Shipping IRL People
Lately I’ve been deep in the musical land of K-Pop. Specifically, the group BTS. I already liked a couple songs by BlackPink, but that was the extent of my knowledge. I tend to be late to the party on musical trends post 2006. But as I fell down the BTS rabbit hole, I also found myself running into an area of shipping I don’t usually encounter – IRL shipping.
Real Life Pairings (RLP) or In Real Life (IRL) shipping is when people ship well, real life people. There are many people that get shipped in this way, but the most common seems to be boy bands. People will ship different members of the same band, arguing either that they should be together or that they secretly are already together, depending on the couple. Like every other kind of shipping, there is fanfiction and fan vids. And while boy bands are very frequent loci for IRL shipping, they are far from the only real people being shipped.
IRL shipping is neither new nor unusual. People have been interested in gossiping about the affairs of the rich and famous for centuries, whether it was a king’s mistresses or an actress’ possible lovers. Celebrity gossip frequently means celebrity relationship gossip. There are entire publications which frequently focus on who is dating who in the celebrity world, and their relationships, such as People Magazine. Even regular news sites will jump in with the articles about a celebrity relationship, albeit sometimes as a lens for discussing a larger point. And it is only a small step from following a celebrity relationship to rooting for a specific relationship, either to exist or to succeed. The latter of which, of course, is shipping.
All this is amplified by social media. Social media allows people much greater access, or perceived access to celebrities. Instead of far off figures in a court, or a magazine, or even in an interview on TV, celebrities are now people who seem to talk to us directly about their lives. Whether its on Twitter or in a vlog, these are more personal, and, at least seemingly, unfiltered versions of the individuals in question. It makes us, myself included, feel like we know these people. Even though we definitely don’t. But that feeling could make shipping feel less intrusive. If you have two friends you think would make a perfect couple, you would ship them and potentially introduce them to each other, or try to make a relationship happen. So what’s the harm in doing that with celebrities?
All shipping requires a certain level of respect – respect for your fellow fans and for the creator of the work you’re a fan of. But IRL shipping requires another layer of respect and caution. Because you need to respect the actual focus of your shipping. I ship Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom – and it’s important for me to respect both my fellow Harry Potter fans and JK Rowling and not berate her for the coupling choices in her works. But shipping Hermione and Neville is very different than shipping Emma Watson and Matthew Lewis, the individuals who played those characters in the movie. One set is fictional and have no feelings to be hurt, privacy to be invaded, or life to live. The other does. This means that IRL shipping needs to be extra careful to respect the people they are shipping.
But wait, isn’t being in the public eye, sacrificing some privacy part of the inherent price of fame? Having fans and reporter and paparazzi care deeply about one’s private life is just part of being famous. This is true, but only to an extent. All humans have a right to privacy, particularly in their own homes and in their private lives. Paparazzi are considered intrusive for a reason. But a high level of public interest, and potential obsession with an individual’s personal life is an unavoidable part of fame. And that means people will always be actively invested in celebrity relationships, and ship them.
Celebrities are distant figures for most of us. People we will likely never meet or really know, regardless of how many interviews we watch or twitter accounts we follow. They can simultaneously feel like friends and also be as distant and unreal as fictional characters. But in reality, they are neither. They are people, living their lives, and making their romantic choices based on their criteria, not their fans’.
I would never tell people not to engage in IRL shipping if it makes them happy. However, it is important to remember with IRL shipping that these are real people, with real feelings. You might love shipping RM and Jin from BTS, but it’s important to remember that these are not fictional characters. They too have feelings and deserve both privacy and the right to make their own choices about relationships without interference or acrimony from others. As we all do.
