Written by Alefiya Kothawala and Navya Gupta
Have you ever felt annoyed? So frustrated about the fact that no one can understand you? That you feel like you’re only surrounded by muggles?
Well, you’re not alone.
Just like you, we are very much aware of the pain that comes with finding that one person who understands our fandom’s terminology, who has first-hand experience in declaring our love for our favoured artist through a screen, and most of all, that someone who understands the struggles of international fans.
Well, you’re not alone.
Just like you, we are very much aware of the pain that comes with finding that one person who understands our fandom’s terminology, who has first-hand experience in declaring our love for our favoured artist through a screen, and most of all, that someone who understands the struggles of international fans.
Here are the top 10 struggles we could identify.
If there are more, let us know in the comments. Hope you can relate;)
Whoever said money can’t buy you happiness was wrong as money can buy me concert tickets and that’s all I want in life right now to make me happy. Like, how exactly am I supposed to tell my parents that I need 1,000 dollars to go see 7 boys dance for about 2 hours.
Ngl we really need a music artist to emerge from our city so that we can have the upper hand for once and be the ‘locals.’
We’re pretty sure we are talking on behalf of everyone when we say that the local people are just some very, very lucky people. They can see the singers in real-LIFE. Even run into them while grocery shopping (Wattpad story comes alive). The locals always get to go to the fanmeets and the concerts, and the merch. It’s just not fair. And, oOOoH the locals are usually always the ‘ideal type’ of the artists. It’s really sad...to see someone else live your dream.
1. Life Without Subtitles
Just like every other fan who stans music of various languages, we have mastered the art of using our optical and auditory senses at the same time. We are proficient in hearing the melodious voices of our favourite singers while the other part of our brain focuses on reading the subtitles— the lifesaving words scattered across the screen that help us understand why we are laughing. For a person engrossed in listening to national music, they would probably describe our situation as ‘exhausting’ or ‘too much effort.’ However, for an international fan, it isn’t. For us, the worst thing that could ever happen is getting slapped across the face with the words “subtitles unavailable.” Though mystery stories give their own adrenaline rush, having to put on our Sherlock hats and decipher the words can sometimes be tiring. Really tiring.
2. Fan-meets
The dream destination of every fan. There is so much to say about it and we really do want to, but unfortunately, we can’t. As an international fan, we have never been to one. The closest interaction we can ever have with our idols is via the computer screen as we continue to watch them laugh and hold hands with the blessed locals in their country. At most, all we can expect is for them to reply to our comments during their live chats and be happy with this enhanced virtual interaction.
3. When your bias goes for military enlistment
One of the most dreaded things to even imagine is your bias going for military enlistment. Just thinking about it, and then being sad about all the fun group activities he would be missing; how there won’t be more (meme) content from that specific member. Obviously, we’ll be missing out on the songs and music videos, but that MEME material will be absent. However, sometimes, it feels like it’s a good thing that they are leaving for their military work, giving us a chance to be free from the binge watch and do something worthwhile in our sad miserable lives.
4. Having to find random apps because you can’t find everything on just one platform
Vimeo, Dailymotion, Facebook and Vlive. AND, Pinterest, Instagram, Tik Tok and Movies123. AND, Kissdrama, Dramacool, Flixer and Netflix. AND Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Spotify and Youtube...You know where this is going, right? You feel the pain?
5. Fan-girling/boying and fighting over people who don’t even know we exist
Just to make it clear, we don’t consider ourselves extreme ‘fangirls’. We wouldn’t say we’re obsessed with them, but we do like these artists to a certain degree.Fan-girling/boying, in our words, is just randomly watching the compilations of our favorite singers, adoring them, watching their crackhead videos to make our day, and just being able to form a bond of ‘relatableness’ with them to a certain extent as human beings.
Basically, we won’t show it in public, but we’ll take it to our hearts when you say some shit about them, or even oppose these beautiful people who don’t even know we exist ‘cause they’ve earned that sort of respect from us. Also, if you don’t have anything good to say please keep that pretty mouth of yours shut and move along🙃
6. Wanting to move to their country
I mean who doesn’t wanna just pack their bags, get out of their house and go far, far away from their boring lives. And, what better place to go than to our favourite artist’s country/hometown?Moving there, enjoying a new life with a new identity, leaving everything behind...(**fanfic flashbacks**)
Maybe even learning their language.
MAYBE even being able to look at them in real life.
Maybe even learning their language.
MAYBE even being able to look at them in real life.
Ah...a dream come true (As if).
7. When they never have a Concert in your country
Another reason to move to our favourite artist's country is for the concerts. I mean, it’s like they go everywhere except that specific place where we reside. They always release these tour dates that stage over at least six months but somehow never align with our schedule (lol like we even had a chance to go in the first place).Whoever said money can’t buy you happiness was wrong as money can buy me concert tickets and that’s all I want in life right now to make me happy. Like, how exactly am I supposed to tell my parents that I need 1,000 dollars to go see 7 boys dance for about 2 hours.
8. Jealous of the Locals
We’re pretty sure we are talking on behalf of everyone when we say that the local people are just some very, very lucky people. They can see the singers in real-LIFE. Even run into them while grocery shopping (Wattpad story comes alive). The locals always get to go to the fanmeets and the concerts, and the merch. It’s just not fair. And, oOOoH the locals are usually always the ‘ideal type’ of the artists. It’s really sad...to see someone else live your dream.
9. Trying to sing along to songs but not knowing the lyrics
Singing along to songs is a vibe but singing along to a song in a different language is a whole another vibe when you know the lyrics, but you don’t know the lyrics. Just shouting out random words while jamming to a song, not knowing that specific language, and then googling it to find out you sang everything wrong is an experience that we love.
10. Time difference
Ngl, the time difference doesn’t exactly matter because, I mean, who are we kidding?! We already have a messed up sleep schedule. We’re teenagers who don’t really need a reason to stay awake the whole night.Hence, we won’t go out of our way and say that our sleep schedule was ruined by these amazing people and their talk shows, award ceremonies and music videos that tend to release at 3am. However, for the sake of an argument, why would we even think of the sane option of getting up and watching it in the morning when we can stay awake till 4 in the morning to see it ✨FIrSt✨.
And the worst struggle of all, discrimination against international music.
We get the fact that everybody has a unique music taste and share a different perspective on the whole idea of ‘globalization’ when it comes to song preference. However, what we fail to understand is the need for people to criticize every single thing regardless of whether it affects them or not.People say “don’t judge a book by its cover” but why are they so eager to judge a song by its language?
It is perfectly okay for you to not like a particular artist or a group, but it doesn't give you the right to sit behind your laptop screens and hate these artists who are just trying to make a living. If you don't have anything good to say, then might as well stay quiet and just respect the artist for doing what they're doing because nothing is easy and they've probably done a lot in order to reach where they are right now.
Peace out:)
It is perfectly okay for you to not like a particular artist or a group, but it doesn't give you the right to sit behind your laptop screens and hate these artists who are just trying to make a living. If you don't have anything good to say, then might as well stay quiet and just respect the artist for doing what they're doing because nothing is easy and they've probably done a lot in order to reach where they are right now.
Peace out:)
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