본 연구는 글로벌 보이그룹 방탄소년단(BTS)이 유튜브에 공개한 세 편의 뮤직비디오와 그것을 변형한 영상인 ‘밈’ 데이터를 통해 유튜브에서 뮤직비디오가 이용되고 확산되는 양상을 팬덤의 관점에서 분석했다. API를 이용한 크롤링 방식으로 수집된 대규모 데이터를 통해 연구문제별로 다음의 사항을 확인했다. [연구문제 1]에서는 팬덤의 M/V 조회수와 댓글 수가 첫 주에 가장 높은 수치를 기록하고 그 이후 급격히 감소하는 ‘롱테일(longtail)’ 형태를 보인다는 것을 확인했다. [연구문제 2]에서는 댓글을 통한 팬덤 내부의 상호작용 양상이 제한적이라는 것을 밝혔다. 팬덤의 대다수는 각자 목소리를 낼 뿐, 서로 대화하지 않는 양상이 뚜렷하게 나타났다. M/V 밈과 관련된 [연구문제 3]에서는 밈 제작이 ‘댓글 작성자와 겹치지 않는’, ‘지극히 소수의’, ‘상업적’ 제작자에 의해 주도된다는 것을 확인했다. 대상에 대한 애호보다는 경제적인 목적에서 커버나 패러디를 만드는 전문 제작자가 유튜브 이용자의 압도적인 반응을 이끌어내고 있었다. 즉, 유튜브에서의 BTS 팬덤 문화 유튜브라는 플랫폼에서는 참여적이거나 양방향적 특성을 보인다고 보기 어려웠으며, 유튜브 역시 민주적인 참여와 창작의 공간과는 거리가 멀었다. 이는 새로운 기술, 문화에 대한 근거 없는 낙관적 기대를 경계하도록 한다.
　
This study attempts to examine the possibilities and limitations of YouTube as a space for participatory culture from the perspective of fandom. As music videos are a common form for various cultural activities on YouTube, this study chose to use large-scale data composed of views, comments, and memes related to three M/Vs released by the global boy group, BTS, which were crawled using the YouTube API. A comprehensive analysis of the data identified the following results. Firstly, the number of views and comments formed a ‘long-tail’, where the number is the highest in the first week followed by a sharp decrease. This suggests that careful planning and strategy are needed to elicit an explosive response in the early stages of M/V release on YouTube. In addition, a “spillover” phenomenon was observed in which other media stimuli affected M/V views in the later stages. Secondly, interaction amongst fans on YouTube was rather limited as the majority of commenters were more engaged in making their own voices heard instead of interacting with others. A vast majority of fandom remained only as viewers on YouTube, and was very reluctant in not only participating in conversations but also expressing their love for the videos through likes or comments. Lastly, memes were observed as a product of a ‘very few’, ‘commercial’ producers. These producers with commercial interests were able to draw much attention with high-quality professionalized content. This seems to accelerate the stratification and specialization of fandom and raises the need to reconsider the existing concept of fandom that was centered on ‘love’, ‘loyalty’, and ‘crushes’. Overall, YouTube is far from a place of democratic participation and creative production for fandom, showing that groundless optimism towards new technology and culture should be avoided. This study has the following significance. First, this study collected and systematically analyzed not only information of M/Vs, such as views and comments, but also meme information through API. Second, unlike the previous research that collected and analyzed memes for a single M/V, we attempted to analyze the ecosystem related to memes by collecting, classifying, and characterizing the memes of several M/Vs simultaneously. Nevertheless, this study has some limitations. First, it is possible that the YouTube search API used during the collection of meme-related data caused some distortion. Second, this study used the M/Vs of BTS, but it is possible that the activity of fandom related to M/Vs of other artists is different from that related to BTS’s M/Vs. Third, textual analysis of comments was not conducted. It is necessary to proceed with such analysis in subsequent studies, as the content of comments may reveal more aspects of the dialogue among fandoms.