Young people overspend on idols and face online attacks in a toxic fan culture.
By Cassie Wang
Spending four-fifths of her monthly allowance on chasing idols, Kuang Zife admits it is excessive.
As a business management student at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, Kuang receives RMB ¥25,000(US $3,622) a month. But in a bid to show support for her favourite Thai actors, Jimmy and Ohm, she spends more than RMB ¥20,000(US $2,872) a month on meet-and-greet events and gifts.
Twice a month, the 20-year-old university student buys a six-minute session to chat with her idols, while a two minutes session costs RMB ¥2,000(US $287). She even flies to Thailand five times within half a year.
Kuang attending the face-to-face signing session with Jimmy and Ohm in Thailand.
Believing that spending large sums on idols can demonstrates loyalty and love, Kuang admits she has such a distorted concept of being a loyal fan that she even gives extravagant gifts.
“At first, I wouldn’t give them very expensive gifts. Most of the gifts I gave are dolls, usually priced around RMB ¥200(US $29). But in November 2024, everyone at offline fan meetings started to compete to give luxurious presents to our idols,” Kuang says.
In December 2025, Kuang gave Jimmy and Ohmgifts worth nearly RMB ¥10,000 (about US $1,436) during an autograph signing session in Bangkok. These gifts included a Chanel necklace, Ralph Lauren clothing, and other items she hoped her idols would wear one day.
“Fans competing with each other to see who gives the most expensive gift and who pays for longer signing sessions is the norm in fan culture. Those who spend more money are more likely to be remembered clearly by our idols, and everyone wants to be the one closest to them,” she says.
“I know it’s a toxic culture, but I have to play the game. It is a way to defeat other fans whom I don’t like, or it is a matter of losing face,” she adds.
Because Kuang spends more money on Jimmy and Ohm and interacts with them more frequently, other fans launch personal attacks against her on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, sarcastically calling her a “female celebrity”. Some criticise her for being a snarky attention seeker, saying she acts superior just because she spent more money.
The attacks spills over to her personal Weibo and Xiaohongshu accounts.
“I can feel that I am being monitored every day. My Weibo account gets visits from the same people every day, even though they aren’t my followers. On Xiaohongshu, my videos are reposted almost instantly after I upload them, yet no one gives me a like. I know it’s those who dislike me doing this,” she says.
Kuang says fans hate each other because they compete to be the most special one in the idols’ hearts, including herself. She spends time comparing the different feedback her idol give her and the comments makefor other fans.
“I have given so much to them, I want to have a special place in their hearts and be treated differently,” she says.
Chaos involving online fandoms in China has become a public concern. In 2020, the Cyberspace Administration of China launched the Qinglang campaign to curb online fandom activities and tighten control over the Chinese internet environment.
The campaign is still ongoing now, focusing more specifically on restricting fundraising, cyber violence, and personal attacks within fandoms.
Another university student, Liao Yiwei, who studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has found herself impacted by intense public opinion within her idol’s fandom.
Liao says that there are rules fans must obey in their own circle. For example, fans cannot take pictures of their idols when they are off-duty as they will be accused of being stalkers.
In July 2025, after much hesitation, Liao took pictures of her idols at Incheon Airport. “I ended up not posting the pictures I took on social media, because I am afraid of being accused.”
Fan clubs also have rules regarding merchandise that fans can sell and buy among themselves. In 2024, Liao needed to pass a qualification check from a fan club, which required her personal information including name, ID number and even spending records on fandom activities to prove that she was a genuine fan and gain the right to sell.
She was able to sell a cotton doll of her idol, Sunoo from ENHYPEN, to other fans. But she was later bombarded with complaints because she concealed that she was only 17 years old at that time, while the fan club does not allow people under 18 to sell fan merchandise.
“Although I handled the sale of these cotton dolls properly without any problems, when it was found out, I received a lot of criticism in the comment sections of my Weibo and Xiaohongshu posts, as well as in the WeChat group created to handle after-sales issues for this item,” she says.
In seven WeChat groups, Liao received thousands of messages in a single day, and this lasted for a week. Messages scolding her, saying that she had “scammed” others and “is unbelievably foolish”.
“During that period, I couldn’t sleep well and was very anxious. Even by the end of 2025, I was still constantly worried about being attacked in the groups and was extremely frightened when going online,” Liao says.
“I asked myself why I needed to prove myself to someone who is also a fan. Even this time my sale was not profitable. My pricing was entirely based on balancing the costs,” she adds.
Now Liao has stopped participating in any fan club-related activities as she feels more comfortable supporting her idol on her own.
Professor Lin Jian of the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong points out that the conformity effect is common in communities such as fandoms.
“These communities tend to develop their own norms, where members with higher cultural capital gain authority and enforce rules on others. Especially in anonymous online environments, the majority who remain silent in real life are more willing to express their feelings online. These voices are amplified on social media, leading to more extreme discourse in fandoms,” Lin says.
Lin also notes that when tackling disputes in fandoms, online platform operators act passively.
“While responding to government calls to suppress toxic fan culture, they also benefit from the data traffic such discourse generates. Campaign-style regulation is insufficient, and more legally based governance is needed to effectively manage online communities,” he says.
Edited by Flavia Zhou
Sub-edited by Swara Kamble
