It has been known for a while, that K-Pop fans enjoy showing their love for their idols by organizing birthday projects for them. Such are commonly the fan gatherings, or alternatively doing volunteer work, setting up a birthday concert project, and a lot more. It is quite obvious that K-Pop fans are really dedicated in terms of openly showing their support for their idols, and it seems that they are ready to do just about anything and everything to make their beloved idols happy. Oftentimes, their projects are considered to be very thoughtful. And let’s not drag along and immediately begin with the list of thoughtful projects that have amazed both idols and fans as well.
Donation
First of all, there’s donation as one of the K-Pop fans’ birthday projects for their idols. Donations can be quite versatile and are usually made because other than celebrating the idols’ birthdays they are also a form of positive social action. Some of the donations have included money, some have included merchandise of some sort, and most importantly, there have been some that have included blood donation. All of these have been organized by fans and they even send out the donations on behalf of their idols. One memorable donation birthday project organized by K-Pop fans is the one organized for Kang Daniel’s 23rd birthday. In celebration of Kang Daniel’s 23rd birthday, his fans organized an event where attendees had to donate something for the children who suffer from chronic diseases. From the event, they were able to collect almost ₩12,1 million! Then Kang Daniel’s fans sent the collected money on behalf of “God Daniel” to the Korean association that is taking care of those children, it was the Korean Association for Children with Terminal Diseases. Since Kang Daniel’s birthday was on December 10th, they also equalized the amount of donation with his birth date as well! Not only Kang Daniel’s birthday, but there was also a donation project for Gong Yoo’s 40th birthday! Gong Yoo’s fans also organized a donation event for the Korean Leukemia Foundation. Just like Kang Daniel’s birthday donation project, Gong Yoo’s fans also sent the collected amount on behalf of Gong Yoo as well! From the event, the fans were able to gather almost ₩16 million!
Do Volunteer Work
There’s a lot of people all around the world who are involved in voluntary work. Mostly, they are incorporated in a social association and really respect all of those social justice things. But do you know that there are also K-Pop fans who have done voluntary work to celebrate their idols’ anniversaries? Let’s find the answer, here! The Block B Korean fandom has been involved in voluntary work, where all of them were gathering together and built a ‘well’ which is also called “Block B Well.” Not only they voluntarily built the well, but the Block B fandom gave their donation as well! Meanwhile, the Block B Well is located in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The voluntary work was done to celebrate Block B’s fourth anniversary in 2015! They also wanted to make helpful things just like a well which also can provide clean and fresh air for locals there!
Advertisement on Billboard
Traveling throughout Korea you must have noticed at least one huge billboard by the road showing a photo of a certain product or an idol. There is simply no way you have missed them all. A billboard is another one of the ways K-Pop fans choose to show their affection for their idols as a birthday gift. Such a brilliant idea, right? Well, one such birthday idea was the billboard made by fans to celebrate EXO’s 5th anniversary! The billboard was displayed on Times Square, New York which also provided people with 11 advertisements and displays, it also included each of EXO’s members’ pictures as well. Since it was a huge billboard, people simply couldn’t avoid it and they were also unable to miss the huge billboard displaying messages for EXO’s anniversary in various languages, such as English, Korean, and Chinese. The Times Square billboard for EXO’s 5th anniversary was created by Chinese EXO-Ls. The billboard was also made to tone down the tension between China and Korea, due to China’s prohibition of Korean artists appearing or selling in China previously. Obviously, EXO-Ls really know how to amaze people, right?
Fan Gathering
Next, there’s also the most likely project for certain K-Pop idols, that’s a fan gathering! Basically, fan gathering is an event where a bunch of certain K-Pop fandoms are gathering together in a certain place (commonly it is a café, restaurant, etc in a certain country) and they would be celebrating their idols’ birthday. Just like a casual birthday party, the fan gathering also includes various birthday events such as bringing a birthday cake, doing karaoke together, revealing their personal wishes for the idol’s birthday, and a lot more. One of the fan gatherings to celebrate an idol’s birthday was organized for Kim Samuel’s birthday in January 2020 taking place in South Korea. Some of his fans celebrated his birthday by holding a birthday event in a café, they also decorated the place with some birthday stuff and decorations such as balloons, birthday banners, coffee cups with the idol’s face printed on them, and a lot more. Many of his fans gathered together, they were involved in a lot of conversations, and obviously, they made new friends as well. The most interesting part of Kim Samuel’s birthday event though was the fans were able to receive a magnificent surprise – Kim Samuel secretly came to the birthday event along with his manager. The fans who weren’t expecting Samuel to come were got really surprised and amazed by Samuel’s appearance. They also gave him a little cupcake with a candle on top of it and asked him to make a wish. Such a precious birthday celebration!
Adopting Animals
It is not out of the ordinary for a K-Pop idol to be a proud pet owner. And on many occasions, we are able to see them carrying or walking their pets, whenever they can, of course. The interesting thing though is that some of the K-Pop idols got their pets by adopting it as a birthday gift. Such a cute and noble gift, right? Among the fans who have received such a gift is none other than BTS’ V. For BTS’ V’s birthday in 2018, ARMYs decided to adopt a tiger as V’s birthday gift. Through a picture from SNS, it could be seen that there was an official certificate that showed that the adopted animal was on behalf of BTS’ V under his real name Kim Tae-hyung. Not only they adopted a tiger, but the other ARMYs also send a donation to the World Wild Fund for Nature. The donation was used to support and protect the endangered tigers as well. However, there were some that were wondering why they had decided to adopt an animal as a birthday gift and especially, why a tiger. ARMYs adopted a tiger not only because V was famously known as an animal lover, but also because V had previously explained that he was using a tiger as his representing animal. It’s not only BTS’ V who has received an animal as a birthday gift, but there’s also EXO’s Chanyeol who has also received a lot of adopted animals for his birthday in 2016. EXO-Ls had adopted some animals such as a giraffe, a kangaroo, a tiger, a lion, and a shark in celebration of EXO’s Chanyeol’s birthday as well. The animals were also adopted from the World Wild Fund, and all of those animals were adopted on behalf of EXO’s Chanyeol. Well, even though the animal was adopted on behalf of certain K-Pop idols’ names, they didn’t actually look after them. It was a part of their donation for the animal association as well. But still, it was such a generous idea, right?
