The world is blazing in purple as BTS (Bangtan Sonyeondan) celebrates their tenth anniversary on this beautiful day of June 13, 2023. As Twitter trends with hashtags of ARMY (Adorable Representative MC for Youth) and YouTube fills up with videos and video edits marking the glorious decade of BTS, my heart fills with warmth and I can’t help but reminisce about my personal journey and growth as an ARMY over the last three years, and how far I have come because one random day I watched one random video that my friend insisted I watch. This is a chronicle of my story, how I have now become who I am, and how BTS wove into the tapestry of my life.
It was a random week in May 2020, when my best friend insisted I watch a BTS Music Video, namely, ‘ON’ Kinetic Manifesto Film. I was shaken to my core at the masterful choreography, at the high-energy beats ringing to words that did not sound like my usual music. I was at home, then, when the world had locked itself away due to Covid-19. My classes were happening online, and my interactions with friends were happening over text. My heart was in pieces, I was almost always near tears, and my head was almost always heavy. This one MV took my breath away and for a moment I forgot everything.
I struggled at first in learning their names. I was an anime and manga kind of girl, more interested in Japan than in Korea back then, their language sounded new to me, and I didn’t quite understand the music that did not come from a film (blaming the music culture in India for that) and I could not understand the grip they had on their fans. Of course, I didn’t. For someone who didn’t even understand the point of music albums, the point of boybands and boybands in a foreign language is lost on me! But I was fascinated by BTS.
I don’t know if it was their dance moves, their looks, or their goofy antics in international interviews. I don’t know if it was the fact that I would play their songs multiple times, to see each member, to see all the lyrics, to listen to the beats, and to watch their choreography. I usually didn’t like videos, unless it was anime. I was not a fan of real people playing parts on a screen. I was a reader for most of my life, and yet, in 2018, I fell into a reading slump so vast I hadn’t come out of it. Rick Riordan had finished his PJO and HOO series, and nothing in fiction enticed me anymore. So the moment I recognized my fascination with something, I trod carefully. And the exhilarating joy of discovering them, made me feel the way I felt when I first read Harry Potter and PJO — a childlike joy, utter awe, and the inability to put it down.
Then I fell into the YouTube rabbit hole.
I wanted to have a systematic way of approaching BTS. I watched their Music Videos chronologically and I started with the ones way back in 2013. I think the moment I realized, that BTS was something I wanted in my life, was when I watched two Music Videos — No More Dream and N.O. As I write this article, I am watching the videos again and I face with the emotions I had when I watched them for the first time, in 2020. I had a great sense of loss — a deep regret of sorts — that I had missed this whole ecosystem for so many years.
Both No More Dream and N.O were songs that are a part of the School Trilogy, songs that ask youngsters what our dream was, and to fight back against the system. As a student in my own timeline, I was one of the coaching kids — taking classes and programs for cracking one of the most competitive exams in the country — JEE, and I had faced a crushing and humiliating outcome. During my final schooling year, I was a bundle of rage, disappointment, and despair. I was failing normal school-level mathematics much less preparing for JEE. I was not equipped to deal with my own failures having been a straight-A student throughout. The pressure was immense and my rage was cold. I wish I had this music to comfort me then. Had I heard these songs earlier, maybe I would have had the courage to drop Science and these misplaced hopes of cracking an exam. These songs still make me question where I am in life, am I doing what I want to, or am I doing what is expected of me? And these songs have become a part of my foundation.
Sure they look very young and new; Jimin has his chubby cheeks and Jungkook looks like a baby and Jin is in his cool big-shoulder phase and RM is in his Rap Monster phase and V with his iconic glasses scene and Yoongi is in his skirts. I still adore them the same. Their music has always been real, and those songs hit very close to my home.
Then I joined ARMY Twitter.
I was an excited new fan. I had so much to say about the seven members of BTS. I had so much to say to them. I had never had so many emotions — joyful, grateful & excited emotions that filled me to the brim and threatened to pour out, and the fandom was so, so, so kind to me. As a ‘Baby ARMY’ there were accounts that showed me how to watch the content, where to find the content, what was a good interview, what were the accounts that were OT7 — everything! There was a history of 7 years for me to catch up to. They told me about old controversies, old injustices, celebrities we could trust, celebrities who had disappointed us, the history of BTS in K-Pop, and our relationships with other fandoms, there was so much for me to learn! Then I learned about how, ARMY was not just a kind and protective fandom, but a smart fandom. And most of these I saw happen on my Twitter timeline. I watched the $1M dollars BTS donated to the BLM Movement. I saw the first tweet spring up on Twitter about how ARMYs could match them, and how in a day they had donated $1M matching BTS! I saw how ARMYs spent their time, not just consuming music, but analyzing BTS’s music — uncovering clues and easter eggs like detectives. There were ARMYs who dedicated time to getting ARMY Census to help us learn our fandom better and to fight against the notion of “little girls” as if there was anything to be shameful about little girls being interested in boybands. I saw think-pieces, and profound threads about topics like racial hate, masculinity, feminism, and capitalism in these spaces. I saw creators, thinkers, and philosophers come together with a united front of loving and protecting BTS in these spaces.
The thrill of discovering these qualitative thought processes, deeply enriched my world. Writing about them even now, sends goosebumps across my flesh. I had always been detached from the world and myself. The problems of the world were not my problems and vice versa. Being exposed to a socially conscious and aware fandom like this — made me feel more understanding and more aware of the world. I was seeing people make changes in real life. I saw the extent of the fandom’s power and there was so much untapped potential. They led to me to witness beautiful moments that could happen because of love. And something in me changed a little.
Of course, it was not just the fandom.
It is deeply embedded in the reciprocity BTS holds towards ARMY. I had never really understood why people were fans of other people. My cousins were fans of movie stars, but I couldn’t figure out why. It was not a concept I understood. Of course, I could understand being fans of fictional characters, just not real people. Then I came across BTS, but there was something so special in the way BTS treats ARMY. Usually, you see idols and celebrities promote these para-social relationships in the way of something akin to romance — which to be honest holds close to disgust for me personally. And BTS of course started the same way — celebrating Valentine’s Day, asking ARMYs to leave their fourth finger empty, etc. But over the years, maybe, or perhaps when I entered the fandom, there is a sense of a stable relationship between BTS and ARMY, unlike anything I have ever actually seen. We support each other.
Like they sing in their tribute song to ARMY — For Youth, “You’re my best friend/ For the rest of my life.” And truly there is no greater honor than that. We support BTS, and they support us. With a size and power as big as ARMY, there is bound to be criticism. BTS has defended us, in all these situations. When interviewers trivialize us by calling us “little girls” and using times in their interviews to ask questions about how “crazy fans are”, BTS has without fail defended ARMY. They respect their fans — after all, it takes more than little girls to sell out whole Hyundais and buy out all advertisement slots in a show so that no advertisements could interrupt! and they cherish our support. Often you see boybands wish they had more male fans consuming their music, women are not ‘deemed’ to be a serious audience, but that has never been BTS. They value their fans, they support their fans, and they reciprocate with their fans. When BTS released their song, We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal, I was a new fan. The magnitude of the song is not something I can truly understand, because I had missed seven years with them — but I saw how much that song meant to the fandom, which had stood by them throughout. When they sing, “Tell me your every story/ Tell me why you don’t stop this/ Tell me why you still walkin’/ Walkin’ with us,” how can you not return the same sincerity? How can we pretend that this is a crazy one-sided delusion that fans have? If people are met with sincerity, they are bound to return sincerity. And I haven’t seen a friendship so made for each other than BTS and ARMY.
Before I wrap up the article, hoping that my love and sincerity get through these words despite the inconsistency in my planning, I want to talk about the whole Love Yourself Era. I didn’t think I was capable of loving myself, I still don’t, and I didn’t see the importance of being self-aware to yourself, to identify the ways in which you’re harming yourself in your thoughts and the harmful effects that can have. Since my self-worth was so deeply ingrained in my academic performance, my failure in mathematics, ruined any chance I had of boosting my self-esteem. I became the type of person who would make jokes about myself to keep other people entertained and while that is not a bad thing inherently, doing too much of it, at some point, had me believing it. I loved Jin’s song — Epiphany. I sent it to all my friends who I thought needed to hear it. But I didn’t feel I was entitled to it. After all, what does loving yourself mean anyway.
Until I saw this one clip of RM’s speech at the LY: Speak Yourself Concert, where he talked about his 2015 song ‘Reflection’ where he had said, “I wish I could love myself,” and how he doesn’t know how to love himself too and goes to say, “I wish Kim Namjoon is Kim Namjoon (…) I wish every one of you were you. Because of you, I was able to live this far. Believe me. Going forward I hope there is one word, one lyric of ours that helps you in loving yourself (…) I wish there was a better word than ‘love’ but I really truly love you. Please know that.” To be truly honest, I felt nothing but deep gratitude for this man and his group, and even though I know he is addressing millions of people, the sincerity in his speech struck a deep chord in each of us. In another ending moment, RM famously goes on to say, “You guys taught me, through your eyes, through your love, through your tweets, through your letters, through your everything. You guys taught me and inspired me to love myself. What is loving myself? What is loving yourself? I don’t know. Who can define their own method and way of loving themselves? It’s our mission to find and define the way to love ourselves. It’s never intended but it feels like I am using you guys to love myself. So I’m going to say one thing: Please. Please use me. Please use BTS to love yourself. Because you taught me how to love myself. Everyday.”
So that’s a work in progress.
And as a decade dawns over BTS, I can’t help but look for a way to thank them. For taking me on this journey, this adventure, and this symphony. My beginning was somewhere, but my end will be eternally in their gratitude. I must have saved countless lives, to have had the good fortune of being born at a timeline where seven boys in South Korea happened to meet and happened to make music and happened to leave a mark on so many lives, changing the landscape of music forever. What good fortune! I hope that somewhere out there, they feel strong, they feel courageous that so many people have their backs. There is a saying among ARMY — you will find BTS when you need them the most. And that one fateful day in May 2020, I found them, thanks to my best friend.
