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The story
A thread titled “On the Poor Manners of =LOVE Fans, as Seen on Social Media” went up on the Hello! Project board, spotlighting how fans of =LOVE and Juice=Juice have been trading jabs at each other’s behavior on X (formerly Twitter). It reportedly kicked off when =LOVE fans were called out for bashing Juice=Juice’s looks by comparing them to Nogizaka46, and the discussion spread from there to cover the differing fan cultures of the two groups — and the fact that =LOVE’s producer, Sashihara, is herself a massive Hello! Project fan. The thread also touched on the general theory that “friction flares up whenever a fandom gains new members fast,” plus posts complaining about spot-hogging at live venues, with opinions split over whether both fan bases are equally guilty.
What people said
That's just what happens anywhere that blows up fast
Even with Hello! Project fans
Juice's visuals beat Sakamichi's anyway
Aren't you the anti who's always grumbling about Juice on X?
Hello! Project has them too, but the Sashihara groups and Sakamichi groups are on a whole different level for sheer numbers of unhinged fans
must put her in a real bind, I'd imagine
the part where our "goddess" is so heavily shaped by Hello! Project…
well, if we're going there, Tsunku♂ was shaped by Onyanko Club too
That's kind of funny
No new fans join → dead calm
Idiot, lol. The fight inside =LOVE's fandom is new fans vs. old-school fans
because it'd only make people feel bad
in that case, just vaguely saying "great job!" causes zero problems
but it's rough how nasty tweets like that rack up likes
if we're talking bad looks, producer Sashihara herself is no slouch either
For some reason my "For You" is just endless quote-RTs of Johnny's fans and Milk fans fighting, it's getting old
The whole queueing system was broken from the start — people who showed up that morning joined the group and still got the very front spot (a cluster of just over ten people in the end). They sprawled out starfish-style to hold the front row, wore earphones in both ears during the show, and were on their phones — absolutely terrible manners. So this is the kind of fan Juice=Juice has. The worst.
#GFes
It's sickening that Juice=Juice fans are piling on someone who was just an ordinary person until yesterday
Because of this person, I'm now under the impression that Juice=Juice fans have the worst manners
That's because they've got no confidence and no money either
well, no confidence is basically why anyone becomes an idol fan in the first place
Seeing people go on about Juice=Juice's "front-row gatekeeping" made me laugh
Honestly, their manners weren't great even back in the day. Back in the live-house era, during "Jyoro" (watering-can chant, a pun on "juice"), there were fans doing the Maasai jump-dance with toy elephant watering cans on their heads, looking like comedian Lucky Ikeda. So, yeah.
I used to think Juice fans had decent manners, but I guess this is really how it is. Kind of disappointing
It's sad they can't get through life without putting down other idols
And it's sad for the idols being supported by people like this too
And to begin with, Sashihara herself is a Hello! Project fan 😂
Deep down even the "Ikokasu" crowd (a derogatory nickname for =LOVE fans) know it
that they're fakes
=LOVE was the first female idol group of the Reiwa era to play the New National Stadium, so I wish they'd have more confidence
since there's no female idol group in Japan better than =LOVE anyway
Background and Key Points
Idol fans trading accusations about each other’s “manners” on social media is a recurring phenomenon in handshake-event-style idol culture, not a conflict unique to =LOVE and Juice=Juice. The pattern flagged in the thread — that friction tends to flare up whenever a fandom gains new members quickly — is also a commonly observed trend whenever any fanbase expands fast. Worth noting: everything in the thread is built from individual posts pulled and quoted off X, and there’s no statistical evidence showing what either fanbase as a whole is actually like. Treating a handful of conspicuous posts or behaviors as representative of an entire fan community is a common source of misunderstanding in discussions like this one.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “On the Poor Manners of =LOVE Fans, as Seen on Social Media.”
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