You Zhang Jing’s Chinese Fanclub Announces its Permanent Closure
On 16th June 2020, the largest Chinese fan club of Malaysian-Chinese singer You Zhang Jing, announced their closure on Weibo. The fan club stated that the idol’s studio “crossed the line” and engaged in behavior causing them to feel a sense of betrayal and injustice. The fan club will also disable all other related fan related activities, including the authorisations of related videos by the fanclub and its other platforms.
The official statement from the fanclub
“Thank you for your companionship for over three years. After the ups and downs, I’m fortunate and very lucky to be able to support You Zhang Jing with you. At the same time, I would also like to thank all the members of the frontline group of the overseas fanclub on video resource platforms , as well as all the fans who silently supported us. You all have worked hard.
Although this fanclub has been in operation for a long time, You Zhang Jing’s first Chinese fanclub always had a functional goal, not of the nature of an official fanclub (后援会) endorsed by a studio. Previously, we passed the interview at the end of 2018 and submitted the certification-related materials, obtaining the promise of commitment from Banana Entertainment. However, due to the fact that the entertainment company handed over the work with the artist’s studio, the responsibility of all the certification-related materials were also fully transferred to the studio.
Although Banana Entertainment stated that the certification materials have been sent to the studio for immediate processing, but since the studio took over and got certified in April 2019 and until June 2020, our fanclub has been repeatedly asked about the certification status and whether to re-establish a new official meeting and other questions. We’re happy to accept the result no matter what, but the studio wouldn’t give a positive response, or they would automatically ignore us and avoid answering. And because the studio did not reply to the news repeatedly (a short period being not responding in 2-3 days, and for a long time a week) as well as other issues, it directly affected the development of some assistance activities, resulting in tight preparation time. Our fanclub had good intentions, but we felt powerless.
Since the incident on May 29th, our fanclub has repeatedly submitted requests to the studio for official auditing, but none of them were granted. When we suggested to establish an official meeting several times, the studio had promised that we would be notified in advanced if the official meeting was established, but instead the studio had many last minute expectations for us, such as to start a trending topic in a short limited time which was never communicated with us beforehand. The studio’s actions crossed our boundaries, their behaviour left us feeling betrayed.
You Zhang Jing’s First Chinese Fanclub issues their official statement
After the establishment of the (official) fan club by the studio, our fan club will transfer the existing work to the new fan club, and the external funds will be first transferred to this new fan club (please @尤长靖AZORAland GlobalFanClub, please provide the transfer method as soon as possible, and the fund details will also be handed over together), all internal funds will be donated under the name of these fanclubs: You Zhangjin and YouZhangjin_Grow.
The decision to close the fanclub was made after asking the opinions of the members who initially established the organization and the five managers who had managed it, as well as the attention from all current members of our fanclub. The attitudes and voting results of these 3 parties are the same: to permanently close the station and dissolve the relevant fan groups, all the pictures and videos of our fanclub and all the outputs of each platform will be closed to all authorisations. (The above output does not include the fan names: grapefruit; the fanclub color: grapefruit color and related matters that were named or created by the first leader).
2017.3.4-2020.6.16, a total of 1200 days and nights, we’ll send you til here, we wish that you have a bright future and that your dreams are passionate. @YouZhangjing “
You Zhang Jing’s fans react to the announcement
Although the official article on Sina Entertainment did not report on the controversies that this particular fan club went through, it should be noted that some of You Zhang Jing’s fans felt relieved about the closure of this fanclub.
The top comments include “The First Chinese Fanclub have been seen as dubious because of a series of problems relating to poor accountability and due diligence regarding the management of the fanclub’s funds. The artist and his studio are actually the ones at the suffering end. Luckily they’ve decided to resolve the matter by [closing down]. Let’s just look forward to You Zhang jing’s performances in future.”
Similarly another top comment stated “Congratulations on the establishment of the You Zhangjing’s new Global Fanclub, please pay attention to @尤长靖AZORA全球歌迷会. If the functional fanclub can’t work for You Zhang jing and can’t do their due diligence, just let them shutdown.”
While it seemingly appears that his fanclub has blamed the Studio for its permanent shutdown, some believe that the fan club may have closed under pressure from its members due to the mismanagement of its funds. Though it should be emphasised that as of now, there are no official sources confirming the truth of the matter.
We hope that fans of You Zhang Jing will not be disheartened.
Despite the shutdown of his biggest fanclub, there are still alternatives that they can follow to keep up with the support of You Zhang Jing, including his newly established AZORA Global fanclub.
