When Paid Intimacy Fails: Target-Specific Accountability in Chinese K-pop Video Call Events

초록

K-pop video call events turn intimate access into a paid encounter involving idols, entertainment companies, sales platforms, and fan organizations. This study develops target-specific accountability as an analytic model for tracing how fans assign responsibility to particular actors in a paid encounter and translate dissatisfaction into targeted criticism or selective withdrawal. Drawing on interviews with Chinese fans and industry respondents, together with online materials, the analysis identifies three domains in which accountability judgments arise: interactional accountability for attention, recognition, and responsiveness during the call; procedural accountability for access, selection, communication, delivery of purchased albums and promised benefits; and organizational accountability for scheduling, workload, and complaint handling. A failure may become visible through one actor while responsibility is attributed to another. These attributions shaped the target and scope of response, from idol-directed criticism and refusal to participate in later calls to platform complaints, company-directed withdrawal, and campaign-specific purchasing suspensions. In Chinese K-pop fandom, cross-border intermediaries and organized purchasing networks can circulate dissatisfaction and, in some cases, support coordinated economic action. The study shows how responsibility attribution shapes the target and scope of disengagement within a hybrid fan-consumer relationship, rather than assuming a transition from emotional attachment to consumer rationality.

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