Joseph Hwang
◈ Table of Contents
1. Jikcam activities at K-pop and Taylor Swift concerts and Instagram
2. Why do Apple iPhone and Samsung AnyCall phones have cameras?
3. How cell phones have changed the music industry
4. The power shift of K-pop fans' spectatorship as content creators and consumers with Jikcam (direct-camming or fancam)
5. Copyright infringement case with a Jikcam filmed by the fan of K-pop group CLC member Choi, Yoo-jin of Cube Entertainment
6. Cell phone cameras increase the "fun of watching" and become a monitoring tool for fans
7. A world where the power of the official is diminishing
***
1. Jikcam activities at K-pop and Taylor Swift concerts and Instagram
Concerning the development of the music business industry, the share of fan power is becoming an increasingly important factor. The fans gather the scattered similar ones worldwide in one place, exchange their favorite things about their idols in the center of the fandom, and make the leading opinions represented from their communities with the greatest media tools such as Instagram ever. We are watching historical scenes such as the phenomenon through the concert tours of the K-pop bands called "Idols" and especially the Eras Tour of Taylor Swift. This has not been a long-term phenomenon for several decades, but it has been done just for a few years. What could change this?
There are some means and tools that we have never been able to experience before. The cell phone camera, Instagram as a "social media" and other Internet bulletin boards are at the core of the revolutionary change. Please, look back to the concerts of K-pop bands and Taylor Swift. There was an overwhelming amount of audience that came from somewhere. Since the concerts began, there have been countless cell phone cameras in their hands, some of which were able to transmit the scene of the stars' concert performances through the live streaming service provided by social media, and recorded the scenes with the reactions of the audience attending the concerts in their cell phones. This was a second when the greatest digital content was only created by users, not by professionals. Have you ever seen the spectacle moment? It was magnificent and awesome. The attending audience spread and shared the recorded or streamed scenes at the concert simultaneously, and the world watched it with the fans. The broadcasting companies or video production companies were not necessarily there, and all the performances in the concert were perfectly controlled by the relationship and reaction of the artist and the fans without interruption of any power from outside. The concert director could only control and direct the artist with other performers on the stage under the program cue sheet.
It was a moment when we could see the power of the "Jikcam."
2. Why do Apple iPhone and Samsung AnyCall phones have cameras?
What is the "Jikcam"? Jikcam is a new term that combines the first syllables of each Korean word meaning "directly take a shot with a camera", therefore it means the behavior of taking a picture with a cell phone or personal camera by its owner himself/herself.
No one could have predicted that such a future would come where anyone could use a camera anywhere in the world. But the future has arrived, and we are seeing sights that allow people to do it at any time. That's through a cell phone in our hands.
So many home phones have been converted into cell phones in people's hands by adding phone cameras in these phones. Apple's iPhones and Samsung's AnyCalls integrated digital cameras, voice recorders, and audio/video players all in one device to "cell phones" within a short time. That was the birth of a new media tool in the world.
Wireless transmission of digital data through the development of telecommunications technology allowed us to expand various ways to communicate and connect with voice and video conversations. These changes continued to the mechanical and technical requirements to combine the phone and camera. However, the phone cameras functionally were not good enough quality to be overwhelmed by the original cameras, when the quality level of the phone cameras reached the equivalent quality of the original cameras, the game changed all the situations. It broke the walls of professional and amateur boundaries in any field of creation, especially entertainment productions. And then the predictions for the future of the media markets were unknown. The fans had a powerful weapon in their palm that could be a game-changer for the future and the world. In addition, they could have a new bugle together: social media, instead of a broadcast station. The broadcast stations should have forecasted how difficult the thorny path was waiting in their future caused by these environmental changes. But nobody could stop the progress.
3. How cell phones have changed the music industry
We can find differences in the way and the method to experience and enjoy music before and after the spread of cell phones. The proliferation of cell phones has made a lot of changes in the music industry and market.
Before the supply of cell phones, the tools for experiencing and owning music were separated conceptually and mechanically, after the supply and spread of cell phones, the way of experiencing and owning music was unified as one device, the cell phone! The recordable and computable hardware at the speed of an electron has changed everything!
The original data of music recording was an analog one. However, the moment when the analog recording data was changed to bits and recorded, it meant to be able to integrate into one computing device as a platform all in one. It was also a convergence. When the analog recording data of music was converted to digital under the computing machine with the playable hardware, a new world opened up for containing the recording data and the player together as digital files in the same device. It meant that the possibility was opened to transfer music data to the world more easily if only the network infrastructure allowed it. Then, Apple, a manufacturer of the iPhone and iPod, created this machine and added the feature of communication and transmission with voices and digital data. The new world of being able to buy music and listen to music at the same time on one device had just begun. It meant having the available recording data of the music without typical containers such as disks or tapes, storing it in my pocket, and transferring it to others if it would be connected to networks. The buying and consuming music in one place!
Thus, the hegemony of this music business was turned from the major music distributors and music levels to the telecommunications companies and Internet service companies. The ways and methods of music distribution were changed from physical delivery to digital network delivery using bits without containers or packages of products. Music is a transient and disappearing commodity of sound. Therefore, to sell music to consumers, the sound of the music must be fixed and stored on physical materials. For the characteristics of the product, the distribution and delivery system of the industry was complex and needed to attend to a lot of stakeholders in this business. However, the revolution of technology in the palm changed the traditional heritages in the industry too simply.
4. The power shift of K-pop fans' spectatorship as content creators and consumers with Jikcam (direct-camming or fancam)
We can find a new phenomenon in K-pop groups or pop stars' concert tours. It's easy to see, if you look at the short reels of Taylor Swift performances on Instagram, most of them are taken by common people in the audience seats with their cell phones. It's not the star's angle, it's a unique view that can only be seen from that spot on a cell phone. Sometimes it's narrow, sometimes wide, sometimes high, sometimes low, and no one else can replace that spot and that view. But there are thousands and tens of thousands of these videos. These short reels shot by Taylor Swift's fans at the concert showcase the uniqueness of the view, piece by piece, like a mosaic of scattered pieces that fit together. This phenomenon suggests that the so-called "official live video" format, shot and distributed by concert organizers, is no longer relevant. Ironically, the scenes and details that the "official live video" can never show are better and more entertaining to an audience with only a cell phone. These fragmented scenes are then reassembled in the user's brain on social media, generating their own emotions and feelings. It's a vertical screen revolution.
In K-pop circles, this behavior is called "Jikcam". It means that while fans of an artist used to be just spectators, they are now active creators and producers of content. In economics and sociology, the term "prosumer" is now used. It's a combination word of the terms "producer" and "consumer".
This collapsing of boundaries is an effect of the generalization of tools and distribution, with advancing technology at the center of it. The ability of a few geniuses is great, but in the end, the collective creativity and unity of the many overcome the brilliance of the few.
Jikcam is an expression of the hearts of fans who support an artist, and at the same time, it is a sacred ritual that affirms their role and existence in a community of fans who like and share the same things. It is also conclusive evidence of the factual record that is sometimes accepted as legal evidence in the event of an accident or controversy during a performance.
Today, an artist's fans are not just passive beings who express affection and interest in their favorite artists. With each passing day, fans want to be involved in the artist's activities more deeply and subtly. The goal of their interest is to protect their beloved artist. The perpetrator against that protection can even be their beloved artist's management company. When fans stop being passive and become active agents of change, fandom is no longer a group of people sharing a hobby, but a political force of power that can shape the artist as an appearance they want to make forever.
5. Copyright infringement case with a Jikcam filmed by the fan of K-pop group CLC member Choi, Yoo-jin of Cube Entertainment
It hasn't been long since fans have grasped this power. At first, K-pop artists' labels had a hard period understanding this new phenomenon, seeing fans' spontaneous filming and distribution as a violation of their rights.
While most K-pop idol performances and fan meetings prohibited fans from taking cellphone photos, exceptions had begun to appear on TV's K-pop ranking programs. Broadcasters had a superior position to K-pop management companies in South Korea. Management companies, with a strong need to promote and publicize their artists to the public, complied with TV power, since TV programs needed audiences cheering and screaming for the artists at K-pop group performances to be broadcast. During the filming of broadcast programs, fans dared to film their favorite K-pop artists performing and felt proud to share the footage with their online fan communities and on social media. K-pop artist management companies had a hard time stopping this behavior. However, their priority was to get their artists on air and in front of the world.
When fans filmed their favorite K-pop artist's performance and shared it online, they felt they were helping the artist's promotion for the management company. They were dedicated to Jikcam and proud of what they were doing. For the fans, Jikcam was doing it for free. But then something happened. A Jikcam video of Choi Yoojin, an ace member of the K-pop group CLC, went viral when his management company, Cube Entertainment, claimed copyright (or neighboring copyright) to the music recorded in the video and requested to be muted from the uploaded footage. The incident left a deep wound in the egos of devoted fans armed with spontaneity.
K-pop artist management companies are slowly starting to realize this new concept. The role of YouTube in this phenomenon was important in particular. As an internet video streaming service, YouTube operates its service in such a way that if the uploaded video has been subject to the rights of another copyright holder, the original rights holder should receive the revenue from the video. K-pop artist management companies began to adapt to YouTube's policy, and fandom became freer than before. They felt that Jikcam violated the rights of the management companies, but they were also forced to recognize the rights of the fans. Management companies own the copyright and publicity rights to their artists but the fans who take the video of the artists have copyrights for that video. Sometimes the management company officially requires the fan who took the Jikcam footage to use as a viral. Jikcam infringes on those rights, but it's not always enough to stop it. Some kind of contradiction coexists.
6. Cell phone cameras increase the "fun of watching" and become a monitoring tool for fans
Okay, so Jikcam is an unofficial video, but the amusement of spectating a show is even more fun with these unofficial videos shot by fans, themselves. A concert hall is a physical space. Different locations have different heights and angles to look at the stage or the moving artists. To show the changing viewing angles, official cameras are suspended from cranes and move to show the artist, but Jikcam can't do that. Nevertheless, the Jikcam provides an innocent view of the sights and angles, that the official camera doesn't capture. Jikcam's coverage is limited, but what would it look like if almost everyone in the audience at a concert with tens of thousands of people took Jikcams with their cell phone cameras and put them all in one place? Jikcam allows us to experience the spectacle that the official filming can't show.
There is only one event, but there can be countless eyewitness perspectives and interpretations. If we gather the universal perspectives of the most ordinary people, who can ignore the judgment and interpretation of the most powerful authority, the content made by the ordinary people takes on an entirely different dimension. This is an experience that humanity has never had before. Not only does it add to the enjoyment of watching the performance, but if an accident were to occur during the performance, the video footage could be a valuable source of evidence in determining the truth. It's a piece of history being preserved, stored, and shared with the community. Has this ever happened to humans? It happened with the addition of cameras to cell phones.
These Jikcams contain a lot more information than we can imagine. The mood of the situation, reactions, the context of the passage of time, mistakes, evaluations, miscellaneous details, and much more than we can perceive at the time. The various fun is a bonus. Importantly, it is scarcity that gives Jikcam its economic and cultural value. Each one of us is historically unique in the universe. The uniqueness of existence makes the average spectator scarce, and a Jikcam shot by that scarcity is connected to something valuable by itself. It is not a scarce value created by the sole supply of official content. Even if the quality of the creation is more or less inferior to the official content, the small and scattered scarcity created by various beings creates value and fun that the sole supply cannot cover. Jikcam is no longer a new phenomenon, but a culture.
7. A world where the power of the official is diminishing
Who created the concept of "official" in the first place, and did they know it would have such a different fate?
The concept of "official" has an implied sense of superiority. It also includes the value of authenticity. We have a culture that places great value on superiority and orthodoxy. Conversely, we tend to value less or ignore anything that is not "official". But these perceptions are a product of a time when we didn't have access to so much history and diversity to share. Times have changed, and a lot.
This Jikcam culture in popular culture is taking humanity to another level. We are in the midst of a transformation in which values that were once cherished have collapsed and values and concepts that were once considered trivial have gained greater value. Whereas before only one person was the protagonist, through popular music and culture, we are experiencing that we are all the protagonists. And we are all the supporting cast and background of this drama.
Now we need a different approach. Please remember that the audience was once just as important as the stars on stage. This is the fundamental question and answer that the Jikcam phenomenon poses to humanity.
* References and quotations:
https://www.dbpia.co.kr/journal/articleDetail?nodeId=NODE07131542
https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%A7%81%EC%BA%A0
Comments