Current Events II - Mindless Consumerism (Bulk Album Buying)
- Natalia Lyskova
- Nov 30, 2021
- 2 min read
Although this topic is similar to that of the first post, mindless consumerism within the music industry presents itself in multiple facets. In this case the focus is bulk buying of merchandise and albums. Instead of their being one point in which this occurs to provide a news story, this idea of album bulk buying for one purpose or another is a recurring issue. Despite the digital age, with majority of music artists being online, the Kpop music market is one of the few that still values the sale of physical albums, however for slightly different reasons outside of just owning a physical album.
One aspect of owning a physical album is just that, owning something physical to represent the musicians you are a fan of. However, that is not the case for bulk buying of albums, where fans buy 10's if not over 100 albums, mostly for the chance to be able to go to a fansign. An event where fans get to meet the object of their admiration, talk to them and have them sign either an album or another object. Some fans spend up to $1400 on their idols. With the amount of albums that fans were buying, some stores started offering fans the chance to enter the fansign lottery and pay for a certain about of albums without physically obtaining them. All in the name of driving up sales for the artist companies and third-party retailers selling limited edition products and incentivising pre-ordering only further pushes this problematic habit.
There is an issue concerning some fans having an over reliance on their idols for their happiness, which is fuelled by the need to feed the parasocial relationship through supporting them and having the off chance of meeting them online. In light of many Kpop fans being young, some fans face pressure to match the amount of album purchases so that they remain a "true fan" in their efforts to support the idol(s).
Understandably it is the choice of the consumer how to spend their money, even if it is on 100 copies of the same album. Additionally, some people who choose to buy all versions of an album might do it for aesthetic reasons. Thus, a question lies in whether this type of consumer behaviour is simply a individual choice that should not be controlled or whether the issues surrounding it are enough to warrant a critical discussion about this topic.
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