Spy Stock

@spearnreel The bond short is part of the leverage scheme to prop up the stock market\. when that implodes bonds will stop going down to support and will rally causing a leveraged meltdown in the SPY

... faster and that’s just the stock version. XD I can't say... computer hacking bits. You’re a spy so you have to hack ...

... faster and that’s just the stock version. XD I can't say... computer hacking bits. You’re a spy so you have to hack ...

... faster and that’s just the stock version. XD I can't say... computer hacking bits. You’re a spy so you have to hack ...

... faster and that’s just the stock version. XD I can't say... computer hacking bits. You’re a spy so you have to hack ...

... faster and that’s just the stock version. XD I can't say... computer hacking bits. You’re a spy so you have to hack ...

Was curious whether the most mentioned stocks on Reddit actually went anywhere, or if it's all just noise / hype. Pulled the top 15 most-mentioned individual stocks from January (excluded ETFs), then looked at how each one performed from Jan 2 to today. Some highlights: SNDK: +467% (memory cycle blew up, everyone was right) INTC: +217% (turnaround actually happened) AMD: +103% 9 of 15 top stocks beat SPY's 7.4% Average return across the basket: +55% It's not without risk - some stocks fell. HOOD was the worst at -33%. PLTR gave back 18%. So picking any single name was still a coin flip, but the basket as a whole crushed the market through a brutal stretch (software crash, Iran war, oil spike). Reddit gets a lot of crap for creating noise but the collective attention seems to actually surface real movers. Source: https://altindex.com/news/reddit-top-january-stocks-beating-market submitted by /u/GoodFortune67 to r/TheRaceTo10Million [link] [comments]

56M. Recently quit my job in the US, and relocated to Thailand. Got $7.5m in equities (85% equities / 15% income). Equity sleeve is solely VTI, QQQ, SPY and VXUS; income sleeve is solely BINC, JEPI, SGOV & VCIT. I run monthly cashed secured puts (executed as wide strike price Bull Put Spreads) only on QQQ and SPY with a total exposure of about $700k for additional option premium using the income sleeve as collateral in event of assignment. I have no direct, individual company exposure so I don’t have to worry about earnings reports, a bad sales report or whatever. I’ve also monetized the portfolio, avoiding selling highly appreciated stock, with $1m in SPX Box loans. Loans maturities are laddered between 12/2026 and 12/2028, the average rate is 3.9%. When they mature I’ll just roll over. This funds the income sleeve which will throw off at least 5% per annum in dividends and avoids any real near term sequence of return risk. With all of that I expect to be able to live on about $225k to $250k per year (+/-) and not have my net worth deteriorate. I’ll get about $1,400 a month in social security when I turn 62. I’ll reevaluate spending, to see if I can spend more and related drawdowns based on prevailing market and other conditions. Appreciate any comments…. submitted by /u/N4003604 to r/Fire [link] [comments]

SPY hit an all-time high friday. did it on 16 million shares. 20-day average is 50 million. april closed as best month in 5 years (+10%). earnings are crushing. 84% beat rate, 27.8% growth. apple beat and popped 3.5% but under the hood - only 53.67% of S&P stocks above their 200 day MA. at a real ATH you'd expect 70-80%+ - decliners outnumbered advancers 1.5 to 1 this week. index went up while most stocks went down - 4 FOMC members dissented wednesday. most since 1992. rate hike odds went from 0% to 9% - oil at $102.50. strait of hormuz still closed. CPI drops may 13 with a full month of $100+ crude baked in - SPY put/call OI ratio sitting at 2.2. institutions hedging like it's late cycle none of this means it drops monday. credit spreads are tight, buyback windows reopening (~$1T annual pace), earnings are objectively great but the gap between what the index says and what's happening underneath is wide right now. either breadth catches up or the index catches down what's your read submitted by /u/Hungry-Command-8454 to r/investing [link] [comments]

Trump just called it “treasonous” to say the US isn’t winning in Iran, even after formally notifying Congress that hostilities which started Feb 28 are now “terminated.” Ceasefire’s been extended since April 7 with no shots fired since, but he’s keeping force posture flexible and the Strait of Hormuz blockade is still squeezing supply. Oil’s already reacting. Brent’s hovering above $100 again and WTI futures are choppy. If this drags or flares back up, names like XOM, CVX, and EOG keep printing. Refiners and shippers (FRO, TK) might lag if demand gets crushed by higher prices. Defense contractors are in a weird spot, LMT, RTX, NOC and GD love the replacement orders coming for damaged radars and that $500M E-3 Sentry that got taken out, but endless low-intensity conflict without big new budgets eventually caps the upside. I’ve held energy and defense positions on my Bitget portfolio through multiple cycles. The pattern is always the same: headlines spike the stocks, then reality of drawn-out costs and political noise grinds them. SPY and QQQ have been resilient on the “war is over” headline, but I’m watching the VIX and 10-year yield closely. One more incident in the Gulf and we retest the recent highs in volatility. Anyone else trimming energy into this relief or adding on dips? Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/trump-iran-war-news-treason-video-b2969246.html submitted by /u/Woodpecker5987 to r/TradingPlaybook [link] [comments]

Fundamental Analysis: Economic backdrop - 🥭 does not care about high oil prices or the midterms. He wants high oil prices and the strait closed so the USA can export oil to Europe and Asia. He does not care about the midterms because he is done with domestic policy after the 🅱️ig 🅱️eautiful 🅱️ill. Even without Congress, he can do whatever he wants with foreign policy. Longer term outlook - This will be a short term crash in the secular bull market. A.I. is not a bubble; some of the companies suck and will die, but the buildout needs to happen to save the economy from demographic collapse. Technical Analysis: https://preview.redd.it/lz9azk64l8wg1.png?width=1841&format=png&auto=webp&s=927d6364e36d942cd042b4b25779484a1b5f6811 The rally has been on low declining volume, indicative of low conviction by big money. There are multiple points of bearish divergence on the RSI on the SPY weekly chart and multiple exhaustion gaps on the SPY daily chart. The lower trend line points to SPY 550 in July, SPY 560 in October, or SPY 575 in December. If SPY does not crash to the trend line, retesting the pre-liberation high at around 610 is likely. Meme Analysis: The fear and greed index reached 69. https://preview.redd.it/2tnfpsi5l8wg1.jpg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1624d14b52bdefa84529486b73fcc6834c0189ed Motivation: I usually stick to shitposting, but this DD is for someone special. https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/s/2xGO4T7i05 https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/s/k1cgsNYGgw Position: https://preview.redd.it/yhar9iq7l8wg1.jpg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1901177dd5e6e03646bf38a8d18d6274f31761cf TLDR: The market is at or near a top. SPY is headed towards either 550 in July, 560 in October, 575 in December, or 610 sometime during the year if the trend line fails. submitted by /u/ChungWuEggwua to r/wallstreetbets [link] [comments]

EDIT: This was written before the announcement of Heeseung's departure and makes no reference to that. If there are blank spaces, it is because that is where photos were (proofs and screenshots), but this sub does not allow for photos to be added to the body of text. Please take this with a grain of salt. My attempt at humor may not be everyone's taste and that is okay. Generalizations may be made, but not meant to be deep. This is based on my lived experience. Obviously when i say c-fans and you have two cousins in China who aren't like that, i am not talking about them. This is long. You are not obligated to read it, but if you do, I am grateful! Please share your thoughts! Save for later :) Synopsis I’ve been a K-pop fan since 2016. Specifically BTS. I was what you would call an International Stan, which is really just a fancy way of saying emotionally invested but geographically blocked. I still am an i-fan, of course, but less so in recent years. This is the story of exactly that. People think they understand what it’s like to be a k-fan because they visited Seoul for 10 days and bought 3 albums at Myeongdong. Sweet. Adorable. But living in East Asia as a fangirl? That’s a completely different psychological experiment. As an international fan (especially an American one), your experience is… controlled. Safe. Curated. You get a concert. Maybe a hi-touch if the gods are smiling. Possibly a video call fansign if your bank account sacrifices itself. And then you go home. You shower. You return to normal society. There is distance. Healthy distance. You are limited to asian twitter stans keeping you updated on the day-to-day, should you even care. I would argue geography is the only thing preventing many I-fans from becoming sasaengs. I said what I said. We have boundaries because we have oceans. K-pop is a bubble and your direct environment doesn't live in it. Chapter 1 When I first started stanning, I lived in Europe. Then in 2018 I moved to South America. Then in 2019 I moved to the U.S. Then COVID said “actually no” and I went back to South America after 11 months. Basically, I was doing a world tour. Unlike my faves. Fast forward to 2023. I move to China. And this! This is where the villain origin story begins. Now, up until this point, I had a very normal i-fan life. I had seen Blackpink on their Born Pink tour in Abu Dhabi. My only k-pop concert. And it came about simply because I happened to be in the same place at the same time. Coincidence. The rest of my fangirl life was limited to shoddy weverse livestreams and reruns of Run BTS. BTS goes on group hiatus and I, like many people, miss the chaos of group dynamic. And so i diversify. A hybe stan has been born. TXT, Enhypen, Seventeen, Boy Next Door, &team. After a while, The Boyz, P1Harmony, NCT127 and Zico join the ranks. My multi-stan portfolio. Now I’m in Beijing. Two. Hours. From. Seoul. Suddenly the forbidden fruit is within reach. Artist appearances? Possible. Encore concerts? Possible. Offline fansigns? Possible. Comeback shows? Possible. Airport sightings? Apparently… very possible. At first it doesn’t even register. This life never existed in my brain before. I was a “wait for the world tour” kind of girl, even though i never actually went to the world tour. But i'm here now and it takes a while before all of this registers in my brain. Chapter 2 Now let’s talk about China. Because we have the firewall. To access “outside” sites, you need a VPN. Which I am using right now to expose myself. This becomes important. Six months in, I’m settled. I’m thriving. I’m now tuned in to Weverse notices like it’s the stock market. Enhypen announces their new tour: Walk The Line. I am a newborn Engene. Fresh. Fragile. Delusional. I buy my first membership ever. I feel official. Legitimate. Recognized by the universe. Ticketing opens. I study Global Interpark like it’s the LSAT. And then… They start cracking down on bots. Which sounds amazing in theory. Except I am not a bot. I am simply a girl. In China. With a VPN. Which the system cannot emotionally differentiate from a criminal. I fail. The site blocks me. My dreams? Also blocked. I give up because I don’t even know what I’m missing yet. I have never truly experienced much k-pop in real life so emotionally, i am fine. At this point, I have not yet joined chinese social media like Douyin and Xiaohongsu. Then summer hits. Enhypen’s Tokyo shows are announced and I hear Japanese ticketing is basically the Hunger Games. I think to myself, chances are low but never zero. I give it a shot. And then somehow (for reasons i do not know but i also don't care about), the Japanese site does NOT clock my VPN. God intervened. I get tickets. I am going to my first Enhypen concert. In Tokyo. I am levitating. I fly in for a 3 day trip. I arrive early because this is Japan and I don’t know the social rules at these concerts and I refuse to accidentally disrespect anyone’s lightstick etiquette. Ajinomoto Stadium. I am here. I sit down. I have a terrible view, but I am on a high! Start talking to my seatmate. And within 5 minutes of looking around I realize… My entire section is Chinese. Every. Single. Person. And it makes sense. The Japanese site allowed access. So we all migrated like emotionally unstable birds. The girl next to me? YingYing. Her bias is Jay. How do I know? Not because of the GIANT fan she carries with his face on it. But because she is the ONLY PERSON in our otherwise polite, composed Japanese stadium screaming his name. I start a conversation and thankfully she speaks a bit of English because my Mandarin is abysmal. I immediately clock her get-up. My girl has binoculars. She has multiple sources for hydration. She has a decorated lightstick. She has two phones. She has two powerbanks. She hands me a freebie. An experienced k-pop stan. My first encounter in the wild. Meanwhile, I am there. With nothing. I had planned to buy a lightstick at the venue but apparently you were supposed to buy it on Weverse and pick it up at the venue, which I did not know. My single powerbank has died already so I stop recording the concert because I still need my phone to get home. I don't know many things at this point. My single bottle of water had finished hours earlier so at this point I am withering away in the scorching heat. YingYing. We exchange info. We bond. It’s beautiful. Concert ends. Life is good. Now here’s where things shift. Chapter 3 I have some friends in Seoul from my days at uni. I had been to Seoul 3 times before my big move to Asia to visit them, get plastered on soju and update my face. I start flying to Seoul monthly. Not for idols. For vibes and to give in to my insecurities and succumb to beauty standards. There is something about being in this city and just seeing ads all over with your fave's face on it, hearing your favorite music outside, seeing people with photocards on their bag, that just hits different. The bubble i mentioned earlier. I am in it. The bubble has burst. There is no such thing as a bubble here. At the Beijing airport, I start to notice something strange. The check-in line always full of girls. No luggage. Just massive professional cameras. I land in Seoul. Arrivals is packed. Clearly someone is coming. And I stay. Because curiosity is my fatal flaw. And out walks Seventeen’s The8. Looking fine, might I add. He walks. The girls run. It’s chaos. He leaves. And then I witness something that changes my brain chemistry forever: The girls… go back to departures. They fly back. They flew to Seoul. To see him walk through an airport. And then flew home. I am standing there holding my carry-on, questioning my entire understanding of devotion. I have flown Beijing–Seoul 16 times and they are always there. Always. Locked in. Cameras ready. No luggage. Just commitment. My mind is blown. Meanwhile, I’m living peacefully as an Engene. Nothing has really changed for me yet since my first experience. It's still not clicking in my brain. I'm still a normal i-fan. And then I see Enhypen will be in China. For a fansign. And I think to myself: “Oh how nice. I’ve never been to one. That would be cute.” Oh. Sweet. Naïve. Me. Chapter 4 The updates for this fansign are posted on Weibo. And thus begins my descent into Chinese social media. I download the apps. I make the accounts. I step through the digital gates like: “I’m just here to look.” Famous last words. The eligibility is simple. Classic K-pop capitalism: The more albums you buy, the higher your chances. I don’t even attempt it. I am not an album hoarder. I am not building a shrine. What am I supposed to do with 50 identical albums? Tile my bathroom? No. But then I see something. The Polaroid fansign. One-on-one. You and your favorite member. A photo. Intimate. Exclusive. Tangible delusion. Apparently, you can just… pay. Oh. I am an adult. I have adult money. I can absolutely pay to take a Polaroid with the cutie that is Jungwon. I begin justifying it immediately. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.” “This is cultural research.” “I live in Asia now.” Then reality slaps me across the face. Jungwon: $15,000. Fifteen. Thousand. Green. American. Dollars. I close the page so fast I nearly sprain my thumb. Listen. I might be crazy. But I am not fifteen-thousand-dollars-for-a-polaroid crazy. However. If this had been Jungkook? That is a different internal conversation. But I am saving for the BTS World Tour that will one day resurrect me spiritually. More power to you, Chinese Engenes. But now? Now I’m on Chinese socials. I’m tuned in. LOCKED in. And here’s the plot twist: I can access ticketing sites for Hong Kong. Macau. Taiwan. No VPN drama. No Interpark trauma. Just vibes. And so my real journey begins. I go. See. Everyone. Casual fan? I’m there. Die-hard stan? I’m there. Group I barely know three songs from? I’m seated respectfully. During 2025 I see: BoyNextDoor, TWS, IVE, Aespa, Stray Kids, Close Your Eyes, AHOF, MEOVV NMIXX, NCT Wish, NEXZ, Hearts2Hearts, KiiiKiii, ZEROBASEONE, The Boyz, Ha Sungwoon, Cravity At this point I am not a fan. I am infrastructure. I am frequent flyer platinum. I am scanning schedules before managers. I am HER. Now. Let’s talk about Chinese fan culture at concerts. There are no rules. No etiquette. No mercy. If you collapse in the front row, you will be stepped over like a minor inconvenience. Do not get between a girl and her fancam. We do not scream. We do not dance. We DEFINITELY do not wave lightsticks wildly. You may bring your lightstick. But it is decorative. It is not to obstruct the 4K zoom lens. We live for the fancam. And because most of the shows I attended were seated? I survived. Untouched. Unproblematic. For now. Chapter 5 Then. Enhypen announces encore concerts in Seoul. Remember how I was blocked from Korean ticketing because of VPN discrimination? Exactly. So I don’t even try that hard. But I am now spiritually bonded to Weverse. No notice escapes my household. And then. The raffle notice drops. Raffle? I’ve never entered one. I’m about to ignore it because again, I will not be bulk buying albums like I’m restocking a warehouse. Then I read carefully. Membership holders. Only. Months ago, in a moment of delusion, I bought the Engene membership. It has been sitting there. Unused. Judged. Forgotten. This is my redemption arc. I enter. I win. I WIN. No Interpark. No VPN warfare. God said: “Fine. You’ve suffered enough.” Not only do I win. I win soundcheck. My first ever soundcheck. This. This is the concert that awakens my inner bitch. Because up until now? I am nice. I mind my business. I am an extroverted introvert. The girls who get it, get it. The concert is standing. I hate standing concerts. I despise them. But for Enhypen? We endure. The ticket has a zone number and an entry number. I do not know what this means. I show up early at KSPO Dome because this is my first Korean concert and I am determined to be culturally respectful. Immediately I notice: Everyone is Chinese. A few scattered foreigners. The rare Korean. But mostly? My people. I feel a strange kinship with c-fans. I too, am now 'from China'. Then I start observing. The platform shoes. Six inches minimum. Structural engineering marvels. And the phone rental lady. With literal suitcases of phones. I am staring at her like she’s a mythical creature. Time to line up. My number is 101. Here is what I did not understand: 101 means I must be the 101st person in line. It is self-regulated. Self. Regulated. I accidentally stand too far forward and the girl with a lower number looks at me like I just committed a felony. The shame. I quietly reposition myself to my legally assigned spot. Everyone in my line is Chinese. At this point I feel adopted. We enter. And somehow I secure third row from barricade. I have never been this close to a stage in my life. The C-engenes around me seem nice. For now. Then she arrives. The girl behind me. Within seconds I know this is going to be war. Nothing is happening yet. We are just standing. Why are you pushing me? Soundcheck starts. And this girl is attempting to merge her body through mine to reach Jungwon. While yelling his name in the most unhinged baby voice you can imagine. “Jungwonnnnnieeeee~” I feel my soul leaving my body. I politely ask her to stop pushing me. Twice. She does not. I cannot move. I am compressed. I am experiencing crowd-based suffocation. The girls around me do not move. Jake says: “PUT YOUR HANDS UP!” Absolutely not. Hands stay DOWN. Arms glued to sides. We are statues. We are filming. Dancing is illegal. Breathing is optional. I survive almost the entire concert before I surrender. I politely ask if I can pass through to leave. And for the first time all night? They smile at me. Great concert. Terrible concert experience. Chapter 6 I return to China. Deflated. Emotionally bruised. Spiritually aged. I look in the mirror and whisper: “I am too old for this.” Like I just came back from war. But then. A thought. If Chinese fans can’t access ticketing sites from China… Why was the venue in 87% Chinese? Not everyone won a raffle. Not everyone is God’s favorite. So what is happening. Who would know? YingYing. I had completely forgotten about YingYing, Jay’s personal hype machine, but I message her like: “Hey bestie. Hypothetically… how are y’all everywhere?” She replies immediately. Turns out she went to the Seoul concerts too. Of course she did. So I unload. I air out my grievances like I’m filing a formal complaint with the universe. How do C-fans get tickets? How are they at every fansign? How do they always know schedules before Weverse even blinks? Why are they omnipresent? Are they government funded? Reminder: I am now on Chinese social media. I have seen the sasaeng accounts. I have seen the flight screenshots. I have seen the hotel lobby livestreams. My algorithm is concerning. YingYing says: “Girl I got you.” Those four words altered my brain chemistry. She adds me to a WeChat group.Three hundred members. It’s an Engene group. I. Am. Floored. And slightly disgusted. But also deeply intrigued. Like when you know you shouldn’t open the comments section but you absolutely will. I do not announce myself. I do not speak. My Chinese is still mid and my morals are in observation mode. I am a spy. A National Geographic correspondent embedded in the wild. I scroll. The group has leaders. Hierarchy. Structure. This is not chaotic fangirling. This is a corporation. About 4–5 core Engenes running operations. This is Jay’s c-bar. Thank you, YingYing. Of course it’s Jay’s. And then I see it. Fundraising posts. But not for birthday billboards. Not for subway ads. For scheduling information. Flight details. Hotel information. Car routes. They pool money to buy intel. Buy. Intel. There are payment screenshots. Contribution lists. Spreadsheets. If you donate, you get access. Premium subscription: Stalker Edition. They are also collecting funds to send one of the leaders to Seoul to “camp.” Camp. Which sounds cute. It is not cute. Camping means positioning yourself near dorms, hotels, airports. Stalking, if you will. Everyone who donates gets access to whatever she gathers. Photos. Movements. Confirmations. It is crowdsourced surveillance. Or, again, stalking. And I’m just sitting there. Scrolling. Silent. Horrified. But not leaving. Because I need to understand. Because I moved two hours from Seoul and accidentally unlocked a level of fandom I was never meant to see. And suddenly I realize: The girls at the airport with no luggage? They are not random. They are coordinated. And I am in the group chat. Chapter 7 I am a fly on the wall. Emphasis on fly. Because yes, I am in the groupchat. But I am not in the inner circle. I am not trusted. I am not initiated. I am observing. This is Jay’s c-bar. But here’s the thing. It’s just one of many. Every major city has its own groupchat. I’m in the Beijing one. There’s Shanghai. Guangzhou. Shenzhen. Probably cities I’ve never even heard of. It’s like regional government branches, but make it fandom. Each city has leaders. And then, above them, there is a separate leader chat. The High Council, if you will. Information flows down. Funds flow up. My group leader is Xiangying. Do I know what Xiangying looks like? No. How old she is? No. What she does for a living? No. Is she 19? Is she 32? Is she a finance executive? A law student? A secret agent? I know nothing. All I know is that she runs this chat like the navy. This is not a hobby group. This is a command center. There are unspoken rules. You feel them before you read them. Rule number one: Jay. Priority. Focus. Oxygen. We do not actively hate the other members. We simply… do not care. Do not discuss them. Do not compare. Absolutely no ships. This is not Wattpad. This is Jay’s bar. Luckily for morale, Jay is a main vocal. He gets lines. He gets screentime. He gets visibility. Which means the groupchat is usually in good spirits. If he had zero lines? I fear we would witness civil unrest. Then. It’s comeback season. Enhypen announces a January comeback. The chat transforms. People lock in like it’s tax season. Now remember: accessing outside sites from China is difficult. But the bar has… people. There is always someone in Korea. Or one of the leaders will physically go to Korea. You send them your Weverse login and they will purchase albums on your behalf. For a steep fee, of course. This is concierge capitalism. The chat has goals. Not vibes. Goals. The main Jay bar leadership sets a target. This comeback? 50,000 albums. Fifty. Thousand. And that’s just for Jay’s c-bar. Each city leader is responsible for hitting their quota through their network. I don’t even know if different member bars coordinate with each other beyond logistics. But I do know this: This is industrial. There’s hierarchy. Of course there is. The more albums you buy, the more valuable you are. Fansign season is where things get intense. And here’s the twist: It’s not just entering through Weverse like a civilian. If you’ve purchased enough albums through the bar, the leaders will use your Weverse account to funnel massive group order purchases under your name. Thousands. Yes. Thousands. Your account becomes the vessel. Your odds skyrocket. You are now a strategic asset. This is no longer luck. This is engineered probability. Ticketing? Oh, that’s another ecosystem. There are c-bars. And there are scalpers. The difference? Branding. Both purchase tickets in bulk. C-bars claim it’s for internal distribution. Scalpers sell to the highest bidder. “But you can’t transfer tickets on NOL.” Yes. You can. It’s complicated. It involves automated systems I will not pretend to understand. Possibly software that exists in moral gray zones. But it is absolutely possible. Nothing is truly impossible when money and obsession combine. Now that we understand how the machine functions… We need to understand the mindset. Because that’s the part people get wrong. From the outside, it looks insane. From the inside? It feels logical. Strategic. Collective. Efficient. You are not “a crazy fan.” You are part of a mission. A data-driven, goal-oriented, performance-based operation. And I am in the groupchat. Silent. Watching. Realizing that I moved two hours from Seoul and accidentally embedded myself inside one of the most organized fandom infrastructures on earth. Chapter 8 Here’s the thing you have to understand: in this world, Jay isn’t a person. I don’t mean “I don’t care about his feelings.” I mean he literally stops being human. You know how in normal life, you think about someone’s mood, their lunch, whether they got enough sleep, whether they’re stressed? C-bar logic doesn’t work that way. Because if you see him as a person, you have limits. You empathize. You hesitate. You slow down. You question. So instead, you convert him into a system. A node. A resource. A scoreboard. A chart. Like a character in a game your playing and real life just happens to be the game. I decide I want to understand this. I want to understand the thinking behind this. Usually in the west, if someone even starts to think anything invasive, you get clocked by your fandom. And rightfully so. But here, it is sport. So I look over the members in this group and there is one person that has english in her status. So I add her. Her name is Xiaofei. I do not know anything else about her, but she speaks English and so I gradually start to get to know her. The reason for this and not my dear YingYing is because, YingYing, though she is in the chat, she isn't active. She mainly stays in there to stay up-to-date on the comings and goings but YingYing is no stalker. Thankfully. After a few days of back and forth fangirling over Jay, normal fangirling: things like his best song, his best look, his best dance etc, I move on to the important stuff. Mind you, I am a Jungwon stan but now, out of the sheer information about Jay I possess, also a Jay stan. So I ask her subtly. Jay himself, the person, probably doesn't appreciate being followed and called on his phone all day. If you love Jay, wouldn't you want him to be happy and healthy? She explains to me that Jay will be happiest when he is most successful. It is the job of the agency to keep him healthy. Wouldn't he be sad if he came to the airport and nobody was there because nobody cares? The idol-as-human is messy. The idol-as-resource is perfectly efficient. C-bar members joke about flights like stock traders talk about futures. Hotel numbers are traded like commodities. Album purchases are analyzed like microeconomic policy. It is obsession turned scientific. The girls know everything. But they are emotionally insulated. They do not stop to think: “Maybe I shouldn’t know this. Maybe it’s invasive.” Because knowing is power, and in this system, power is survival. I realize I am observing something that can’t exist in the normal world. If you treated any other human this way… it would be monstrous. But here, in this context? It’s normalized. Necessary. Rational. Xiaofeisays: “The idol is not a person. He is Jay. That’s all that matters.” And suddenly I see the clarity. The horror. The thrill. Because once you remove the humanity, all boundaries disappear. Nothing is off-limits. Every detail is fair game. Every move is a metric. Every tiny advantage counts. And you begin to understand: this is why they can buy thousands of albums, chase flights, and organize themselves with surgical precision. They aren’t cruel. They’re just… optimized. And I, sitting quietly in the chat, begin to wonder… Am I watching obsessive fandom? Or am I watching human efficiency applied to emotional obsession? And maybe, just maybe, I am starting to understand the pull. Chapter 9 I got kicked out of the group for never speaking. My time is coming to an end soon. BTS is coming back so I will put on my army hat again. Living in China can be a lonely experience. This sentiment is echoed by the few chinese friends (non kpop) i made here. To find community, purpose or meaning is difficult in this huge fast paced place and people find it in all sorts of hobbies. I empathize with these people, but i also feel guilty about doing so. I recognize the damage they cause to the real people behind the idol personas. There's probably even more similar groups for BTS and I don't want to be in them. I am a fan of RM, the artist. I do not know Kim Namjoon, the person. I wish this distinction could be made amongst these people i've come to know. They play a real-life game where the more you do, the more involved you are in these activities, the higher up the food chain you can climb. Something they probably can't achieve in other real world fields. I am leaving. I have exited. I am now limited to reddit update posts and tiktok videos. And for the first time in a while, I do not know what time Jay went home today. submitted by /u/friendlyfire_may to r/kpopthoughts [link] [comments]