Chapter 26 Exercises

Comprehension Questions

1. Define Real Person Fiction (RPF) and explain how it is distinguished from (a) celebrity biography, (b) political satire, and (c) tabloid journalism. What is significant about the fact that fan communities coined a specific term for this practice?

2. Explain the "popslash" tradition. What was it, when did it emerge, and why is it considered the direct ancestor of contemporary K-pop RPF? What community ethical norms did popslash communities develop?

3. In your own words, articulate Vesper_of_Tuesday's "inner life argument" against RPF. What is the philosophical basis of her position? Where does she draw the line between what can be imaginatively engaged with and what cannot?

4. Explain the "fan service" system in K-pop idol promotion. How does agency-cultivated "shipping" relate to the ethics of RPF? What is Mireille's "complicity problem" analysis?

5. What is the "disclosure norm"? Why do proponents of RPF argue that following the disclosure norm substantially reduces the ethical problems with the practice? What is the strongest objection to this argument?

Application Exercises

6. The Spectrum Exercise Below is a spectrum of RPF scenarios. For each one, use the ethical frameworks introduced in the chapter (consent argument, dignity argument, persona/person distinction, disclosure norm, queer survival argument) to evaluate where it falls on a scale from "most defensible" to "least defensible." Explain your reasoning.

a. A fan writes a G-rated alternate universe story in which two K-pop idols are coffee shop owners. The story is labeled as fiction, posted on AO3, and depicts no private or intimate content.

b. A fan writes an explicit sexual story about two celebrity musicians, posted on a public social media account without any labeling.

c. A fan writes a story imagining the private grief of a celebrity who has recently experienced a family death, drawing on reported details of the event.

d. A fan writes satire of a politician that depicts them in a fictional meeting with an industry lobbyist, imagined to reveal their policy hypocrisy.

e. A fan writes a same-sex romance about two K-pop idols, clearly labeled as fictional, posted in a fan-only space, drawn from a queer perspective as a form of queer identity expression.

7. The Persona/Person Line Think of a celebrity you follow or know about whose public persona is very carefully managed and performed (a musician, actor, athlete, or public figure). Write a one-page analysis that (a) describes what is known about their public persona vs. what is genuinely private, and (b) evaluates where the persona/person line falls for this specific person. Does your analysis change how you think about RPF about this person?

8. Comparative Position Analysis Mireille, TheresaK, and Vesper_of_Tuesday each hold different positions on RPF. Sam Nakamura holds a position he himself describes as "not fully coherent." Write a comparative analysis (750–1000 words) that: - States each character's position clearly - Identifies the strongest argument supporting each position - Identifies the strongest challenge to each position - Explains which position you find most defensible and why

Discussion Questions

9. The Industry Complicity Question If a K-pop agency deliberately engineers "shipping" content — choreography, promotional videos, fan meeting content — designed to generate parasocial investment in a particular idol pair, and fans then write RPF responding to that content, who bears ethical responsibility for the outcomes? Discuss the distribution of responsibility among: the agency, the company executives who approve the strategy, the idols who perform the fan service, the fans who consume the official shipping content, and the fans who write RPF.

10. The Queer Survival Tension Chapter 26 presents the queer survival argument and the outing objection as a genuine tension that cannot be resolved by ranking one value above the other. Do you agree that this tension is genuinely unresolvable, or do you think one value should take clear priority? Defend your position.

11. Platform Responsibility AO3's policy is to host RPF alongside fictional fan fiction, using tagging and filtering systems to allow readers to manage what they encounter. Is this the right institutional policy? Should fan fiction archives (a) refuse to host any RPF, (b) host all RPF with no special requirements, (c) host RPF with specific labeling requirements, (d) host some categories of RPF (e.g., non-explicit, non-sexual) but not others? Defend your position.

12. The Historical Argument's Limits Chapter 26 argues that RPF has a centuries-long history and that the assumption it is uniquely novel is false. Does the historical continuity argument actually resolve any of the ethical concerns? Can you think of long-standing historical practices that were later recognized as unethical despite their historical longevity? How does this consideration affect the weight you give the historical argument?

Research and Writing Exercises

13. Community Norm Research Find and read the "RPF FAQ" or community guidelines posted on at least two different fan fiction spaces (Tumblr fan communities, AO3, Wattpad, Discord servers, fan wikis). Compare: What norms do they articulate? Are the norms consistent across communities? What do the differences tell you about how different fan communities navigate the ethical questions? Write a 500-word analysis.

14. The AO3 Statistics Exercise Go to AO3 and use the tag browsing and filtering functions to examine the scale of RPF in a specific fan community of your choice (a K-pop group, a band, an actor, an athlete). What are the total work counts? How does RPF compare to FPF? What are the most common tags and tropes? What does the data tell you about the community's creative priorities? Write a 400-word analysis.

15. Long-Form Position Paper Write a 1500–2000 word position paper arguing for a specific policy about RPF in fan spaces. Your paper should: - Articulate a clear policy position (e.g., "explicit RPF should require a specific consent-based label," or "RPF about minors should be prohibited but adult celebrity RPF should not") - Support the position with at least three arguments drawn from the chapter - Acknowledge and respond to the strongest argument against your position - Consider how your policy would apply to the K-pop context Mireille operates in

Advanced Synthesis

16. Consider the claim: "The ethical analysis of RPF cannot be conducted without attending to power relations — specifically, who is writing about whom, and what does the writing relationship enact?" Apply this claim to the following scenarios: (a) a white Western fan writing RPF about K-pop idols of color; (b) a queer fan writing same-sex RPF about idols whose actual sexuality is unknown; (c) a fan from a country with less power in the global media economy writing RPF about celebrities from a country with more power. Does the power analysis change your evaluation of each scenario? How?