Bubble Pop!

Zine
Title:	Bubble Pop!
Publisher:
Editor(s):	Malaka Gharib
Type:
Date(s):	2016
Medium:	Print, digital
Fandom:	K-Pop
Language:	English
External Links:	Digital version of the zine on Issuu
Zine cover
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Bubble Pop! is a K-Pop fanzine. The zine is based around the question: "Who are the Kpop fans of Washington, D.C.?".

The idea originated from a zine workshop in June 2016. Malaka Gharib, the editor for the zine, invited fans to a Korean restaurant in Washington where they developed collages and K-Pop homages for the zine.

It is named after the song of the same name by HyunA.

Creation

From the zine itself:

Who are the Kpop fans of Washington, D.C.? This is the question we sought to answer at a zine workshop in June 2016. For four hours, we invited people to Bul, a Korean Restaurant in Adams Morgan, to listen to Kpop music curated by Mia Steinle of Bae Bae D.C. and design a page for this crowdsourced zine.

The results? Homages to Kpop idols, explanations of how people got into Kpop, and cultural commentary. We've curated these pages into "BUBBLE POP! A Kpop Fanzine."

We hope this zine provides a window into the world of Kpop's American fans.

Malaka Gharib's article for Medium described the creation of the project:

We were surprised at who came to the event. There was a mom with her 13-year-old daughter and her two teenage friends. There were 20-somethings and 30-somethings. There was the former president of Howard University’s Japanese culture club. And there were a few Korean women who stumbled upon the event and decided to make a page for the heck of it.

We didn’t have many rules before the workshop began. We had a basic template that offered some ideas of what participants should do with their pages: How did you first get into Kpop? Why do you like it? Who’s your favorite Kpop idol? And if you don’t know anything about Kpop, interview the person next to you. We gave the participants craft supplies: scissors, glue, fun paper and of course — lots of photos of Kpop stars to work with: BTS, Exo, Hyuna, Girls Generation, Got7, Beast, 2PM, you name it.

Further reading

• "Bubble Pop! A Kpop Fanzine: Article on Medium". Archived from the original on 2019-07-11.
• "Zines We Didn't' Know Existed: Korean Underground Zines". Archived from the original on 2021-07-27.