“We Are Bulletproof”: The Transcultural Power of Fandom in #StopAsianHate

Abstract

Fears of COVID‐19, alongside existing anti‐Asian sentiment, resulted in 11,467 documented hate incidents against Asians/Asian Americans in the United States between March 2020 and March 2022, per the Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center. In response, #StopAsianHate and #StopAAPIHate were used on Twitter to increase public awareness. Considering anti‐Asian racism transcends geographic boundaries, we interrogate: how does engagement with these hashtags reflect the transculturality of responses to anti‐Asian racism in a digital environment? We analyzed 920,271 tweets between March 19, 2020, and May 31, 2022, containing either hashtag, defining a “spike” in engagement as any day with >5,000 tweets, and found that of 25 spikes, 11 immediately followed the 2021 Atlanta‐area shootings—however, another 12 spikes were related to South Korean megagroup BTS. We further compare the results of two topic modeling methods, LDA and NMF, to examine how the use of and engagement with these hashtags shift over time primarily due to BTS fans (“ARMY”). This work joins emerging scholarship on race, fandom, and activism through cultural production in order to advance our collective understanding of modern digital activism and racial politics. Overall, we interrogate fandom's contributions to combating anti‐Asian sentiment, build on existing literature exploring the potential for fandoms to advocate for social justice, and argue that the transculturality of BTS, ARMY, and their affective ties represent an opportunity for accessible global discourse about anti‐Asian racism.

Breaking Borders, Bridging Fields: Unveiling the Transculturality of Anti‐Asian Racism in a Global Context

“…For instance, Kurien and Purkayastha (2024) challenge the idea of "Asian American" in the U.S. context and expose how it culturally and politically excluded South Asians in its historical formation. Amy Zhang and Ong (2024) investigate the intervention of K-pop fandom culture in the political narratives of anti-Asian racism and racial justice on social media. A detailed introduction to each article in this special issue is provided in the next section.…”

“…This article emphasizes the movement's evolution from traditional resistance to themes of solidarity and inclusivity. Zhang and Ong (2024) turn to the digital realm, focusing on the significance of transcultural connections in online movements against racism. Their analysis of the #StopAsianHate and #StopAAPIHate hashtags on Twitter unveils how BTS's global fandom, ARMY, has sustained the presence of these hashtags, showcasing the role of fandoms in advocating for social justice and creating a transcultural platform for global discourse on anti-Asian racism.…”