Stacy+M+Subcultures

Studio Ghibli Famous for Totoro and Spirited Away Studio Ghibli was established by Miyazaki Hayao. I am a great fan of Studio Ghibli, as I actually have several DVDs and character goods. I have actually visited the Ghibli museum in Japan where the work areas of Miyazaki Hayao is shown, as well as having figures and short movies playing within the museum. There are also a lot of Ghibli goods which includes book marks, eco bags, notebooks and etc. This subculture has enormously expanded itself by creating goods on their own, making more and more people buy and bring around things with the characters on. I myself have a Totoro keychain hanging on my cellphone. There are extreme fans where they actually dress up as characters from Studio Ghibli called costume play. Some say that start to like animation more after watching products from Ghibli, also at the same time like Japan more than before. I am not at the extreme state, but I do like to buy consumer goods with Totoro or any other Ghibli studio character on it. = =

= = Korean Idol fan (ex.Super Junior) ==

Currently, Korea's music industry is filled with idol singers. These include Big Bang, TVXQ, SNSD, and etc. Among them, there are few groups that has fans that are extreme. One of the famous fanclub is called ELF, Super Junior's fanclub. It is interesting because the fanclub itself was made from the entertainment company, and the company benefits from the existence of the fans. However, more and more join the community, as specific cheering captions, pictures, goods, and etc are sold in order to maintain the fans. What is special about Korean Idol singer's fans is that there is a chosen color for balloons, such as navy, or navy pearl. It is common to see fights among new idol and old idol groups due to the color of their balloons. There are around 600,000 fans that cheer for Super Junior. Like it is shown in the youtube link below, fans make up chants/cheers between the song in order to cheer on for their favorite idol. Common chants includes saying every single member's name, or even responding to the lyrics. Even though there are fans that cheer with love, some go beyond the extreme. For example, this girl, Ms.X, who came out in a Korean television show to show her weight loss. Then, as the panels, she danced with one of the members of Super Junior. Immediately, her cyworld (facebook) was terrorized by Super Junior fans, and committed suicide due to cyber bullying. However, this is just an extreme case. Under the name of fanclubs, they do perform good actions such as fund-raising money for Haiti, and etc. (fyi...I am not a part of any Korean idol fan clubs) media type="youtube" key="3mrqSmYgeJo" height="344" width="425"