Inside 'Fandom Stage,' the Wavve K-Pop Series That Puts Fans Center Stage

"There's still this view of idol fans as people who 'chase singers around' or 'spend money with nothing better to do,'" said Kim Ye-seul, the producer behind Wavve's new series "Fandom Stage." "That's why the comments that moved me most were the ones saying, 'Thank you for showing fans as cool.'"

Kim spoke recently at the Ten Asia office in Jung district, Seoul, walking through how "Fandom Stage" came together and how viewers have responded since its premiere.

"Fandom Stage" launched on Wavve on the 29th of last month. The survival program pulls K-pop fans out from behind the camera and puts them on stage as the main characters. Contestants compete through games and missions that test the years of knowledge and experience they have built up as fans, what Korean fandom culture calls "deokryeok," or fan expertise.

For Kim, the core idea was simple: shine a light on the fandom itself. Her time at Fixid, where she worked on idol-focused content including "Among Us," gave her a close view of how fans operate.

"Working at Fixid, I got so many chances to see fandom culture up close," Kim said. "The more I saw, the more I thought these people were incredible. The idea that someone would pour that much time and energy into one thing, just because they love someone, really struck me."

Kim said today's fans do more than passively support an artist. "Fans now don't just love their artists in one direction. They reproduce content for the artist they love, and sometimes they even push the artist forward themselves," she said. "So I thought, wouldn't it be fun to put fans at the center this time and let them show what they can do?"

There were plenty of ways she could have framed it. "You could do an interview or a documentary. There's also a ton of talk content out there right now," she said. "I kept thinking about the most direct and entertaining way to show what fans are actually capable of, and that led me to a survival format."

Making the show changed how she saw fandom, too. "I got to watch, up close, people who spend huge amounts of time and energy on someone they love, build skills that rival professionals, and then turn all of that into real results," Kim said. "I always respected fandoms, but that respect got even stronger."

"I'm more convinced than ever that a highly developed fandom is basically indistinguishable from a professional."

Asked which reactions stayed with her, Kim said the compliments on the format were nice, but the ones that hit hardest were different. "Of course it feels good when people say the games or the concept are fresh," she said. "But honestly, the proudest moment is when I see a comment saying, 'Thank you for showing fans as cool.'"

Kim's own path into television started as a fan. As a kid, she wrote "broadcast writer" and "PD" in her school records as her dream jobs. In college, she was a fan of Son Ho-young of god.

"I was job hunting when Son Ho-young went on 'MasterChef Korea Celebrity' and won," Kim said. "Watching it, I remember thinking, 'Wow, we can actually make a show like this in Korea,' and, 'I thought survival shows were only about singing, but you can do one with cooking too.' It felt so new."

A program she started watching to see her favorite artist ended up shaping her career. When Kim later saw a call for assistant directors on "MasterChef Korea 2," she applied and got her start in television. A show she picked up for a star turned into her profession.

That personal arc runs through "Fandom Stage." Kim wanted to push past the old stereotypes and put a different image of fans on screen. Not just people who love an artist, but people who have spent years turning that love into a skill of their own.