Dear Gossips, 

I laughed last night when I opened socials for a final check before bed and saw this tweet from Dispatch. Dispatch is kinda sorta like the TMZ of Korea and they were sending out a heads-up for a livestream that happened today in Korea from the airport. 

 

Jung Hae-in and Jung So-min, aka the “JungJung couple”, are currently starring in a series called Love Next Door on Netflix that’s blowing up online. It’s about childhood friends who grew up living next door to each other and…well… I’m sure you’re familiar with this trope. The show airs two new episodes every weekend and it’s been a slow burn but this past weekend is when the slow burn erupted into fire (by K-drama standards) and people have been losing their sh-t. I will admit that I too was overcome with the squeals and I can’t even blame the bad cold I’ve been fighting. The scenes were indeed stupidly beautiful, the way only Koreans can film these ridiculously pretty it-finally-happened confession moments featuring ridiculously pretty stars. LOOK AT THIS. Look at how the wind magically kicks up the moment he leans into kiss her and those flowers swaying back and forth like a choir serenading their first time. I’m too weak for this sh-t!

 

 

No but seriously, the chemistry between these two is nuclear so viewers have been shipping them in real life since episode one. Now here’s where the airport comes in – it had been announced a couple of weeks ago that the two would be doing a promo photoshoot together in Bali. The exact dates were unclear, but then of course it’s so obvious now. Because as soon as these two weekend episodes aired, with their characters admitting their feelings to each other at long last, an alert goes out about their travel plans, pretty much inviting people to watch them be photographed at the airport. By the way, they arrived separately so it’s not like they recreated their onscreen romance IRL in front of all the press and the fans who’d gathered see them off. If you’re interested, you can watch the whole stream here. 

 

What makes it funny to me is that, well, I can’t imagine this ever happening in the west. And it’s another example of how fame and celebrity is performed in different entertainment cultures. There’s been a lot of conversation lately about the expectations placed on stars and how some of them, like Chappell Roan, are pushing back. As parasocial relationships continue to disappear boundaries though, that also applies to global entertainment ecosystems. What’s considered “acceptable” in one culture may not be in others, and as everything merges together in the algorithm, will it become more and more difficult for fans to tell the difference? 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey 

Photo credits: Netflix

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