SNSD is a popular Korean girl band that has been frequently searched on Naver of late, and is oft considered to be the girl version of Super Junior. But underneath all the feelgood hype is a ferociously intense world of fan clubs, rivals, and sniping. Some members of SNSD have put their feet in their mouth and dissed other, more senior music groups over the past year and have brewed up an anti-SNSD storm, only to be passionately defended by manic SNSD fanboys. Rivaling fan bases of SNSD, SuperJunior, DBSK, get so worked up over each other in online and offline fights, that it transcends the real artists. Yesterday, SNSD released a formal appeal/apology to its fan base on its site, hoping to stem the tide of hate and fighting.

Some ESL springboard questions for discussing the topic with your students:
-What bands are you a fan of?
-Which fan base do you think is the most fanatical?
-Who is more at fault? The bands or the fans?