Draped in designer gowns and avant-garde couture, over 100 celebrities and over 50 K-pop idols with a combined social media following surpassing hundreds of millions, gathered on Oct. 15, 2025, for W Korea’s “Love Your W” event.
Somewhere buried beneath the spectacle was the supposed purpose of the evening: breast cancer awareness.
But on social media, the awareness event seemed anything but aware.
As images and videos circulated online, users began comparing the gala to “Money,” from the Broadway musical “Cabaret,” where performers sing and dance in willful ignorance of the Nazi regime rising outside their glittering bubble. The comparison stung because it made sense: a celebration that prioritized glamour over genuine engagement with a devastating disease.
The “Love Your W” event has become one of the most notable in South Korea’s celebrity calendar. The organizers pull out all the stops to create an elaborate celebration that dominates social media and entertainment news.
But that’s where the problem lies.
As images of the event spread across social media, users pointed out what seemed glaringly obvious: This didn’t look like a charity event. The gathering’s primary focus seemed to be the celebrities, which designer they wore, and how many followers they could attract.
Breast cancer advocacy and awareness demand a lot of money for research, treatment and support services. It requires bringing up the failures of health care systems, to the fears of those awaiting diagnoses and the grief of those who’ve lost loved ones. But it doesn’t require using the campaign as a backdrop for celebrity glamour.
The “Cabaret” comparison resonated with users and fans because it captures this aspect of performative activism.
The musical’s KitKat Club performers were aware that they were distracting themselves from Nazi Germany with temporary pleasure. There was self-awareness to their decadence, even if there was no redemption.
“Love Your W” isn’t framed as a party or a distraction, but as activism, awareness and celebrities using their platforms for good. It makes everyone involved feel morally righteous while engaging in the same performative spectacle seen at every industry celebration. The “theme” becomes an aesthetic window dressing, a way to make the glamour shots seem purposeful.
The KitKat Club eventually faces consequences; the party ends, and reality intrudes. But in our society’s celebrity culture, there are little to no consequences for this kind of platform misuse. The celebrities post their carefully filtered photos, rack up millions of likes, receive praise for their “advocacy,” and move on to the next event. The cycle repeats.
Meanwhile, breast cancer is the most common kind of cancer for women across the world and patients struggle to pay for treatment costs; research is severely underfunded and families struggle to navigate the trauma of diagnosis and loss.
These celebrities aren’t just lending their image; they are shaping the mindset and understanding for millions of people. Suppose the message is that breast cancer awareness means getting dressed up for a party, taking some photos and calling it activism. In that case, that’s what awareness becomes in the public imagination. The next trending cause easily replaces the depth and urgency of the issue before it.
The essence of performative activism is the appearance of engagement without the substance of actual change. The criticism isn’t a single instance but a pattern of events. Time and again, celebrities use social causes as branding opportunities, treating serious issues as accessories to their public personas. Their response is vague, appealing to “awareness” and “starting conversations.”
But awareness without action is just noise. Conversations without conclusions are just performances.
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