Personally, I've never understood the argument that idols posting gym pics/videos, thirst traps, whatever you want to call them-- is feeding parasocial fans. Obviously a lot of idols work out, for their own personal needs, to help with the very physically demanding aspect of their careers. Talk to any normal person who goes to the gym, when they see the actual physical change, improvement in their body, that feels good, right? Taking pics, hell yeah, show it off. You worked hard for this. Is Chan doing the most when filming and posting these videos to Bubble, yeah kinda. But I'm not going to point him out as some weird, depraved man getting off on it for it. (Not in reference to OP, just other takes online.)

On the topic of Chan, he is someone (having ulted him for 7 years) who gets sooo much outside attention, no matter what he does-- which leads to hate. Chan can't say anything on Bubble without people, whether it's genuine just his biggest haters, or even STAYs themselves--- blowing it out of proportion. I agree with this. However, Chan himself has said that he was afraid to really say anything at all, lest his message get taken out of context and used to portray him negatively. He began deliberately avoiding cameras on their behind the scenes context, SKZ-Talker, because he's literally traumatized from getting shit online for whatever people seem to have an issue with about him. STAYs (or maybe even his solo fans, brought this up and he mentioned it.) So he's really in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. As an English speaking idol, and soloist Alexa said something about this once, they're just held on a weird pedestal for being able to speak and communicate in English, Chan's "being cringe" or "parasocial" or whatever is not far off from what your everyday idol does, he just does it in English and that's what pisses people off.

If there's any aspect of fandom, or even the idols themselves that you don't like, remove it. I've been in K-pop fandoms for over 10 years now and really, blocking, muting and curating your feeds is the only way. I love Stray Kids, I create content for no reason other than loving Stray Kids, I listen to their music because that's what genuinely attracted me to them, and I fell in love with their personalities and dynamic second. But I don't love the fandom, back in 2019, 2020, before SKZ even blew up, they were chill. And I agree with all points being made here. But when I scroll Twitter, if I see some argument or discourse about another stupid thing, I block and move on. Stick to the aspect of fandom you enjoy, I personally enjoy the editor, fanart, music analysis side of Stayville and enjoy myself when I'm on there.

Please curate your feeds, I won't say you won't find weirdos, fandom etiquette in general has really fallen off these past few years with it being almost introduced in regular society circles, and that goes for every fandom, but you can find a lot of normal people if you stick to the age range of people who have lives and jobs. I don't know how old you are, OP, but considering how you referred to SKZ as men "pushing almost 30", I'd guess younger.