Peruvian Fandom, Subculture, Kpop and SMTown Peru
Then Cinescape happened. Back in high school, I had the hugest crush on my dear Bruno Pinasco, who since his humble days of talking about movies for little pay has become a Peruvian entertainment guru — if Bruno Pinasco and Raul Romero [1] were one Korean person, they’d be Yoo Jaesuk.
According to my behind the scene pals, his show is seen by so many people that whenever something gets mentioned on Cinescape, interest peaks no matter what it is about. Then Pinasco did a short Kpop special.
Turns out that Pinasco asked Peruvian Kpop fans on Twitter not long ago what it is about Kpop that they like so much.
Of course, if you ask pop music fans what they like about their pop music stars, you’re never gonna get the word “production value” in the process unless you’re talking to someone like LinzerDinzerTV. In the end, Pinasco’s brief back and forth with Peruvian Kpop fans seemed rather lukewarm. But whether or not Bruno Pinasco believes one can enjoy pop music despite the language, it has little to do with fans who are working their butts off to make Kpop happen in a venue near them.
Big Bang’s Global Event — voting on Facebook — currently has over 280k votes coming from Peru, ahead of Brazil’s 250ks, and the United States almost 55k votes. I was even a little bit perplexed at that.
In the meantime, Peruvian fans of S.M. Entertainment’s idols’ keep lobbying for SMTown Peru (currently at a little over 18k Likes on Facebook), to be able to enjoy their favorite idols in the flesh — just like the people attending SMTown New York and SMTown Paris did.
I think that if SM Town analyzes South America and really wants to put a show there, their safest bet should be Brazil (either Rio or SP), despite Peru having the most amount of votes and begging around the Internet.
@Rodrigo, Brazil is a good pick in terms of country availability. I don’t think many (if any) neighboring countries need visas to get it, and they’ve got the venues.
But in terms of Kpop, despite the amount of votes for Big Bang, it seems their events and activities are relatively smaller. Sure, Peru may be louder and it’s still at odds on whether or not it can deliver…
I wonder how many Peruvian Kpop fans would fly to Brazil for the concert, and how that compares to the Brazilian Kpop fans that would fly to Peru for the same event.
Have you been to any concerts outside the country? xD Or you know… chase after someone?
@amy, I rather doubt many Peruvian Kpop fans will go to Brazil for the concert. Why? As far as I have seen, many (not all, but maaaaaaaaaaaany) Kpop fans here are teenage girls and hardly any of them have a job (or a rich permissive dad) that makes a ticket to Brazil and a show a reality they can afford :P
@Mirella, but… it’s the same in a lot of the countries, no?
I didn’t know that other Latin countries needed visas to get in to Peru. That puts a damper on it all.
Are all other Latin countries the same? I feel like Brazil would be a bit far fetched. I doubt that it’s like here in EU, were you can travel cheap between the Eu countries if you need to.
@Julili, they don’t. But many Latin countries need visas to get into Mexico. ;)
I think most South American countries don’t need visas to get into each other, it’s different with Central American, and def. Mexico.
The most noticeable Latin American countries into Kpop are Mexico, Brazil and Peru, right? You can’t really make the concert outside those three because you can’t just rely on people traveling into another country to fill up a venue.
Mexico used to require visas from a lot of Latin American countries, but apparently since last year, if you have a US visa, you can enter Mexico regardless of where you’re from. But that’s counting people have a US visa… if you don’t have one, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia are out.
I don’t know about Peru or Brazil. But Mexico doesn’t look good.
@ghost, true. You can’t make the concert in a country that’s not already into Kpop. Though, I think Colombia has a few fans, I have no idea if they are as many as the others though. Definitely easier to see the fans in Mexico, Brazil and Peru.
For Peru, the ones that need visas are Costa Rica, Cuba (well, this one is a given), El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama… apparently, also Mexico – due to bilateral treatment (we need a visa, so they need a visa). However, I remember that there was a whole issue on that, and the government supposedly back down on that.
But the rest can get in due to the Comunida Andina passport or something like that. You know, like the European Union but less cool… and less complicated money problems. LOL
If anyone wants to share their Brazil visa knowledge, be my guest. xD
@ghost, oh look!
According to this list of the Brazilian Consulate in San Francisco, countries like Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and some other countries are exempted from a visa…
but! it does seem to be more countries require it to enter than Peru.
Yo soy de México y para mi es mas viable viajar a Peru por ver un Concierto de Kpop que a Brasil, creo que logisticamente es mejor opcion Peru :)
@monchamonroy, otro voto peru! LOL