4. Learn to be multilingual.

When you’re a fan of KPop, you learn to sing in Korean, with the proper enunciation and inflection.

If you’re not fluent, just search for the romanized version of the lyrics on YouTube and Google. Becoming multilingual also comes in handy when you’re trying to understand your fellow stan from Indonesia or Uzbekistan. Because sometimes Bing (or Google Translate) just won’t cut it. You just might end up more confused than when you started.

3. Suspend that inner grammar Nazi.

Because KPop is a worldwide phenomenon, it has a lot of international fans, including non-English speakers. This makes communicating with them an exercise in creativity and patience. But even though you read, write and speak English fluently, there’s no need for you to go around correcting people every time they use “their” instead of “they’re”.

Just excuse the syntax and concentrate on the message (this also applies to those who write in shorthand, by the way.) Do this and you’ll live longer. After all, good grammar pales in comparison to all the friends you’ll gain all over the world.

2. Be ready to take a vow of poverty.

Idols are virtual money pits. They drop albums without so much as a by your leave, sometimes coming up with two versions at a time.

As a bona fide fan, you’ll have to buy both. And of course you’ll have to buy tickets when they hold concerts and fan meets, and pay for membership to their Daum cafe and fan club (which in exchange gets you official merchandise like light sticks, lanyards, banners and stickers.) Let’s not even talk about photobooks, posters, rice donations and food projects. All of these amount to saying goodbye to your allowances, your paychecks or your savings.

So, RIP wallet. But then again, don’t forget, this is all for love.

1. Take megadoses of chill.

When you’re in a fandom, you’re given to extreme bouts of histrionics. Whether it’s spazzing over how good your bias looks (OhmyGodmyovariesexploded!) or ranting about how your group is getting no love (Whosaysmybabiesareflops?Immafightyou!), there’s no lack of drama in KPop.

If you’re the kind who easily gets affected by things like these, your best move is to stay away from your keyboard when there are issues involving your biases. Go read a book or see a movie like The Conjuring 2. But whatever you do, do not engage (with the enemy). Doing so might get you into a fan war of Game of Thrones proportions and you’ll probably never see the end of it.

If you think you can handle these, then you’re ready to be a KPop fan. Go forth then and spazz!

Got tips for budding stans? Post them in the comments!

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