Chinese fan club of BTS' Jimin suspended for “irrationally” supporting the idol
Chinese social media platform Weibo has suspended a Chinese fan club of BTS member Jimin over their “irrational” support for the idol.
On September 5, Weibo suspended the fan club called Jimin Bar from posting for 60 days. According to The Straits Times, the suspension was due to the account’s crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to celebrate the idol’s birthday. This follows the recent crackdown on celebrity and fan culture by the Chinese government.
“Weibo is strictly against the irrational support of celebrities, and is ready to take serious actions. Weibo remains committed to fulfill our social and corporate responsibilities, and has strengthened our governance over fandoms in order to clean up their online conduct,” Weibo said in a statement, as translated by Koreaboo. “Once an act of supporting a celebrity is determined to be irrational, we will deal with it seriously.”
The fan club had initially launched its campaign in April, and planned to customise the exterior of a plane from September 1 to November 30 to celebrate Jimin’s 26th birthday, which falls on October 13. Jimin Bar had collaborated with South Korean airline Jeju Air for the project, which also include customised plane tickets and cups that say “Happy Jimin Day”.
A closer view of Jimin plane.
cr. ins：seungjun_oh_7
? https://t.co/V1n7D1sFLR pic.twitter.com/G8ApboNfck— PARKJIMINBAR? (@JIMINBAR_CHINA) September 4, 2021
As part of its birthday project for the idol, Jimin Bar had also arranged for large-scale advertisements in publications The Times and The New York Times. On its Twitter account, it had shared that this will be “the world’s first fan support to appear in both The Times and The New York Times at the same time with the largest scale and promotion.”
27th Birthday Support for PARK JIMIN Part.2 & 3
Advertisements in The New York Times and The TimesThe world's first fan support to appear in both The New York Times and The Times at the same time with the largest scale and promotion
Date: 10.13 (the local time of publishment) pic.twitter.com/AQc6ZgEekH— PARKJIMINBAR? (@JIMINBAR_CHINA) August 21, 2021
According to the account’s tweets in August, the advertisements will appear both publications on Jimin’s birthday, October 13, local time. It also shared the design for the upcoming full-page colour advertisement.
It’s currently unknown how the Weibo ban has affected the fan club’s plans. JImin bar have yet to comment on the issue.
Last week, BTS announced that the second season of their In The Soop reality show is set to premiere in October. While a release date has yet to be unveiled, they are expected in the coming weeks leading up to the season premiere. The upcoming season is expected to be available on South Korean network JTBC, as well as global fan community platform Weverse.
