#it's just that hybe is using a particular image to push a narrative

[sanstropfremir]

"like the whole bts thing as parasocial friends instead of boyfriends is genius but oh god the damage it id" can you elaborate on this? idk if i wasnt into kpop back then or what but what happened 😅

oh there wasn't actually like, an 'announcement' about it or anything lol. so basically bts' whole new marketing strategy post their failure to hit big as a hiphop group was that they were self-produced 'anti' idols with an emphasis on 'loving and accepting yourself' and 'making a supportive community'. which, on the surface, those are not bad things. kpop fan communities are often support systems for those involved, and you should try to at least be neutral about yourself. and there has been a distinct lack of community and community building in the western world + with the age of the internet and people are desperate for it, even if it's not something that people are cognizant of, so just on paper, it isn't a horrible idea. HOWEVER: when that push for community comes directly from a company, the company and the community get capitalistically intertwined and there becomes no way to separate the two. plus, it makes an extremely toxic community, as we've all seen, because the foundation of it is based on capitalism and consumption, while simultaneously hiding the fact that it's based on consumption, because fans will do overtime defending the company because the company pushes the community branding.

the other big part of this is pushing them as 'authentic' and 'real'. obvs this is straight up just not true, BUT it heavily appealed to western and intl fans who on the surface don't really understand the kpop model (it's also the western pop model but marketing™️) and who had orientalist views that kpop is 'manufactured' by the company and therefore 'not real music'. by presenting bts as these anti-idol figures that are 'fighting against the industry' (this was a big part as well), you hit a tonne of the demographics that wouldn't be caught by typical boy group marketing and it's precisely engineered to catch western fans. and a lot of those fans are not going to be familiar with how the industry works, and because bts' content is numerous and separated from the industry, it creates a closed loop where those fans never interact with any other groups' content and feed back into 'the community' perpetually.

also they pretty notably have done very little 'racy' content compared to other groups of their age. esp since they started doing their western push they've been pretty buttoned up, which i'm not gonna begrudge anyone who has personal boundaries about that kind of thing, but it IS unusual to family-friendly brand an entire group like that, which further enforces the "they're your friends" narrative.

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

I didn't believe BH is pushing certain ships not until they used Yoonmin for the Busan ads. I find it really odd that they didn't use Jikook who both are from there

Yeah, I said that when the yoonmin ad came out; that one where they're at a restaurant or something. I made a joke about yoonmin being the busan couple and taekook the daegu couple or something like that. In case it isn't obvious, I also thought it was ridiculous and suspicious.

Companies will push or bury a narrative as they please, or at least try to do so. But I've never noticed hybe/bighit in particular meddling in the members relationships. They can "push" ships with an increase of duo activities/moments on camera, but that doesn't mean the others stop acting like friends. Jihope are as friendly ever, it's not like Yoongi is the only member Jimin interacts with; in fact, in the content where yoonmin is paired together, Jimin barely even looks at Yoongi most of the time. They can be sitting next to each other and that's it. The company might put them together for photoshoots or skits but it doesn't mean that they will interact. They can create the enviroment and the conditions for the members to interact, but they can't really make the interactions happen. For example, putting all of them in the same house for ITS. Them being together in the same house or room makes interactions possible, but nobody is actually forcing them to do stuff together.

You're just making a very broad statement so I don't really know if you have like, a certain angle with your ask, so maybe I'll talk about stuff that you have no interest in. But my point is that hybe "pushing" taekook or yoonmin doesn't necessarily mean that everyone else are prohibited from interacting with each other. Yes, obviously if they want to they will only post content with those particular duos and gatekeep the rest, but if this is about Jimin and Jungkook specifically, then Jimin and Jungkook don't seem to be seeing each other behind the scenes either according to my interpretation of things. So whether the company is pushing certain duos or not is irrelevant when off camera the interactions don't exist either.

Taekookers thought the same, they used to think that jikook was being pushed. Even though taekook had interactions, it wasn't enough and they thought the company was "hiding" them and concealing the more "romantic" interactions but the truth was that they just didn't have that type of relationship. Sometimes things are exactly what they seem.

If suddenly there's a huge amount of jikook content, knowing that they don't hang out or talk that much off camera, then I would be suspicious too I'm not going to lie.

I don't really talk about stuff like this because it's borderline conspiracy theory for me so I don't dwell too much on it, but seeing that yoonmin ad last year, I honestly thought the goal was to enhance Yoongi's popularity. Everyone in Busan thinks of Jimin when they think Busan celebrities. So putting Yoongi with Jimin in a Busan ad is basically giving him exposure and a good image too. It's like when tailor of chaos came out and bighit posted an article that mentioned it alongside Jungkook's and Namjoon's photofolios, just to have their names with Jimin's. But for every other folio they posted individual articles. Or when they would post articles about billboard charts where they mentioned Jimin AND Yoongi instead of just separate ones for each of them.

So more or less that's my opinion, that they're killing two birds with one stone, pairing a popular member with a less "popular" one and also giving duo content of the ships that the fandom likes a lot. Then, it gets more conspiratory if you want to talk about certain members having sponsors and all that.