Self-Authorization Amid Transculturation and Appropriation: Chinese K-Pop Fans Negotiating Identity in the “Cultural Stealing” Dispute

“Cultural stealing,” the perceived appropriation of Chinese cultural symbols by the Korean entertainment industry for commercial gain, has become a flashpoint for Chinese K-pop fans negotiating between national identity and transnational consumer culture. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, online texts, and participant observation, the study examines the controversy surrounding the K-pop group NCT and disentangles the dynamic relationships among the company SM Entertainment, NCT idols, the fan community NCTCS, and individual fans. The findings reveal that “cultural stealing” captures a broader tension in which fans must simultaneously defend their cultural heritage and act as consumers within the very industry they critique. SM’s strategic ambiguity and invisibility created the conditions for the controversy, while NCT idols were caught between the competing demands of Korean and Chinese fan communities. NCTCS performed a gatekeeping function during content translation and dissemination, inadvertently stabilizing the capital’s interests even as it sought to protect its community. Individual fans employed the three self-authorization strategies of reforming , recontextualizing , and rationalizing to reconcile their appreciation for K-pop with their cultural identity. These responses reflect the irreconcilable demands of transnational cultural capitalism, in which the same commercial logic that drives K-pop’s global reach also produces the conditions for cultural appropriation controversies that no single actor can fully resolve.