“Are you stalking BTS?”, Korean fans are verbally and physically assaulted by local fans at BTS’s LA concert

At BTS’s 1st face-to-face concert in two years in Los Angeles (LA), it was reported that a Korean fan was being racist to by some local fans.

On Dec 3rd (KST), many tweets on Twitter are reporting that some local fans assaulted Korean fans at BTS‘ concert on the 2nd. According to the tweets, some local fans assaulted and verbally abused Korean fans at the Sofi Stadium, where the “PERMISSION TO DANCE ON STAGE) – LA” was held on the 2nd. They reported that whenever an Asian-looking fan passed by, they would say, “Aren’t you Korean?” or even assault that fan in groups. Some reportedly filmed the faces of Korean fans on their mobile phones and threatened to post them on SNS, including Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram.

It is said that they had a bad perception of Korean fans, especially the “Homma” or “Masternim”. This is a word to call the “homepage master”, which means a fan who takes high-definition photos of celebrities and posts them on SNS.  There are some “Masternims” who take pictures for personal collections, but some are also known to make and sell photo books or make money by sharing celebrities’ personal schedules with more than 100,000 followers.

Local fans are said to have made racist remarks to Korean fans and verbally abused them, such as “Do you come all the way to the U.S. to stalk BTS?”, “Stop using BTS to make money”… A number of posts mocking Korean fans in English were also posted on Twitter. A Korean fan shared on Twitter, “Local fans seem to have a big negative perception of Korean fans. They were proud of themselves while beating or cursing our “homma” (homepage masters). Seeing this inhumanity makes me feel skeptical and disillusioned.” She added, “If we saw BTS as our means for money, then we wouldn’t come to this schedule. We would get photos from other people and just make them into merchandise to sell.” Then she criticized, “We came here because we haven’t seen BTS in such a long time. It’s so unfair because we also have to risk a lot to come here. What did we do so wrong?”

BTS is scheduled to perform its fourth show at SoFi Stadium on December 3rd. Tickets for the concert hall, which can accommodate about 50,000 people, have already been sold out. BTS is the first artist to sell out all 4 nights of a concert at SoFi Stadium.