Livestreamed intimacies: Parasocial production and labour in the K-Pop industry

This article investigates how the emerging technology of livestreaming is a productive medium to facilitate parasociality – the one-sided sense of intimacy and relational bonding by audiences to media figures – and how this has been strategically implemented by the South Korean idol industry’s (‘K-Pop’) business model. Anchored to the case study of BTS’s livestream activities, we propose this developing area of scholarship as a new textual medium of ‘livestreamed intimacies’. The paper argues that livestreaming efficiently produces experiences of intimacy and thus facilitates parasocial relationships through its shared temporality, limited cinematographic form, and asymmetrical interactivity. We observe how BTS’s 2020-2023 livestreams trend towards late night, candid broadcasts in private settings, implicating labour boundaries. With continued pursuit for parasocial productions, this paper infers that with increased adoption and expansion of technology, livestreaming is heightening the commodification of relationship cornerstones such as intimacy, authenticity, and the private within the entertainment industries.