666 is a horror anthology with over a hundred micro stories of 100 words each. It was a challenge to write a story in so few words and the story I submitted, “Sasaeng Fans” is about a K-pop idol being torn to pieces by their fans. As I’m writing these words during the COVID pandemic, it’s similar to being a parent trying to work from home while children are tearing you apart for their virtual school needs!
I was inspired to write this after doing some research for a short story about K-pop (BTS, EXO) and C-pop (Xiao Zhan, Wang Yibo, Gong Jun) male idols being stalked by sasaeng fans (haven’t found a publisher for this short story yet). These dedicated, obsessed fans spend their day following their idols as they work (music studio, film studio), loiter in front of condos where their idols live, break into hotel rooms to steal souvenirs, buy airplane tickets to be on the same airplane as the idol, wait for the idols at the airport, install trackers onto the idol’s car, stalk family members of their idols and even sleep with taxi drivers (it’s important to keep a car running at all times in case car chase is needed) to become closer to their dream boy. Usually it’s girl fans stalking boy idols. There is a whole underground industry of buying information to facilitate stalking purposes.
In the past I’ve done a lot of guest liaison work with voice actors and actors at cons and have had to be the “bad guy” to fight off fans to make sure the guests weren’t late for their scheduled panels. People thought it was great I was near the guests, but it felt like high stressed baby-sitting to me! Thankfully the actors I dealt with didn’t have as many fans as idols in Asia. The most memorable moments was a girl opening her shirt for my guest to sign their breasts and another girl slamming their head into a column because they were late for the autograph line (I was nice and grabbed them an autograph to stop her from killing herself but drew the line at pictures because we were late for another event).
Check out Black Hare Press’ site for this book: https://www.blackharepress.com/666-a-dark-microfiction-anthology/
Sharing a picture of EXO sasaeng fans. While having fans are a good thing it’s a bit scary too!
Musings of a Generic Asian 