The Rising Popularity of Photocard Created Collector Among K-Pop Fans: A New Hobby During Pandemic

We all have surely heard the term "The Korean Wave," The Korean Wave (Hallyu) refers to the global phenomenon of South Korea's cultural economy exporting pop culture, entertainment, music, TV dramas and movies have all had big breakthroughs in recent years. Undeniably, the rapidly growing K-Pop music industry has created a fan culture and a new hobby, there are collecting photo cards of their idols. 

Photo cards have come as included in albums and now many agencies have started to sell merchandise in which there are only photo cards. Photo cards are known as one of the most coveted merchandise among fans because photo cards are not just plain paper, but can serve as an investment in happiness and investment in money, especially since this pandemic.

Sha as NCTzen shared her opinion to represent K-pop fans to answer the question about why fans are so into photo cards and why they get excited with these pieces. 

"Actually, I've been collecting photo cards since pandemic COVID-19 happens because since I'm not allowed to go outside my money is safe and suddenly I was thinking to have one photo card so I bought that, but after that, I brought photo cards again and again until now. And why I'm collecting because I enjoyed finding my wishlist, also because I feel happy when I open the packages, and I also buy an album to support the group"

Sha started a fascination for photo cards when she joined NCT fandom and she started as a collector because NCT has a lot of members, so the opportunity to get photo cards from the member she is biased is getting smaller but she enjoyed finding her wishlist. Besides that, the moment from buying, waiting, and unboxing photo cards from the album or merchandise is very pleasant to do for fans. 

Source: Sha collection

Sha also shared her collection of photo cards.