Some K-pop fans are using generative AI to make images and videos of themselves hugging, kissing and cuddling their favourite idols, and a growing part of the fandom is pushing back, 404 Media reports. Posters on Reddit and K-pop forums are urging each other to report the clips, arguing that the idols are real people who never agreed to any of it.
One thread shared redacted stills from a fan video showing Keonho of the boy group CORTIS, who is a minor, hugging the fan and kissing their cheek. Other users said realism is what makes the difference: cut-and-paste fan edits always existed, but convincing footage feels far more invasive.
Sarah Keith, a Macquarie University researcher who studies K-pop fandom, places the trend within a long tradition of fan art and fiction. The change, she says, is that AI output can look as if the idol actually took part, and it can be produced in bulk and spread in ways that hurt reputations, sexualised deepfakes included. Other fans blame an industry that sells parasocial intimacy.
The industry's position is mixed. Members of BTS and Tomorrow X Together have spoken against AI copies of artists, and in March Jennie's label OA Entertainment threatened civil and criminal action over infringements of her image. Yet SM Entertainment calls generative AI central to its strategy and released a fully AI music video for Aespa, and a fully synthetic group, GLXE, debuted last December.
The report adds that South Korea leads the world in consumption of AI content while young people in the US grow more hostile to it. With few technical or legal safeguards, Keith says fans calling out non-consensual uses is one of the few deterrents that works.
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