What Is Black Ocean? The Moment K-Pop Fans Stop The Light Of Their Lightsticks

Lightsticks are an essential part of the K-Pop culture. K-Pop fans own beautiful lightsticks to cheer on their favorite artists. Each fandom has its own lightstick (and some with several versions already). Fans bring their lightstick to concert venues as well as other events. In times of COVID-19, fans still put on the light of their lightstick at home in front of their screens.

Lightsticks mean a lot to fans and idols. It is a sign of passion, unity in the fandom, and love for the artists. Fans cheer on their idols with these lightsticks, and idols receive energy from these.

However, in some cases, there are no lightsticks to light the stadium ... a Black Ocean.

 

What is a Black Ocean?

Have you heard of the term Black Ocean? In K-Pop, Black Ocean refers to fans putting off the light of their lightstick during an event to show their dissatisfaction.

It is "black" because there is no light. As for "ocean", the term is used for the lightstick of fans shining in concerts. Also, during Black Ocean fans keep quiet as if the stadium is empty and even worst in some cases fans scream bad words to the group.

You will have understood that having a Black Ocean is not something an idol would like to see!

 

Reasons

Then, what are the reasons for the extreme choice of doing Black Ocean? There are various!

It is when a fandom shows their dissatisfaction to another group or another fandom. Reasons are diverse. While some seemed just "justifiable", some are made by antis and extreme fans. It could be a few extreme fans that pushed all the fandom to follow them in cutting the light of their lightstick.

However, in some cases, there are no reasons because it could be just a misunderstanding (some fans claim they were saving the battery of their lightstick, etc) or simply due to unfortunate circumstances. In cases of rookie idols who do not have lightstick, if other fans do not put their lightstick on, it could also be a Black Ocean (wanted or not).

 

Previous cases

A Black Ocean most likely happens in concert venues where several artists perform and therefore with several fandoms in the audience.

Here are two famous cases.

First, the one is Katy Perry being punished by ARMY at the "Jingle Ball" in 2019. BTS fans considered she had looked down on the fandom as she said “most of you get to stay up late past your bedtime". So fans cut their lightsticks and phones and stayed silent during her performance.

Girls' Generation's Black Ocean is infamous. Back in 2008 when the group was still new, they had to face a Black Ocean at "Dream Concert". Few fans of the group were in the stadium and put on their lightsticks but the rest of the stadium was dark. There were different reasons for it: fans accused the girls to be too close to their favorite groups/idols (so the hate) and due to extreme fan wars (there are various stories on that day about fans fighting for this and that in the stadium).

Each fandom has its own explanation on a Black Ocean. Some fandoms are accused of doing it but deny it and say it was accidental.