There’s a long history of K-Pop artists — known simply as “Idols” in Korea — communicating directly with their dedicated fan bases. Korean music stores and companies hold intimate, in-person album signing events — called “fansigns” — where attendance is often selected through a lottery system based on the number of albums purchased from the store holding the event. Then there’s the online fan call, where devotees get the chance to speak to their idols for a minute or two.

“K-Pop is really good at cultivating a parasocial relationship between the fan and the idol,” says Yale University sociology professor Grace Kao. “To the extent possible, idols work really hard to make fans feel like they’re the center of their attention.”

There’s a long history of K-Pop artists — known simply as

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