I just wish we as fans were more conscious of our boundaries and where they should lie. We need to be able to distinguish between seeing something we personally dislike or feel uncomfortable with and assuming that our feelings reflect what’s actually happening between people we only know through a screen.

We can have our own opinions and feelings about what we see but that doesn’t automatically give us the right to project them onto the people involved, assign intentions to their actions or turn a moment we didn’t like into a narrative about someone being inconsiderate, someone being silenced, or someone being bullied. There’s a very fine line between “I didn’t like that” and “I know what this means about their relationship” and I think we need to be more mindful of it.
We see edited moments, snippets of their lives, and interactions through a screen. They know each other in ways we never will and I think we need to give them enough trust and respect to navigate their own relationships without assuming we understand them better than they do. If something genuinely is wrong they are in a much better position to understand that than we are!!
And I also worry that if we keep turning every interaction into something that needs to be analysed, criticised, or defended, we risk creating an environment where they feel they have to be more careful about what they share with us
Being a fan doesn’t mean we have to agree with or like everything we see. But it does mean recognising the limits of what we know, respecting the boundaries between us and them annd understanding that our feelings are ours to process and not proof of what someone else is experiencing. I think that’s one of the most important things we can remember as fans…

I agree. I also think the context in which things happen should always be part of the equation. They’re on a show, the content is edited and they don’t control how every moment is presented. There are so many factors we simply can’t see.

If we start psychoanalyzing every interaction, every expression, every edited clip across every video and every show, I think we eventually lose sight of the bigger picture. Sometimes it’s worth taking a step back and looking at things with a little more perspective.

It’s completely okay to feel uncomfortable with something or dislike how a situation played out. But if you choose to talk about it publicly, I think it’s important to be mindful of how you frame it and of the fact that people can take your words out of context and use them as fuel to hate on the members. We can acknowledge our feelings without turning them into narratives about people we don’t actually know.

I really don’t think you should step away from the fandom or the group. That’s not what I was trying to say at all. And I actually want to make it clear that I completely understand feeling uncomfortable with certain things. I feel that way sometimes too. There are moments where I think a joke has gone too far, or that the teasing is a bit much, or I wish they had let him finish what he was saying. You’re allowed to feel that way. You’re allowed to dislike something and talk about it. That doesn’t make you a solo or a bad fan.

What I was trying to point out is more about how we frame that feeling. There’s a difference between “I felt uncomfortable watching this because, to me, the teasing felt like too much” and “they constantly make him uncomfortable / they never let him speak / this is how he must feel.” The first one is your personal experience, and you have every right to express it. The second one starts projecting our interpretation onto a relationship that we actually know very little about.
We don’t know what their boundaries are with each other, what they’ve talked about privately, what Woonhak actually finds annoying, what he genuinely doesn’t mind, or even when he might tease them back and we simply don’t perceive it the same way. I’m sure there are moments where he gets fed up too, because they’re human, but he also knows these people personally and can communicate that in a way we can’t. Their relationship goes both ways, and we simply don’t have that perspective.

So for me, it’s about being able to step back and say: “This makes me uncomfortable.” “I didn’t like this joke.” “To me, they were teasing him too much in this particular video.” And that’s completely valid. You don’t have to convince yourself that you enjoyed something just because you’re a fan.

The only thing I’m trying to encourage is that little bit of awareness when talking about it, because unfortunately on this app, something that starts as a genuine concern can very easily turn into people taking those words, removing all the nuance, and using them as ammunition to hate on the members. And we’ve literally seen that happen. That’s why I think it’s worth being mindful of how we phrase things, not because you’re wrong for feeling uncomfortable, but because there’s a difference between expressing your own feelings and speaking for theirs.

And honestly, who am I to tell you not to express how you feel? I’m not saying that at all. If something bothers you, talk about it. If you need to say “I didn’t like how they treated him in this moment,” say it. I just think it’s important to keep the “I” in it and remember that what we’re feeling isn’t necessarily what they’re feeling.

That’s really all I was trying to say. It’s not “don’t have these feelings” or “don’t talk about them.” It’s “have the feelings, talk about them, but be conscious of where our perspective ends and theirs begins.” Because otherwise it can very easily become parasocial without us even realizing it
You can love the group, love Woonhak, dislike certain interactions, feel uncomfortable sometimes, and still be a fan. Those things can coexist. 🤍

Sorry I talk to much