and lying behaviour make the appearance and lifestyle of K-pop idols seem to be always perfect and become the ideal standard for their followers especially their fans, however, it is actually different from their real self, and contribute to false self-presentation.
Furthermore, the ways that K-pop idols gain clout in the community using Instagram can affect the social perception of the community. According to Lee (2017), social perception can be defined as how people perceive other individuals or groups and can be easily affected by unconscious bias, stereotypes and generalisations based on their prior experiences and interests. Social media users nowadays tend to make social comparisons by using the ideal standard that they set based on the general ways of other individuals and groups present themselves online. For example, the online self-presentation of K-pop idols is often displayed with ideal body size and type like slim or fit body with white skin as well as delicate facial features such as thin face, high nose and big eyes, which makes their followers or fans admire, see them as perfect, use them as ideal standard and try to learn from them (Kadek Ayu Anatasya et al., 2021). However, when the followers or fans make comparisons with their idols and feel that they did not match the ideal body or physical appearance, they often make negative associations with diet, weight and attractiveness (Young et al., 2022). The ways to achieve ideal body or physical appearance that we often think of are to go on a diet, eating disorders, excessive exercise, plastic and cosmetic surgery, which may affect mental and physical health simultaneously. Besides, D. Kim and S. Kim (2023) point out that Instagram users who tend to make social comparisons usually have lower states of self-esteem and engage in body image concerns. It is considered as normal circumstances nowadays that the community pursue ideal body and physical appearance that K-pop idols have and present their ideal self on social media in order to be more appealing to others and tend to become social media influencer to seek for attention and get sponsorships. As we can see that, many Instagram users who are not celebrities but have higher number of followers and become Instafamous are usually because they have appealing appearance instead of talent, and some of them even get sponsored to help the businesses to promote their products or services on Instagram. The idealised online self-presentation of K-pop idols has negatively affected the social perception of community by forming stereotypes such as beautiful means having delicate facial features, ideal or perfect body represents slim and fit, having branded products are considered as rich and advanced, user with appealing appearance and high number of followers can be social media influencer due to the generalisations in Instagram.
Lastly, the idealised and perfect self-presentation of K-pop idols can cause celebrity worship syndrome and have negative impact on the community mental and physical health. Narula and Varma (2017) state that “celebrity worship syndrome has become known as an obsessive addictive disorder in which a person becomes overly involved with the details of a celebrity’s personal life” (p. 303). People often have thought that wishing to look like or to be their favourite celebrities when they admire them, which can be considered as celebrity worship. “Celebrity worship is described as a specific kind of idol worship of a recognized person who receives a high degree of public and media attention, and covers a narrower range compared to idol worship” (Narula & Varma, 2017, p. 305). For instance, being slim and fit has become the cultural norm nowadays due to the social comparison that causes negative emotions like depression, sadness, shame, body weight and image concerns as mentioned previously (Narula & Varma, 2017). However, a healthy admiration can become a mental illness known as celebrity worship syndrome. It is unhealthy and harmful to be overly obsessed with favourite celebrities or get involved with everything that is related to them as they are only human and they have their own lives. For example, harassment, stalking and compulsive buying are considered as the most common behaviours of celebrity worship syndrome. These harmful behaviours can affect both the fans and idols lives and mental health like depression and anxiety. Compulsive buying behaviour to support idols has become a normal culture due to the rise of influencer marketing. J. Kim and M. Kim (2022) point out that social media users tend to act favourably towards the product or brand advertisement that is promoted by social media influencers by investing money and time to show their support for their favourite celebrities. This may lead to the situation that the fans seem to live for their idols by sacrificing their time and money. Moreover, if the fans find out that they feel disappointed and do not want to support their idols anymore because of their bad news, they might feel regret and mental breakdown. As expressed, K-pop fans who are too obsessed with the idealised and perfect self-presentation of K-pop idols can cause celebrity worship syndrome and may lead to mental health.
The pursuit of perfection and exposure of idealised online self-presentation in K-pop idols Instagram to gain clout in the community have negatively impacted the community. The first impact is false self-presentation, which is contributed by excessive photo editing and lying behaviour. The second impact is social perception formed by stereotypes and generalisations. The last impact is the celebrity worship syndrome due to extreme admiration. Suggestion for further research is focusing on specific community regarding the negative impacts of the pursuit of perfection and idealised online self-presentation of K-pop idols. It would be interesting to see how other social media influencers negatively impacted the community. Social media influencers and celebrities play an important role in our lives as they have hidden power to encourage, motivate and inspire people. We can take them as role models, but it does not mean that we should live for them. The reason why K-pop idols seem to be always perfect is they are public figures and the public take them as ideals, however, they are also human, they can make mistakes and be imperfect. Humans are naturally born imperfect; thus, we should not care too much about our appearance and how others perceive us. Communities are subject to imperfections, errors and biases as the construction of social reality is based on social perception (Lee, 2017). We should live for ourselves not for anyone else. Live healthily and happily is the purpose of life.
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