Fansites and money
Q: What do you think about people saying that fansite masters actually make money?
A: The idea of making money from being a fansite master just doesn't make sense.
Current Fansite Master B (Running a female idol fansite for 3.5 years): I don't make money at all. To be honest, it's more like I'm throwing money onto the street.
Q: Where does the idea that fansite masters make money come from? What ways can fansite masters make money?
A: There's something called 'Proxy Photographers' (People who take photos on behalf of fansite masters and sell them) which has become a small moneymaking way in idol fandoms. But even that doesn't make a lot of money. For first-tier groups (Groups with big fandoms. Ex: EXO, BTS, WannaOne, TWICE, Red Velvet, BLACKPINK), there's a potential to make some money, but it's not easy. Especially now, with so many foreign fans entering the scene.
Fansite masters and goods
Former Fansite Master A (Ran a male idol fansite for 3 years): For each photo, you can sell merchandise. Sometimes, we also make season's greetings.
Q: What's a season's greeting?
Former Fansite Master A: Simply put, it's a calendar. We create a beautiful calendar featuring our favorite idol for the next year and sell it.
Current Fansite Master A (running a male idol fansite for about 3 years): The preparation time for something like a calendar is about a month. For slogan, about two weeks. For calendars, the preparation starts around September or October and continues until the end of November.
Q: How much did you sell?
Current Fansite Master A: No comment.
Selling Goods
A: It's tough here in the girl group fandoms. Not just here, but in the entire girl group scene, selling goods is extremely difficult.
Q: Do you have a reason for being so confident in saying this?
A: You'd understand if you tried running a fansite yourself.
A: You can call it selling, but it only counts if there's a profit, right? Considering that, it's more like group orders. Even if there's a profit, it's only a few percent To conclude, you can basically say that there's almost no profit from selling goods. And even if there is, it's usually used to cover the costs of going to the idols' schedules.
A: While it's not entirely accurate to say that we don't make any money at all, but most of it is spent on support for idols. It's expected, if you don’t support them, you might even face criticism. Support ranges from clothing and shoes to more extravagant items like massage chairs, stylers, and in-ear monitors. We even make the expensive, customized ones that can cost up to 3 M KRW. Sometimes the coats, clothes, and shoes can cost up to millions of KRW. Supporting the idol is just not about expressing our affection to them, it's also about competing with fans of other members to show the power of the individual fandom, that's why the amount of money keeps increasing.
A: These days, idols have birthday ads, so I've spent money on those as well. Idol schedules include fan signings, concerts, general events, year-end events, and overseas tours. The most expensive are fansign events and overseas tours. I've spent almost as much as a deposit for a studio apartment. And don't think this is an exaggeration. For example, if one fan signing costs 1 M KRW, and you attend 10 sessions during one promotion, that’s 10 M KRW. If you split it into a 10-month payment plan, it's still 1 M KRW a month.
Q: Do you actually spend that much?
A: Yes. Isn't that obvious? That's why fansite masters often have high credit card limits.
Current Fansite Master A (Running a female idol fansite for 1.5 years): It varies by group and timing, but for me, I’ve bought around 100 albums to attend a fan signing after repeatedly failing to win.
Q: How much is that?
A: Albums usually cost between 15,000 and 20,000 KRW, so that's about 1.5 to 2 M KRW.
A: In the past, you could attend fansigns by buying 10 or 20 albums, but now, it often takes hundreds of albums. Honestly, I wish they would just do a random draw where you only need to buy one album. That way, it's fair to everyone.
The Things That Fansite Masters Have Lost
A: It’s not just the money. It takes a toll on your health and energy, and there's not much to gain.
A: But despite knowing all this, continue out of love for their favorite idol. That’s what kept me going too. You can’t start this expecting profit. Most people sacrifice their personal lives for this. I really wanted to say this: Most fansite masters give up their daily lives to do this.
A: Even after spending tens or hundreds of thousands of KRW on an event, sometimes you don't even get a single photo. It's absurd to think of this as a way to make money. If you want to make money, you’d be better off working a regular job. We do this out of our love towards our Oppas, and sometimes people feel a sense of duty and responsibility too. Even when it gets tough, they keep going because they love their Oppas so much.
A: This isn’t as glamorous as it looks. Of course, it can be enjoyable, but you should be aware that it's not all sunshine and rainbows.
-I don’t know much about the idol world, but aren’t people like them super rich?
-Fansite masters are the ones spending money. It's the people who do fan arts who make money.
-I'm not sure about fansite masters, but I heard that some people who sell dolls for first-tier idols can even manage to buy cars, although it's just a small minority.
-I've never even thought of them making money from it.
-I guess you could say they make money, but they end up spending more on supporting the idol and attending events. I've seen a lot of fansite masters working part-time jobs just to pay off their credit card bills.
-I lost focus as soon as I saw the girl in the gray hoodie hold the black mosaic. I thought that was a CGI, turns out it's a real blindfold.
-What nonsense. Every fansite masters I know is in debt.
-They're all in debt. It's so pathetic to see them living like that, juggling their credit cards to keep going. I wonder why they live like that.
-I never thought fansite masters would make money in the first place. I figured only those with financial and time freedom could afford to become fansite masters, especially these days.
-I know a few fansite masters, and even if they don't make much, they spend every penny they have on what they do.
