How Bucin Deal with Public Diplomacy

What do people think of when they hear the words fandom, fanbase, fan club, or bucin of an artist? Maybe what comes to them is the word “extravagant” because fans like to spend money on needs that are not necessary for many people, such as buying merchandise, concert tickets as well as the overseas travel expenses accompanying it, giving expensive gifts to artists.

Or the word “gabut” (refers to a boring situation when you do not have anything important to do) because they want to spend hours on activities that many people find unuseful, such as waiting for an artist at the airport just to shake their hands or watching them from a distant, or make your thumb stiff because you are tired of typing thousands of votes for the artist on Twitter, Telegram, YouTube, and many other platforms; and also a series of other negative attributions  such as fan war, stalking activities, and so on.

Actually, if you look closer, the fandom things are not that absurd. It cannot be denied that the above attributions sometimes occur. But there are many interesting things that might escape people’s observations, for example, about creativity. You may even be amazed to see so many creative activities as well as social activities among fans. Various forms of high-quality fan art such as paintings, photo editing, memes, funny videos, and song covers related to the artist are widely circulated among fans. Many fans do charity and environmental causes to appreciate the artist.

What drives fans to do all of that for free without being tempted to monetization purposes? It’s the same with other creative activities, especially those based on volunteerism, namely passion. People want to do something voluntarily and continuously because they like it, consider something as part of themselves (self-actualization), and also as part of their social identity (sense of belonging).           All of this encourages fans to be creative not only about art and charity, but also in terms of cultural exchange and literary. Many beautiful poems, fanfiction novels, freelance essays, and various other forms of literacy activities were born because they were inspired by the artist.

To bring it further, these activities can not only function as expressions of fangirling/fanboying or having fun together with imagination. They can go far beyond that! For example, on February 2, 2021, the Indonesian Embassy in Nur-Sultan Kazakhstan uploaded a photo of a book by a fan of a Kazakh artist, being featured on its library display on its official Instagram account. The caption reads, “Congratulations to the @indonesian_dears community for the book launch. Please continue to work and contribute to improving closer relations between Indonesia and Kazakhstan. ” Three days later, Embassy of Kazakhstan in Jakarta posted the same book with a thank you caption.

The two posts show at least two things. First, from an internal perspective, this proves that fandom can also play a role in public diplomacy. Public diplomacy is a topic that is widely studied in the context of international relations. Public diplomacy is defined as an effort to achieve the national interest of a country through understanding, conveying information and influencing an international audience by using soft power.

Globalization and the development of information and communication technology have not only changed the direction of traditional diplomacy into public diplomacy, but also have made the choice of diplomacy tools more diverse. The actors involved are even wider, not only state but also non-state. Especially in terms of cultural diplomacy as a form of public diplomacy.

Cummings (2003) defines cultural diplomacy as an exchange of ideas, information, arts, and various aspects of culture between countries and their people to foster mutual understanding. This diplomacy involves cultural agents to play an active role in the diplomacy process.

Fandom as a subculture formed as a result of popular culture can act as an active agent for cultural exchange. So far, the process has been running by itself. In the above case, the exchange even did not only occur between two cultures or two countries represented by the two embassies (Indonesia-Kazakhstan), but involved various cultures where each fan came from.

The interaction between fans takes place not only around symbols of Kazakhstan culture, but also symbols of other cultures. The languages ​​introduced are not only Kazakh and Russian, but also Indonesian, English, Mandarin, Spanish, and so on. That way, not only fandom has delivered diplomacy messages, but also has implemented the message of peace, friendship, and multiculturalism.

The active role of fandom in the cultural diplomacy process as described above leads to the second point. From the external aspect, the authorities representing the two countries position the fandom not only as a highly segmented market to be the target of diplomatic messages, but as non-state actors who also have the power to determine the direction of diplomacy.

Broad coverage and high engagement are among the advantages of involving fandom in diplomatic efforts. It seems that the diplomats were also very aware of this when they decided to go with the flow and raise the viral story between Fiki Naki and Dayana. It was proven that when the Indonesian Embassy in Nur-Sultan invited Dayana, the number of followers immediately sped up, and the comments on each of her posts increased many times. Likewise has also happened when the Embassy of Kazakhstan Jakarta edited Dayana’s photo into the face of a statue wearing Indonesian clothes.

Furthermore, fandom can even influence the policy making process. For example, at the end of 2020, the Army cheered with joy because of their struggle to persuade the South Korean government to review the regulations on military service for their idols to be considered successful. The South Korean government finally reviewed the regulations and allowed BTS to postpone the military service when they were at the peak of their career until they were in their 30s.

Some of these phenomena, most of which occur in the digital realm, seem to confirm what Rulli Nasrullah, a leading researcher in the field of Indonesian virtual ethnography, has said. The shifting of Indonesian media audiences and digital culture requires anyone with a mission to convey a message, to face the same challenge. Nowadays users can not only act as viewers, but also as creators. Therefore, the biggest challenge is not how to produce content, but how to deal with netizens. (mmsm)