satoruiasis

[satoruiasis]

Gojo Satoru Is Not a K-pop Idol (Mostly): How Akgae Culture Shaped Gojo-Only Fans and Their View of Shipping

I guess this is my first post on here lol. Here goes.

Prefacing this with not all Gojo stans, and not all kpop stans. I do not want to cause drama or discourse, and there are fans of characters other than Gojo who give their faves this same treatment. This is in fact a fandom-wide pattern overall that’s just brought to a head by the fact that Gojo is the it boy of the moment and is practically more famous than JJK itself, and has essentially developed a fandom of his own, and therefore this effect is particularly strong/noticeable in how certain corners of the fandom interact with Gojo. These are purely my own musings on things I’ve observed in the fandom, and I mean no ill will towards anyone. I’m just trying to explain why some Gojo fans seem to hate Geto despite shipping Gojo with Geto.

Ok so basically a lot of Gojo stans are also K-pop stans, who, before being into JJK were mostly involved in K-pop fandoms. More specifically, they’re akgaes, aka solo stans. Akgaes are fans of one specific member of the group, but not the whole group in general or the other members. Think of someone who likes Jungkook but not the rest of BTS. In a similar way, there are a lot of Gojo fans who aren’t fans of JJK, just Gojo.

These fans essentially treat Gojo as an idol they stan, and not as a fictional character. So they’re extremely aggressive about “defending” Gojo from anyone implying he has character flaws because they’re not defending a well-written and complex fictional character, they’re defending the reputation of their idol. The way they interact with fandom is extremely different. Pointing out nuances of the character, like saying Gojo is morally grey, is equivalent to calling their idol a bad person, as opposed to him being a complex character with diverse motives who doesn’t always make “pure” choices. Quite bluntly, he’s in charge of recruiting and training a bunch of child soldiers who he knowingly sends into physically dangerous situations, which is an intrinsically morally complicated position.

They also are fans of the character but not the work, so the idea of Gojo being a component of an overall story, as he is in JJK, is like their idol getting sidelined for the rest of the group. Hence why they’re outraged over Gojo having a “bad death,” because to them they weren’t reading the JJK manga, they were following Gojo’s career trajectory, and the idea that his “career” ending could be anything but horrible injustice is incompatible with the way they interact with fandom. 

To them, fandom is a competition to make their fave the most beloved, popular, and important character, the same way K-pop stans obsess over streaming numbers. It’s important that Gojo, as an idol and not a character, be seen as morally infallible, as opposed to the morally complex mentor he is, and that he be the most important character (member) of the series (group). This is why they were outraged that he was not, in fact, the protagonist who was going to defeat Sukuna, Yuji and the other students were, because anything else would totally decimate the themes of JJK.

As their bias, Gojo must also be universally beloved by all the other characters/members, as opposed to him being disliked for rational reasons by other characters (like him pissing them off on purpose because he finds it entertaining). Because they treat Gojo as an idol and not a character, saying people around their idol dislike their idol is seen as slandering them, as opposed to being a character element. So they get mad that the guy with bad social skills whose whole thing thematically is his inability to connect does not in fact have many close personal relationships.

This is why you’ll notice that this particular type of fan won’t really like Gojo’s students (especially Megumi) as anything other than props to prove how much Gojo is loved and what a good person he is, and they’ll even get mad at the students for not giving him enough attention/affection/ “giving him his flowers,” even if it’d be out of character for them, because they mostly see the rest of the cast as being there to reinforce how beloved their favorite idol is.

That’s why they’re typically so militant about dad!Gojo being canon, despite him very explicitly not being that in canon (at least not in the way they like to portray it, where Gojo is living with and raising Megumi and Tsukimi as though they’re his children). To them, Gojo must be seen as this perfect, doting father figure who raised Megumi with warmth and care, not as what he actually was: a mentor and benefactor with a complicated and somewhat distant relationship with him due to their respective personalities and traumas.

(To be clear, not all dadjo likers! I myself have enjoyed dadjo. But it’s fanon. It’s just people who have an intense need to argue that dad!jo is indisputably canon and that anything else is essentially Gojo slander.) Megumi actually having mixed feelings about Gojo is absolutely taboo to them, because it contradicts their idol fantasy where everyone in Gojo’s life adores him unconditionally. The reality, which is that Gojo saved Megumi from a worse fate but also left him to be primarily raised by Tsumiki, who was also a child at the time, is something they refuse to acknowledge. They try to paint Megumi’s more reserved attitude toward Gojo as just grumpy teen’s “tsundere” behavior towards a beloved and doting dad instead of what it actually is: the reaction of a kid who had a supportive but ultimately transactional relationship with a mentor figure who, despite their time together remained “untouchable,” not an uncomplicated and loving father-son bond.

To these fans, admitting that Gojo wasn’t a doting dad isn’t just a character discussion, it’s an attack on Gojo’s image, the same way an akgae would react if someone said their idol wasn’t acting as a perfect parent to the children in their care. That’s why they can’t stand people pointing out that Gojo was not Megumi’s father, didn’t raise him, and predominantly served as his benefactor and teacher. Because in their minds, saying that is like accusing Jungkook of neglecting foster kids or something. It’s slander against their perfect, universally beloved idol, and that is completely unacceptable to them.

(Prefacing again with not all bottom Gojo fans, not all multishippers, not all Gegos). While it may seem contradictory, akgaes will often ship their male bias with other members who they are not fans of because of this need to emphasize how loved, adored, and desired their idol is by the people surrounding them. These people ship their idol with other members, often multiple, in order to reinforce the desirability of their idol, despite not being fans of these members and wanting these members to be below their idol lest they threaten their favorite idol’s popularity.

So these people will ship Gojo with one or multiple other characters not because they like the other characters but to emphasize how desired and worshiped Gojo is. To them, it’s important to perceive him that way, because for people who see him as an idol and not a character, the idea of him being the “least favorite coworker” is slanderous and degrading and not just a part of the character.

It’s also very important that in all slash pairings like Sukugo, Nanago, and Gego, Gojo is the bottom because they don’t want to see him being active or desiring the other character. To them, the point of shipping is to emphasize how desired and loved he is, not any actual interest in the relationship with the other characters. Think of someone who’s like “Jungkook is so beautiful that all the other members are in love with him and want to fuck him” but still doesn’t stan the other members. It’s essential that the other character wants their bias, Gojo, more than he wants them.

Because of this, this specific genre of Gojo fan ships Geto with Gojo because they want Geto to be in love with Gojo, since to say otherwise would be reducing the desirability of their bias. Frankly, the material is all there. But it’s also important to make sure that Geto is not loved by Gojo as much as he loved Gojo, because that makes their bias into something other than a passive magnet of desire and into an active character, lest he be seen as anything other than pure and angelic. To balance this, Geto must be seen as though he was always secretly evil and is less popular or desired than Gojo, despite the opposite being explicitly stated to be true in canon. This fulfills their need to see Gojo as loved, cared for, and simped over, while making sure that Geto himself doesn’t get any love or appreciation as a character, and instead exists solely to validate how they perceive Gojo, like how a solo stan may ship another member with their bias, but also consider them a rival in terms of streams and therefore root against their success and even post hate about them so their bias isn’t surpassed.

This is why they crash out so intensely over fandom jokes about Gojo fumbling Geto, because it doesn’t mesh with how they perceive Gojo, which is as someone who is always desired but never desiring, (unless he’s begging for dick for fanfic purposes). Even then, it’s important that Geto/Nanami/Toji/Sukuna/Designated top of the day (I’ve seen this specific group ship Ichiji x Gojo. Yes in that order) desires him more. 

This is also why they’re typically militant about bottom Gojo and will often feel the need to “enforce” that Gojo must always be a bottom on any post that implies otherwise. To them, they’re defending their idol as the ultimate object of desire, and making him a top is slanderous because it contradicts their perception of him as a pretty (which to be clear he is), passive, and pure object. That doesn’t make for a very interesting character, but these are very much values projected onto idols.

(Again, not all Gegos! There are plenty of Gegos who also like Geto! I myself consider STSG a reversible couple. There are also people who give other characters in JJK the idol treatment, including Geto!). This means that for a lot of Gojo stans, the appeal of shipping Geto with Gojo is that they can write about Geto being obsessively in love with Gojo, and generally just write about Gojo being precious, pursued, and adored. At the same time, they don’t want Gojo to care about Geto all that much or continue to love him or desire him, because to them that makes Geto and not Gojo the object of love and desire, which reduces Gojo’s value as the most popular idol.

Thus, while they ship Geto and Gojo, it’s important to them that Geto is less important to Gojo than Gojo is to Geto. Hence why they’ll often say “Geto defected because of how Gojo was treated,” which is imo not really true. We see the reasons for his defection laid out very clearly, and Gojo’s main impact on Geto’s defection was Geto’s belief that Gojo had left him behind and no longer needed or valued him now that he couldn’t keep up with Gojo. Not saying there was absolutely zero impact at all, but we actually do see what thoughts Geto was having about Gojo that caused him to leave, and none of them were about how Gojo was a helpless victim of the system who he left in order to save. They were entirely about Geto feeling inferior and abandoned.

For stans like this, they vehemently are against Geto being a character outside of Gojo but hate the idea of Gojo being motivated by Geto, because to them it changes the dynamic of who desires and who is desired. To them, the whole purpose of shipping is to emphasize how desirable Gojo is, and any attention/importance Geto gets infringes on that.

That’s why this particular type of Gojo stan dislikes the idea that Geto is canonically attractive and desirable, because that directly threatens the way they need Gojo to be perceived. Gege has explicitly stated that Geto was more romantically popular and well-liked than Gojo, but this contradicts the way these fans want Gojo to be seen, so they work overtime to downplay it. That’s why there is such extreme hostility toward anything that associates Geto with softness, beauty, or femininity, because to them, those traits must belong exclusively to Gojo in order to maintain Gojo’s idol image.

This is why, despite Geto being shorter than Gojo and roughly the same size physically, Geto is often written as an over-masculinized brute while Gojo is hyper-feminized, with an obsessive focus on how pale, thin, and delicate he is. Gojo has to be the most beautiful, the most adored, and the most wanted, and to maintain that, Geto has to be rewritten into his opposite. That’s why fandom interpretations of Geto often make him twice as wide as Gojo, physically dominant over the now-dainty Gojo in ways that just aren’t canon, with exaggerated features that make him seem more rugged or threatening. 

His skin tone is frequently darkened far beyond what it actually is in canon, specifically to create a stark contrast with Gojo’s fairness, because in the colorist fandom beauty biases, pale equals delicate and beautiful, while darker skin is coded as masculine and less desirable. Even though both Gojo and Geto are fair-skinned. If you disagree, try showing someone a screenshot of Geto from the anime and call him ‘representation for darker skin tones.’ That is a beige man.

To be clear, I enjoy tanned Geto HCs, and it’s not only Gegos who have them, but there’s a pattern here that’s rooted in broader fandom trends where darker skin is equated with masculinity in a way that reinforces certain biases. See meme below.

This also ties into the way some fans call Geto "ugly" for having more typically East Asian features, despite the fact that he is literally an example of a well-known Japanese beauty standard. In Japan, Geto would be considered a salt-faced (sio-gao) ikemen, meaning he has a sharp, refined, and slightly serious-looking face rather than the sugar-faced (shioga-gao) ikemen look that Gojo has, which is rounder, softer, and more boyish. Both are recognized beauty types, but because Gojo has the more exaggerated "anime bishounen" look, some Gojo-only fans tend to dismiss Geto as being "plain" or even "ugly," and even resorting to racist insults about his features (ex. the recent drama about a Gojo fan posting a yellow-peril style racist caricature of Geto) They downplay or outright reject that Geto is canonically handsome because acknowledging it would put him on equal footing with Gojo, and that is something they cannot allow.

The hostility toward anything feminine being associated with Geto is a direct extension of this. To these fans, Gojo must always be the soft, adored, babygirl-coded one, and Geto must always be the one pursuing, protecting, or desiring him. Any suggestion that Geto himself could be pretty, soft, or cherished is treated as an attack, because in their minds, allowing him to share those traits with Gojo takes something away from Gojo’s image. That’s why jokes about "princess Geto" or "babygirl Geto" get met with outright vitriol from these fans. It’s not just that they disagree with it, it’s that they see it as stealing from Gojo’s rightful place as the fandom’s one and only precious, beautiful, feminine-coded object of desire.

(To be clear, they’re both my babygirl princess pookies. I’m completely correct about this and won’t hear any opinions to the contrary /j)

This is also why they insist so aggressively that Gojo must be the bottom in every ship and Geto must always be the dominant one. They need Gojo to be the passive, delicate one, and Geto to be the rough, hulking, obsessive force that worships him. If Geto is allowed to be beautiful in his own right, to be desired instead of just desiring, it throws off that entire dynamic. It makes Geto an equal instead of a tool to reinforce Gojo’s desirability, and that is unacceptable to them.

Ultimately, this isn’t about character analysis or ship preferences, it’s about maintaining a hierarchy where Gojo is always at the center. If Geto is acknowledged as attractive, as someone who could be soft, as someone who could be adored, then suddenly Gojo is not the sole object of everyone’s desire. That’s why they fight it so hard, because their version of Gojo cannot share that space with anyone else, because, again, he is their bias. 

TLDR: Gojo is not a member of a kpop boy group. A lot of the reason you see some Gojo fans being 1.) shocked by Gojo’s canon behaviors/the plot of JJK as being “OOC” or “disrespectful to Gojo”  and 2.) extremely hostile towards the character they “ship” Gojo with, is because a good chunk of his fandom thinks that he is.

Anyway that’s my rambling notesapp thesis I banged out on the subway. Love you all and thanks for reading! And again, not meant to hate whatsoever, just meant to explain a particular phenomenon (why do some gojo fans who ship satosugu hate geto)