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We examine an unexpected but significant source of positive public healthmessaging during the COVID-19 pandemic -- K-pop fandoms. Leveraging more than 7million tweets related to mask-wearing and K-pop between March 2020 andDecember 2021, we analyzed the online spread of the hashtag \#WearAMask andvaccine-related tweets amid anti-mask sentiments and public healthmisinformation. Analyses reveal the South Korean boyband BTS as one of the mostsignificant driver of health discourse. Tweets from health agencies andprominent figures that mentioned K-pop generate 111 times more online responsescompared to tweets that did not. These tweets also elicited strong responsesfrom South America, Southeast Asia, and rural States -- areas often neglectedin Twitter-based messaging by mainstream social media campaigns. Network andtemporal analysis show increased use from right-leaning elites over time.Mechanistically, strong-levels of parasocial engagement and connectedness allowsustained activism in the community. Our results suggest that public healthinstitutions may leverage pre-existing audience markets to synergisticallydiffuse and target under-served communities both domestically and globally,especially during health crises such as COVID-19.

Parasocial diffusion: K-pop fandoms help drive COVID-19 public health messaging on social media