#but sooooo many kpop groups bring that energy and i love it

[heyitsneen]

Buckle in because I have been on a RIDE the last few months so I wanna write it all out how BTS stole my whole soul.

I didn’t want to get into kpop even though i remember casually liking a couple shinee songs way back in like 2008 and coming across some kpop music videos when i lived in vietnam in 2012. all i remembered basically was ‘SHIIIIINNNEEEE’ lmao and remembered thinking it was fun but not really listening to it. I had a weird snobbishness against kpop fandom but secretly always knew from the glimpses of fancams and gifs and music vids i’d casually come across that if i looked into it i’d probably like it. I had no IDEA though how talented most kpop groups are and how much dancing was involved. I confess I had a really american view of pop groups and expected it to be all about looks and really poppy boy-band/girl-band, which I also do like...but didn’t put me in a rush to find out more about kpop. If I had realized how much they dance I know I would have looked more into it years ago because I love and respect dancing. I still knew I had the potential to like it if i ever looked into it, but I thought of it super shallow-ly so I never took the time to learn more. 

I remember years ago when Jin trended as ‘third guy from the left’ and i didn’t really know who he was at the time except that bts was pretty big and my college roommate casually liked them. I read through the comments on twitter at the time and was entertained and a little curious but didn’t look further. I remember seeing a pic as a result of the trend and finding out ppl called him World Wide Handsome and i found that hilarious and awesome and agreed with the assessment, I remember finding them all super handsome, but at this point still had only heard a little bit of Boy with Love.

Much later (years?) an NPR podcast I followed talked about Blackpink doing coachella and I got curious and watched a couple mvs and was really impressed but still casually. I now had a bit of a better respect for it but was still not really into it yet except thinking blackpink had bops and being generally vaguely aware that blackpink and bts were popular (i really didn’t realize how popular and how much music they were selling tbh).

Time passed and I forgot about it until about this april while I was bored in quarantine. I got SUPER into The Untamed and then super into finding out more about Wang Yibo...which lead to watching all of his dance stuff on youtube, which lead to a ton of stuff about Uniq. I was intrigued by kpop now because of learning more about Uniq, yibo, and then produce 101 and woodz but it was still casual.

I especially loved watching the dancing so I started watching dance compilations on youtube of kpop dancing. The whole dance practice thing amazed me and I had so much fun watching dances but wasn’t really getting into who was who yet or the music really. Then Taemin’s Move happened to me and I was HOOKED on that and watched it a ton of times in the next week or so while also watching playlists of generally popular kpop music vids. I started wanting to just see a bit of what was popular and was having a good time but not really hooked yet beyond quarantine boredom and knowing that looking up kpop dance vids was going to become a thing i did on youtube probably from then on.

By coincidence around this time the Daechwita music video came out and had a ton of views so i got curious and was in awe of it when I watched it. I loved the rapping, the hype-ness, the cinematography, the lyrics...everything. I learned then from the comment section that Agust D was actually Suga from BTS which instantly made me want to know way more about bts, but I was still stuck on thinking of them as pop and amazed that suga was such a good rapper. So I wanted to see how other people reacted to him and watched a ton of reaction vids of ppl reacting to Daechwita.

This made me curious about Suga and BTS so I watched DNA and Boy With Love and enjoyed those but they were more what I expected as more poppy songs, so at that point I just enjoyed it casually for the eye and ear candy, but I was amazed that agust d was one of the members in that group and the duality of that had me intrigued (i naively thought agust d/suga’s rapping was completely a separate persona than BTS, before I realized how talented suga, RM, and jhope are within bts too and how many of their songs have a lot of rap as well). So I wanted to learn more about BTS but just watching stuff by myself seemed boring so I binge watched reaction vids of people reacting to bts for the first time and learned way more about them along with youtubers and had a blast. Watching reaction vids at first felt like hanging out with other clueless friends all chatting about this thing new to us, so somehow it made everything feel more accessible to me especially while I missed casually browsing youtube with my friends during quarantine. Mic Drop was the first of their songs to get stuck in my head and had me specifically looking up the MV/listening to it and searching out ppls reactions to Mic Drop. Then I came across reactions to the 2019 mma performance and was blown away and watched a TON of reactions to that but I still didn’t know who anyone was and hadn’t looked into many lyrics but by then i was super impressed by the effort and performance level.

A turning point from casual fun interest to deeper stanning happened though when I watched a reaction vid someone made (unfortunately can’t remember who now) to Spring Day and the explanation of Spring Day. I was AMAZED at the intellectual and careful artistry in that music video and the heart put into it. This for me started to elevate my curiosity about bts specifically over just being curious about kpop in general. I decided to watch a bunch of reactions to ‘who is bts’ type of vids because i wanted to know their names at that point and I was blindsided by how impressed I was with their thought processes (specifically RM and Suga, especially at first), their individual strengths, their personalities in general, their bonds, their work ethic and ambition, and their inspirational story. I decided to watch their music vids on my own in chronological order and realized that there was reoccurring and connected story and symbolism in their music vids stretching for years and was SO HYPE about that and impressed by it (I love analyzing media, I even was briefly a film major so I was GEEKED about the artistry and symbols in their music vids even before I realized the references or how confusing and deep it ran and that made me like them even more). I googled about the storyline looking for theories/explanations and found the webtoon, which just blew my mind that they even had a webtoon! I read it in one night lol, I was in multimedia heaven honestly I have never heard of a music group being so into using so many mediums for entertainment and was definitely feeling so happy to get into it. THE WINGS SHORT FILMS were I think what officially elevated everything for me and made me know I’d always want to keep an eye on what they were putting out there because it was so so cool to me that they’d have this storyline in their music videos and also take the time to make these little artsy short movies I was SO IMPRESSED and blown away.

The real soul steeling happened though when I saw RM’s UN speech and started watching more compilations and reactions showing RM and Suga talking about their thoughts about their success and their music and learning about the relationships and personalities of the members...I quickly grew to appreciate each individual which really surprised me because how can one group be so complete and have 7 individually interesting people in it. I loved too that they all had their own solo stuff and were allowed to each shine in their own ways. It became about more than music for me at some point in there and I know now I’ll probably have warm feelings about them and want to root for them on a deeper level for a long time. Now their music is so enriched for me by all the behind the scenes stuff I’ve seen. I really in earnest then was mainlining all of the stuff I could in a mix of reaction vids to funny compilations to lyric breakdowns to finding an index that lists as much as possible in chronological order that I’m now watching through including their early vlogs and gameshows and it’s just so fascinating to me how much content they have documenting their whole journey and I am having such a fun and moving and inspiring time watching it. It’s really helped me during quarantine especially and now I can really say I am a really big fan of BTS and probably will be for a really long time.

I still sometimes watch other kpop music vids and have now seen all of TXTs stuff, but so far other groups haven’t grabbed my heart in the same way. I know at some point they probably will and I have been really impressed by the talent all throughout kpop in general that i’ve seen. I can usually only be obsessed with one thing at a time though lol, but I look forward to paying more attention in general to kpop from now on!

But there is something really special to me about BTS right now so I’m just letting myself bask in that obsession and it is so great. So many of their lyrics move me, RM and Suga alone are such interesting people that they alone would make me want to keep up with BTS. But then on top of that the rest are so great in their own ways too and Jimin along the way became probably my ‘bias’ though I really do like them all so much in their own ways that choosing one as a fave feels stupid. Then on the shallower note they are also beautiful, so there is that...but that is such a small piece of why I love them now. Kpop combos everything I love about music...the theatrics, the symbolism, the flashiness, the music, the makeup, the glam, the dancing, the fun, the inspiration, the acting, the iconography...and with bts it’s also a group of guys who are so intensely likable and root-able, with a huge amount of content, who reflect a lot on what it means to love yourself and know yourself and who are really open about how much effort goes into their crazy lives...and I am just upset that I didn’t know more about them years ago.

I can also completely see why fans are a bit obsessive and defensive about the genre and about their fave groups now...because the western media still doesn’t really get how impressive this stuff is and how much work goes into it. I mean already groups like one direction and other pop groups had to fight uphill battles for respect b/c for some reason pop music gets such a bad rep. But western media and ppl who never bother to look into kpop look down on it so dismissively as mindless pop or just about looks and are so extra condescending about it like these kpop groups are lucky to come to the US or something. There’s so much reluctance to embrace it even when it’s so popular, that fans have to shove it’s popularity in ppls faces for it to start to be accepted finally, and even now the attitude in media toward it seems pretty dismissive like it’s just temporary or about teenage girls or they focus on the fans and not the music...or they purposefully overly focus on negative or perceived negatives and look for things to discredit their accomplishments. In some ways the popularity BTS has accomplished is even more impressive to me than the beatles comparisons imply, because BTS did it with a language barrier, while dancing, and in the face of the US still being pretty racist against asians. It really is impressive, and even as a new fan I get so frustrated when people try to dismiss it as fad or minimize their successes and the mark on culture and music history that not just kpop but specifically BTS is making with these accolades and firsts.

Way too much western media focus goes to extra shit like: how young they are (they aren’t even really younger than a lot of american performers anyway), dismissing their involvement in the music process (freaking do your research and give credit where credit is due, many idols are more involved in their creative process than american singers anyway and even if they weren’t why are we suddenly caring about that?!), focusing on the rules they are under from companies (accept that it’s a different culture...also, disney anyone?), crediting their collaborators for their success more than them (sia added absolutely nothing to ON for example...and their success is not because of Halsey..and stop f-ing asking who they want to collab with), not giving credit for their dancing and over-focusing on live vocals without crediting them for singing /while/ dancing (that shit’s hard and no one is doing it like kpop, and even if sometimes live vocals get shaky the way people specifically nitpick and harp on that for them is so stupid when plenty of super popular ‘western’ singers also give some shaky live performances or also use a backing track all while dancing a hell of a lot less), criticizing them for makeup (i honestly think this is thinly disguised racism/fetishism at work because plenty of american male artists wear makeup and are not met with the uncomfortable comparisons to dolls and girls and sexualized criticism that american media gives this), dismissing them as just ‘pretty’, judging them for how the trainee system works (which they don’t really have control over, and is pretty hypocritical anyway when you consider how western music contracts and studios work...shadiness is intense in american music industry too), constantly wanting them to put more english into their music (spanish songs are getting radio play (tbh also not enough), and their global success keeping their korean lyrics proves anyway that we should be moving beyond caring so much about language barriers but the radio/media response is just so behind what people are listening to/buying and it’s frustrating how xenophobic it is). 

now that I know more about it, it’s so insulting how condescending some of the interview questions they get and some of the articles about kpop are because they act like kpop is some alien thing that’s lucky to break into the US as if the US is the center of everything and tbh it’s disrespectful and xenophobic and often racist. kpop is a whole package of entertainment and showmanship that honestly is way more work than most of the famous ‘western’ performers bring to their shows and music vids. I am not naive and I do know that language does affect radio play, but it’s not hard to look up lyric translations and music is really transcendent of language imo. It’s not like they need to be playing every new group or even a ton of korean music, I know that american radio is pretty guttless at the prospect of sharing ‘new’ stuff, it’s a lot of the same stuff repeatedly, but at the very least the groups and songs that are organically selling huge numbers and getting hugely popular should get the radio play that reflects some of that popularity. Really entertainers in the US should be trying to learn from the kpop scene and tbh it should be way more respected than the condescending reluctant attitude music media in the US especially has been giving it. I do feel like maybe the attitudes are changing and I hope they are. I really feel like it’s the future of pop and it’s really exciting for me now to finally know more about it and be more aware of it for the future.

[jimins-crooked-tooth]

BTS ASKS

lmao so nobody asked me any questions i literally just wanted to answer all of these for fun

1) How and when did you get into BTS?

When my best friend introduced me to kpop, I initially got into GOT7, and then a few months later came EXO, and than BTS.

2) Did you make new friends thanks to BTS?

Yes! Literally anyone on here that I follow I consider my friends 😘

3) Has Bangtan influenced your life in any other way?

Yes. Listening to Korean music and delving more into Korean culture has peaked my interest in learning hangul fluently. I’m currently majoring in English secondary education and think it would be really incredible to teach English somewhere in South Korea.

4) Top 10 Songs?

• Lie and Serendipity (these two are a package deal, they’re girlfriends)

• Spring Day

• Pied Piper

• Coffee

• Stigma

• Save Me

• Dimple

• Second Grade

• Spine Breaker

• Danger

5) Favorite album?

Love Yourself

6) Favorite lyrics?

Literally every single word in Serendipity wowowowowowow

7) School trilogy, HYYH era or WINGS?

WINGS by far.

8) Which Cypher part do you like best?

Cypher Pt. 4

9) Your favorite AGUST D and RM track?

• AGUST D — Tony Montana or So Far Away

• RM — Change ft. Wale

10) Your favorite cover of BTS? (Doesn’t matter if it’s one of Jungkook, Taehyung, Jin, etc.)

Like A Star by RM and Jungkook.

11) Is there any BTS song that has a special meaning for you?

Spring Day because it was the song and video that made Jimin my official.

12) Your favorite live performance?

Lie by Jimin.  I love his dance and the song and everything bdofihdofihdjfoh

13) Your bias?

In case you didn’t already know, it’s Jimin.

14) Your favorite ships/interactions?

Jikook x465975374302934

15) Favorite fansite(s)?

Don’t have have one.

16) What is your favorite hair color for each member?

Jin: Light pink/light brown

Yoongi: Green

Hobi: Black/red

Namjoon: Lilac purple

Jimin: PINK PINK PINK PINK PINK PINK PINK PINK PINK

Tae: Red/dark brown

Jungkook: Not Today era hair

17) Whose fashion style do you like the most?

Jimin or Yoongi

18) Which member matches with your personality the most?

Jungkook because we are both the evil maknaes in our friend groups lmao. But also I am really fucking weird like Tae sooooo

19) Who do you think would be your best friend in BTS?

Yoongi because we would roast everybody and be partners in crime but also I think Tae because he and Jimin are best friends so I have to be close to my boyfriend’s bestie, right?

20) Which member caught your attention first?

Jungkook (mainly because of Fire Performance Video #rip)

21) Name the feature you like the most about each member!

Jin: Eyes/shoulders

Yoongi: His ability to pull off any hair color/scratchy voice

Hobi: Cheekbones/ass

Namjoon: Dimples/tan skin

Jimin: Lips/crooked tooth/thighs

Tae: Box smile/tan skin

Jungkook: Thighs/bunny teeth

22) Your favorite photo of each member? (I’m just going to selfies to narrow down my options)

Jin: 

Yoongi: 

Hobi: 

Namjoon:

Jimin: PSA LOOK AT MY BABY’S PINK HAIR

Taehyung:

Jungkook:

23) What immediately comes to your mind when you think of Jin?

Dad jokes/high-pitched laugh

24) What immediately comes to your mind when you think of Yoongi?

Gummy smile

25) What immediately comes to your mind when you think of Namjoon?

Dimples

26) What immediately comes to your mind when you think of Hoseok?

Energy/sunshine

27) What immediately comes to your mind when you think of Jimin?

Eye smile

28) What immediately comes to your mind when you think of Taehyung?

Deep voice

29) What immediately comes to your mind when you think of Jungkook?

Perfection

30) Rank the dance line in terms of favorite dancing style!

1. Jimin

2. Hobi

3. Jungkook

31) Rank the vocal line in terms of favorite singing style!

1. Jimin

2. Tae

3. Jungkook

4. Jin

32) Rank the rap line in terms of favorite rap style!

1. Yoongi

2. Namjoon

3. Hobi

33) Who’d win in a dance battle? Jin or Namjoon?

neITHER. But I think Jin would win because he puts in a lot of effort. he just sucks. Namjoon hates dancing AND he sucks lmao

34) Jungkook’s thighs, abs, arms or veins?

Thighs

35) Holly, Soonshim, Micky or Rapmon?

Soonshim but i LOBE THEM ALL SO MUCH

36) American Hustle Life, Rookie King, Bangtan Gayo or RUN BTS?

Run BTS

37) What variety show do you want BTS to be featured in?

I love them on Weekly Idol sm

38) What accessory would you bring for a fansign and for which member?

Matching bracelets or necklaces for me and Jimin.

39) Have you ever been to a fansign or concert of BTS?

no))))))):

40) Have you ever sent a fan letter?

nope

41) Did you ever join a fansite’s birthday project?

no omg i’m a terrible fan

42) Are you a member of the fancafe?

i don’t know what this is oops

43) Do you talk openly about BTS in front of friends and family?

Yes, it’s a problem

44) If you were given the chance to say one sentence to all of them, what would you tell them?

“You have all worked so hard and all of ARMYs are prouder of you guys than we could ever be.”

45) If money, distance and the like weren’t a problem, what kind of gift would you give them to their birthday?

I would probably write them all handwritten letters expressing my love, gratitude, and how genuinely proud of them.  I’d tell them I look up to them so much and that they are loved and appreciated by so many people and that they should always take time to love and care for one another and each other.

46) What subunit would you look the most forward to?

I would love a subunit of the maknae line or Yoongi, Tae, and Jungkook.

47) Do you prefer Hip-Hop BTS or the more Pop-ish BTS?

I really love both, but I’ve been loving their newer stuff a lot.  I like that they are always trying new things.

48) Do you watch their appearances on shows live or do you wait for subs?

I usually wait for subs to come out, but I try to watch performances live!

49) What kind of concept would you like to see in the future?

I would love to see a “men in suits” sort of concept like Super Junior in Black Suit.

50) Your thoughts on BigHit?

I don’t know much about the company, but from what I can tell, they seem to give the boys a lot of freedom in their music and their performances.  I also like they did the Bon Voyage trips because it gave the boys a break and let them relax and have fun!

You guys should all do this!!! It’s super fun :D