“We want to share the path ENHYPEN has taken and their growth as an artist.” So said ENHYPEN LATINO, a Twitter account run by members of ENHYPEN’s fanbase, pointing out how proud fans are of ENHYPEN’s meteoric rise over the past year. First week sales for each of their albums—their debut album, BORDER: DAY ONE, selling 280,873 copies; BORDER: CARNIVAL, with 384,699 copies; and
DIMENSION: DILEMMA selling 818,716—show the drastic growth in popularity of the group. On top of that, the Hanteo Chart shows total album sales of 351,756, 491,336 and 946,058 respectively (as of November 15) and the shipment-based Gaon Music Chart listed DILEMMA as having already gone platinum three months ago, with 1,181,961 album sales in the month of November. Though the group debuted just one year ago, they’ve already joined the million sellers club.

ENHYPEN’s rapid rise was in large part thanks to the fanbase they built up around the world. “ENHYPEN is considered a global group,” according to ENHYPEN UPDATES, a fan-run Twitter account that keeps others up-to-date on ENHYPEN news and provides translations. “As such, it was inevitable that they would capture the hearts of people all over the world,” they said, summing up ENGENE, the group’s fandom, with the word “global.” People from as many as 178 different countries and regions voted for the contestants while watching Mnet’s I-LAND, the audition program where ENHYPEN was formed, and as many as 5,172,232 viewers tuned in for the show’s 12th episode. In other words, people from many different places were watching the group make their way to their debut. According to YouTube’s Music Charts and Insights, it’s not just Asian regions like the Philippines, Japan and Thailand that provide ENHYPEN’s videos with a high number of views, but various countries, including those in North America (like the United States) and South America (Mexico, Brazil, etc.). Album sales aren’t concentrated in a particular continent either, and can instead be found distributed across the globe. Looking at sales of the group’s first studio album, DIMENSION: DILEMMA, on the Weverse Shop, the 16 places with the most sales are spread across five continents: Asia and North America (Korea, Japan, the US, etc.), South America (Mexico, Chile, etc.), Europe (Germany, France) and Australia.

The fact that ENGENE is spread out worldwide had an effect on ENHYPEN’s growth in spite of the pandemic. Mae, an executive member of ENHYPEN UPDATES who’s majoring in multimedia arts, points to the fact that ENHYPEN debuted during the pandemic through an audition program targeted at a world audience as one reason why ENGENE such as herself are so active when it comes to voting for the group and purchasing their albums. Because they can’t meet in person, she explains how their effort “to make the boys feel like their fans across the world are always behind them” has become a major motivation for the fans to mobilize. ENHYPEN, too, appeared on I-LAND, made their debut and released all three of their albums during the pandemic. And quarantine and social distancing made it very difficult to meet their fans in person. There’s no doubt that ENHYPEN can see that ENGENE are there for them and that the fans have always shown their love and support from the sidelines, despite that the group’s been unable to see most of them face to face. For the fans, voting and purchasing albums are ways to prove they’re watching. “ENGENE all over the world are making every effort so that ENHYPEN, no matter where in the world or how many miles away they are, can sense their fans’ love and support, because we know we can’t physically meet,” Mae said of her way of showing affection. Rhoda, who lives in the Philippines, said that, as a fan, she’s “motivated to work hard so that the boys can achieve success and win awards for their efforts” and that such motives keep her immersed in ENHYPEN’s activities.

The combination of a global fanbase and its social media pursuits that picked up pace during the pandemic breathed new life into ENGENE. ENHYPEN UPDATES says “ENGENE is a very international community as you can see from the results of the voting during I-LAND missions when they were revealed on the show,” so it’s not surprising that the ENHYPEN UPDATES Twitter account, too, is run by a multinational, racially diverse team. They have members who hail from the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Spain, the US, and ENHYPEN LATINO, too, counts among its ranks members from such diverse places as Mexico, Guatemala, Chile, Bolivia and more. They share the workload involved in maintaining these accounts for ENGENE and do so according to their own abilities and regardless of race or nationality. The reason for maintaining one account with a team spread all across the world is so that ENHYPEN UPDATES “can be kept updated at all times, since we live in different time zones, so some of the team can keep posting while those on the other side of the world are asleep.” And with an eye toward respecting the fanbase’s global reach, plus the fact that ENGENE leans toward diversity as a result of that international presence, the members of ENHYPEN UPDATES share in the belief that they have to “be aware whether the things that get posted or tweeted are respectful of all cultures, traditions and differences.” They’re careful not to post anything that excludes or, conversely, singles out people of a specific religion, race or culture, and, when dealing with things specific to Korean culture, they add a helpful explanation so that everyone is able to understand.

“There are times when the language and time differences make it difficult when talking and working with other global teams of fans,” ENHYPEN LATINO added, but even with these differences, they “believe collaborating with fans globally helps to achieve our common goals around ENHYPEN’s growth, and working as a team makes it feel like you’re really a part of the fandom.” As a part of a project they organized to celebrate JAKE’s birthday, and because they’re based in Latin America, they donated money to an association that contributes to reforesting areas of Mexico impacted by fires and reckless land clearing. They managed to keep in mind their inclination toward being a “environmentally conscious team” and bring Mexico’s environmental issues to light while also “emphasizing the tastes and personality of the member we’re celebrating.” Clearly this group, which has been a global fandom since day one, is cultivating an identity as a group that has transcended borders by sharing their languages, cultures and common interests. This identity also leads to respect for one another and a global interest toward each region.

For fans of all different nationalities, jobs, ages and cultures, the world of ENGENE is one where their differences are rather celebrated. ENGENE break down content with the benefit of their areas of expertise and interests and share their thoughts with other fans as analyses or theories. Some, for example, shared hints of Hermann Hesse in I-LAND, Shakespeare in ENHYPEN’s lyrics, and vampires in their music videos whenever they found them. Patrice, an international relations major who dreams of becoming a diplomat and educator, said that “ENGENE likes to support each other’s thoughts and ideas” that emerge during this process and praise the discoveries of others, adding how it “can make harmony within the fandom more widespread.” At the same time, ENHYPEN’s songs deal with wrestling over whether one was handed an opportunity or earned it (BORDER: DAY ONE), the intoxication of a new world (BORDER: CARNIVAL) and confusion after encountering a contradictory world (DIMENSION: DILEMMA). According to Ibtisam, a staff member at an Indonesian educational technology startup consulting firm, the musical plots not only “allow people to understand what ENHYPEN is feeling and going through at each stage” but also function as a vehicle that helps people sympathize with the group and creates “various contextual connections to people’s lives from their perspectives as listeners.” ENGENE shares views on ENHYPEN’s music together, broadens their perspectives through interpretation, comes to understand the music and easily accepts the commonalities between themselves despite the differences in their lives.

“In order to recruit more [fans], existing fans will choose to go the extra distance to share their hobbies and expertise,” ENHYPEN UPDATES said, explaining the tendencies that have arisen within ENGENE as a result of it becoming a sort of international community. For Patrice, translating ENHYPEN’s posts is a fan hobby that lets her foster her dreams while putting her abilities to good use. When she translates, she pays attention not simply to the words in the artist’s posts, but also works to “make the context—that is, what they’re trying to say—understandable while making the roots of the culture understandable through the language and let the translation reflect each member’s individuality or unique traits at the same time,” and takes whether each member is speaking playfully or formally into account. Similarly, she strives to add additional comments that aid in the understanding of any cultural differences or for parts that require further explanation. Mae, meanwhile, “wanted to repay the love and heart that ENHYPEN shows ENGENE, so I used what I learned at university” to unveil a new project, called EN-MENITY PACKAGE: A Travel Kit for ENGENE, alongside her teammates. They designed luggage tags, boarding passes, tickets and postcards for the package to match the airport and vacation concept of EN-CONNECT: COMPANION, the second fan meeting concert. Fans could upload the luggage tag for use as their Twitter profile picture, and the team made the tickets so fans could print them at home as consolation for not being able to attend the concert in person. The event, orchestrated to make the online concert more memorable, allowed Mae and the other designers with ENHYPEN UPDATES to enjoy the concert more by showcasing their talents while also giving ENGENE a way to connect with each other during the pandemic. Consequently, the world laid out before ENGENE for their enjoyment is as wide as the number of countries they span.

The word “fandom” is a portmanteau of two words: “fan,” shortened from fanatic, or a fervent enthusiast, and the suffix “-dom,” meaning an area or collective. A fandom is, therefore, a group of people who are passionate about a particular person or interest, and anyone, regardless of their nationality, race, gender or social status, can join ENGENE’s “-dom,” so long as they like ENHYPEN. This is a trend that has emerged along with the appearance of ENHYPEN and other so-called fourth-generation idols. For the groups currently popular in the Korean idol industry, having a global fanbase is almost a given, and it’s not just creating a new culture within fandoms but is currently redefining what a fandom is altogether. The rapidly growing ENHYPEN and ENGENE, who have been global since the group debuted, are quick to demonstrate this change. As a new generation of idols appears, so too does a new generation of fandom, and an understanding of other countries, identities and cultures is becoming increasingly crucial for that change to happen. “We don’t ask for any reward,” ENHYPEN UPDATES said. “We just hope the fandom continuously and actively shows their love and support for ENHYPEN.” As to why the fandom is able to transcend nationality and language, ENHYPEN UPDATES put it succinctly: “Because we’re all ENGENE.” And it will come to define the fandom.