The Love for BTS - Part 1: The Personal Story

Looking up to seven members of a Korean boyband for inspiration — for art and for life.

There are people on this planet who know exactly what they want from life. Their goals and dreams are set, the path they have chosen to walk on sweeps ahead without any shadows of self-doubt, health issues or bad decisions that could cause them to veer off-track or be indecisive messes.

I envy these people. I am not one of them.

I am a confused, anxious adult who constantly doubts whatever she does. Every decision is plagued by ‘what ifs’ and ‘but thens’. Even if what she’s doing is perfectly fine. Even if people have actively praised what she has done in the past. Despite all this, there are a few parts of my life that I’m very confident about and I trust my judgement about them.

One of those just happens to be a South Korean boyband.

I’m still very amused by how this came to be. Almost like it was supposed to happen, like a the-universe-works-in-a-mysterious-ways story in a drama. There’s a saying in the group’s fandom (called the ARMY) ‘BTS finds you when you need them’. And if this was said about anything else, I would have scoffed at it. But I can’t if I’m an example of it.

It was the last few months of 2016. I was NOT in a good place mentally. I had a job, good friends, supportive family. No purpose as such but no horrible hardship either. But I was deeply unhappy, underconfident and listless. I was trying to inject some meaning into life by starting art projects on the side, they helped a tiny bit so I would clutch on to that. No amount of counting my blessings or distraction with regular outings or even exercise helped. And that in turn was another source of frustration. I wouldn’t really tell anyone about it which made it even worse. I wasn’t demanding euphoria damnit! A quiet contentment or sense of enthusiasm and hope for future was what I was looking for and yet my brain was NOT feeling it. It meant that it was a period of listless and directionless life.

Anyway, that meant I was trying to just take one day at a time. Mindless consumption of visual media was a favorite pastime. One day, I was on YouTube watching reaction channel videos. They are amusing. On one such video, there were a few comments, ‘Hey, react to Blood, Sweat and Tears by BTS!’. I had no idea of who or what BTS was. Title intrigued me though. I landed on the video for Blood Sweat and Tears and … well I wasn’t expecting THAT.

What I distinctly remember is the guy in the centre as the first notes hit — Park Jimin, he was called, as I later found out. I don’t think what I felt was something I can describe because its subjective. What do you call immediate intrigue? Fascination? A crush? It was slightly more than that. Why was this guy prettier than all the women I’ve seen so far? WHO is he ?

Now, K-pop wasn’t something new for me when I saw this. I was familiar with the synced choreography, edgy makeup, flashy fashion and the production works. It was fun but that was about it. I was never drawn to it.

But THIS. Well. The music video was artsy, beautiful and that included the men themselves. I cannot include any screenshots because there are just so many, I am unable to choose. I loved the tune, the singing, the chorus. I was hooked on the choreography and synchronization. My brain literally went ‘What?’ and then demanded I find out more about exactly who these people are.

Bangtan Sonyeondan (BTS), that translated to Bulletproof Boy Scouts. 3 rappers, 4 vocalists. Some of them write some of the songs and produce some of the songs. All of them dance, and very well. Interesting.

The next stop was a dance practice video by the band for the same song. Goddamnit they’re in sync even during the jumps? Also I loved their personal style.

Source : BANGTANTV on Youtube

Next, their own reaction to the final music video, which apparently they hadn’t seen post production. Seven guys sitting on the floor with a laptop and hyping and cheering for their mates when their part in the song came on. It was endearing, to say the least. I was laughing along with them while reading the subtitles to understand what they were saying to each other.

Source: BANGTANTV on Youtube

After that, as I went down the rabbit hole of ‘Bangtan’ content — I just couldn’t have enough of it. I was forgetting my hopelessness and laughing along the antics of these seven dorks who were trying to make good music. Music videos, pre and post debut vlogs, behind the scenes of shows and music video shoots, the pre-show/concert prep, dance practices and even just them sitting and eating, they had published an extraordinary amount of content about themselves on Youtube.

Strangely, they didn’t look like starving, label hungry, managed and manufactured celebs with PR managers as the popular stereotype goes for Kpop. They looked … normal. They didn’t wear designer labels, sat on the floor to watch or eat, lived together in a dorm, fought over coupons, made their own food a lot of times and had roommates. Their songs were well crafted, with beautiful lyrics, some were like ballads, some rap and some with amazing choreography that screamed of skill. Some of them were catchy enough and some were just so wonderful to hear that I wanted to know Korean to understand it, so I went on translation websites (we have fans who do this for free!) to check out the lyrics for several songs. Knowing the lyrics and cultural references made them even better — if that was possible. They talked about personal politics, culture, education system, family, friendship, the ever changing phases, dreams or temptations of youth, not giving up, identity crisis, grieving and loss, haters and dealing with them and of course, love. I mentioned love the last because it really doesn’t feature as the main theme in their songs, even if it appears to. Personally since I really don’t connect to many love songs of today — I was especially drawn to their discography.

They didn’t take themselves seriously to have a certain ‘image’ or ‘rep’ on social media or to fans, while remaining 200% serious about anything related to their work …so while consuming all this I was getting acutely aware of something. These guys were a fascinating combination of formidably skilled, dedicated and disciplined, good looking, adorably goofy and cute. And on top of all this, humble as hell! It is not AT ALL surprising why people LOVE them, fans and peers alike.

I was definitely falling hard for them — for sure, they were good looking but I was so so curious and fascinated by them, their relationship with their work/art and their distinct personalities that were coming up in the content around them.

If someone asks me what I like about BTS and why I say I’m ‘inspired’ by them, it’s a heavy word — it is very difficult for me to be brief. And people did ask (some looked at me like I had lost my marbles). As the overthinker and analyzer that I am, I took this as an opportunity to dissect my fascination and admiration for them. Next time someone asks, I can just forward a link to this article. It’s quite a long read, but hey, it is what it is.

1. All of the seven members work extremely hard and I admire them immensely for it

The FIRST thing I will tell you about them is that the guys give their work their all. 200% for each performance — from performing for 100 people invited for (begged in the streets to attend) a free concert after their debut in 2013 to 90,000 fans when headlining Wembley Stadium in 2019. The professionalism they exhibit has been lauded by many of their peers and collaborators.

Each member has a distinct personality but none of them slack off on their job. They complain, of course, like normal human beings. About being tired, not liking diet restrictions or clothing or stupid behavior they have to put up with, feeling sleepy, feeling low, making fun of management, getting snappy at each other, getting physically hurt during performances and sometimes messing up. Despite all this, they try their best to give fans an experience. It’s their job — they take that seriously.

I used to slack off a lot while doing something — for example, I had so many ideas for art projects in my head but I didn’t finish many of them. I didn’t even start some of them. I daydreamed and thought a lot about them, sure. But all of it was more talk instead of action. I looked at these 7 young…well, boys. And they just did the work. Because they loved it. They loved music — writing, producing, performing and singing. They were involved in all the easy and difficult aspects of making music. They talked so enthusiastically about it — the writing process, the melody, the compositions of songs, the dance, the filming — all of it.

Doing the work was how they showed they were passionate about it.

As I saw them put in the hours to get better at what they love, I realized that was the approach I should take for what I loved to do. Did I really love creating art if I wasn’t willing to put in the work to take it further? Was I just going to do the feel good stuff or was I ready to do what was really needed, even if some of it felt tedious? Was I willing to practice, study, fail, try again… endlessly? This is what the BTS members did for music and performance.

And I started doing that too. I often say my art progress wouldn’t be where it is right now if they hadn’t shaken me out of my listless stupor just by doing their jobs thousands of miles away. I still have a long way to go, but I look at them and it reminds me of why I still create. Because I love to.

2. Humility and Politeness are IN

I genuinely like how well mannered these guys are. Not just because they came from humble roots but because they stayed the same after becoming globally famous millionaires. You wont find any guy in BTS who runs his mouth. They are smart enough to not post random ass hot takes in the ‘I’m just saying it like it is’ type of arrogant edginess that even moderately famous people exhibit. I’m sure this is in part due to excellent management and teaching from their label. But they always have the social capital to say stupid things and not suffer a lot from the consequences — they just never do. They make a point to be humble, kind, polite and generous.

I think at a point in the past, when I was young, I absolutely believed that people who were meaner, richer, bitchier, judgemental and arrogant were probably cooler and more accomplished than others — that’s where the attitude came from… right? I saw the members of BTS, how they conducted themselves and their kindness, humility and manners and it was obvious you didn’t need to be edgy, outrageous and full of drama to be successful, cool, talented and skilled. You contribute 4 BILLION USD to your country’s GDP, almost as much as conglomerates like Samsung and if you were awarded the Order of Cultural Merit for your country 5years into your career, you kinda the earn the right to be a little bit arrogant, don’tcha think? But that’s not their style. And it was something that shifted my perception of what a successful artist can present themselves as.

These boys, they don’t waltz into your life like they own it. Nor do they enter with a bang. They do this little bow when they come in.

2! 3! Hi we’re BTS!

3. Presentation!

When you make something — sometimes how you present it to your audience matters as much as the skill taken to make it. It’s why one of Monet’s most famous water lilies series are presented in the Orangerie as they are — grand, surrounding the viewer, immersing them in their view .

Once you see enough content around the albums BTS/Bighit put out , its clear that they build a story around it. Everything after announcing a comeback album is part of the larger picture. All the things that seem random in the music video are actually a part of a unifying theme. The outfits, performance stages et all.

Suga says it better, as always, “K-pop includes not just the music, but the clothes, the makeup, the choreography…all these elements I think sort of amalgamate together in a visual and auditory content package, that I think sets it apart from other music or maybe other genres so again, as I said, rather than approach K-pop as it’s own genre I think approaching it as this integration of different content would be better.”

It struck me that while I was so enamored by their content, I didn’t realize why that was. I love ‘integrated content’. I love when different components come together to tell a story or evoke an emotion. Their music, content and performances always evoke emotions for me. It’s why I connect more to them than other artists. It’s why millions connect with them. They know it, their CEO knows it.

This is what I want to do — connect to people, have an experience connected to my art. How I present my work affects how the viewer experiences it .I was aware of the importance of this regarding my work, but BTS kind of increased its font and underlined it for good measure.

4. They inspire my art and mindset as artists

This is in addition to the first point about how hard they work on their craft and job. While that is something that made me sit up and pay attention to how much I was working instead of complaining about no progress, this is more about how they approach and handle being artists in a commercial/capitalist and often xenophobic industry.

They are very acutely aware of what they are perceived like, especially in the western music industry and more often than not, they wear it like a badge of honor. Whatever they are mostly ridiculed for, I don’t think I have ever heard them be defensive about any of it — simply because they don’t think there’s anything to be defensive about if you believe in what you do.

If you are confident about the work you do and who you are, nobody can take it away from you with just words. And if you DO succeed at something, there will always be someone who will try to drag you down. The trick is to just … go back to doing what you like to do.

There’s a vulnerability in their work, especially solo projects, that makes me think deeper about the value of being true to your self while creating. They explore the agony of anxiety, the fear of failure, the fear of not being passionate anymore about the thing you love, of not reaching your full potential. These resonate quite hard with what I think about in terms of my work.

Even so, while being vulnerable, they are confident about their work that displays these feelings, enough to publish them to millions. I am slowly teaching myself to be more open, honest about what I am trying to create, what the purpose of me painting something or saying something is — instead of thinking, ‘Oh this art is not ‘pretty’ enough to be shown, no one will like it’ or ‘Am I talking about BTS too much? Nobody will get it’.

And… so what? As an artist, one cannot let others’ tastes dictate what you create and what you say. That is how I see these 7 members operate on what they like to do  — even outside the context of the corporate media company they belong to. This has lead to them experimenting and creating in different voices. So much so, that they’re not confined by the Kpop label anymore. Now, they can say without hesitation, BTS is the genre. You can’t do that if you keep conforming.

After all the ridicule they face for being a Korean boyband , especially from the very narrow minded western music industry — they don’t shy away from their identity. They are Korean, they take pride in that. They are a boyband, they sing and dance. Their songs and videos are almost always in Korean. They extensively use their own cultural references in their songs, dance, production and even promotional videos. This actually makes them stand out even more than their peers — the other idol groups. They do use English to expand their reach, but for reference — they have 2.5 English songs out of 250ish total songs (that include songs in Japanese).

They are their country’s pride. You can’t do that if you conform, to some arbitrary western standard which is, quite often, as ‘manufactured’ as k-pop industry is labeled as — and this holds especially true for any artists of color if they want to find their own voice and their own identity.

I didn’t have any mentors for this mindset back then, and I doubt I would have found any in time for me to grow to where I am right now, so I am grateful I was introduced to these ideas through BTS - maybe in a more palatable way for an amateur.

For me, they are true artists.

5. They inspire a community

I don’t believe I have seen any artist or group have such a pull on their fans, that they create a community that somehow grows into this behemoth that is a force in itself, separate from the artist. The BTS ARMY, as they are called — is the biggest active fandom in the world. And it’s pretty special.

BTS ARMY consists of millions of fans engaging in fan activities in the name of their favorite artist. You’d think this is nothing new, fans do anything for their favorite artist if the artist tells them to — but here’s the thing, none of these activities are promoted or thought of by BTS or their label/company. The fans come up with things to do by themselves, inspired by the members and they all do this — for other fans or people.

The fandom contains study groups, translators (in almost all major languages — and the backbone of the fandom), charity accounts, fan publications, fundraisers, streaming parties, art communities, promoters et all.

Together they have pulled off some amazing feats. In 2020, when BTS spoke out in support of Black Lives Matter, in 25 hours, fans around the globe matched BTS’s 1 million dollar donation to BLM. In the ongoing COVID crisis in India, the fans have so far donated 20 lakh INR. There are dedicated BTS fan Twitter accounts for fundraising for different calamities across the globe. The fans do this because BTS themselves, while never asking the fans to donate, lead by example. Their donations to several causes — ranging from arts to healthcare, and being UNICEF supporters, have inspired the fans to be kind and generous to the best of their capacity. The fans also focus on the BTS member’s birthdays to organize fundraisers for a selected cause.

There are dedicated accounts that translate what BTS is saying Korean to English(and other major languages), sometimes live, for any of their promotion or live videos. And since BTS is continuously working on something or the other, the translators have their hands full. Doolsetbangtan is a popular website for translations of their lyrics — full with cultural references and interpretations. And fans do this for free.

I was actually in awe when I experienced this community in all its force , I hadn't quite seen anything else like it.  It wasn’t this huge when I joined 5 years ago but it was still a positive, creative and collaborative space and it is much more than that now. I’m constantly inspired by the artists in the community, and they have seriously made me reconsider my goals and forced me to aim higher, think bigger. This is actually a common sentiment across the fandom, that people get inspired to be a better version of themselves because of these 7 men.

I can’t definitively say why exactly BTS has this effect on their fans, but I believe it is because almost all fans I have interacted with have said their lives changed because of this band and I think they feel a bond to the only other people who will understand this sentiment. Because outside the fandom, they are treated with disdain or ridiculed or dismissed for... basically saying what they feel. Which brings me to the next one -

6. Opening up to new ideas

It took me a while to even admit this to myself — that a boyband, a Korean group — was having this effect on me, a grown ass woman of (then) 26 (I’m 31 now) because I was getting SO attached to them. I had some latent stereotypes about K-pop in my head that it was just this manufactured, fake, quirky thing and anyone who liked it didn’t ‘know real music’ or some pretentious shit like that, fueled by white/western accounts on YouTube who picked and chose what to see, and looked at these groups as if they were some quirky weird thing from Asia to laugh at and ‘only screaming teenage girls’ could be their fans.

The ‘crazy teenage girls’ stereotype has been proven wrong over and over — we have boys, moms, dads, grandpas and grandmas in the fandom. The rappers in BTS alone have a separate fandom in the hip-hop/rap community. John Cena is a fan. Paulo Coelho is a fan. I recently found a video of a retired US Marine who said he was invested in BTS members and it changed his life. All of them have similar stories of being positively impacted by 7 young men from Korea. Enough to publicly rave about them.

They also made me question “Yeah, why exactly is having a young female fanbase bad or worth making fun of, as if its not valid popularity? Can someone explain?” (Turns out you can’t without looking either stupid or sexist). Since BTS are neither, you’ll see them praising and thanking their fans, for sticking with them through the general ridicule and for making them reach where they are right now.

The MOST common thing I have heard about BTS from non-fans is ‘Don’t they look like girls?’, almost as if that is bad bad, so bad. Well first, no they don’t — they look like Korean men. You’re just not used to seeing men like them honey. And second, as a woman, if someone asks me if I think they are masculine, hell yes. They display all the traditionally celebrated ‘masculine’ behaviors and hobbies — hip hop, sports, martial art, video games, physical strength, abs and a ‘good body’, being rich af, being adored by millions of women across the globe. Not to mention, all 7 of them will enlist in the national military for their country for 2 years. They only make the grave mistake of putting on some makeup on stage and maybe act emotional or cute here and there to get homophobic slurs.

The idea of what is an ‘attractive man’ is mostly shaped by our pop culture — either native to our country or…well, white. Lets be honest. But because of BTS, I no longer have limiting ideas of that.

They have destroyed so many of my long held beliefs and behaviors. And for the good — so I ain’t complaining.

7. The simplest reason for anyone to like something

They’re fun.

Yeah. That’s the plain and simple reason folks. Being a fan of these guys is FUN. Their songs, performances, personalities, behind-the-scenes, variety show… all of it puts a huge grin on my face. They are an instant mood lifter, I sometimes think I exaggerate this but repeated experimentation has shown that it is a fact and hey, that’s almost science. I can’t stay in a bad or depressive mood if I watch one good Run BTS episode.

There’s a quote by RM, the groups leader, from when he was talking to the concert crowd that has stuck with me and fits perfectly -

“If we helped your dream and your life a bit by our existence, our music, our performance, our pictures or videos, even if it’s not big, if we could reduce your pain from 100 to 99, 98 or 97, that makes our existence worthy.” — RM

If you find something that does this for you — inspires, entertains, motivates you, as a human and as an artist, you should not give up on it. I’m immensely grateful that I found BTS that act as this force in my life.

Today, during this pandemic, June 13, 2021, I will have logged on to watch the 8th Anniversary of BTS’s debut with my friends and we will laugh, dance, cheer , sing in mumbling Korean and exchange notes with people across the globe and forget our worries for a while. And it would be amazing.

Happy Birthday Bangtan Sonyeondan! Thank you for existing, forever grateful to you! Saranghae!