#respect the privacy if you truly love them
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Happy new year Storm! I hope this ask isn't too long and sprawling. These events took place when I was younger, a bit more foolish about how to behave online as a fan. But it might be illuminating for some of your more aggressive anons, lol.
This thing we keep being pummelled with (about Jikook 'not being sighted together' so therefore not being together) is so tiring.
I remember a few years back I had spent some time in a forum dedicated to another 'are they, are they not' queer couple. Western celebrities, nothing to do with kpop. I was a fan of both these people independently, so I got very curious and intrigued about the idea of them together. On this forum, there was a lot of trying to line up dates of official events/second hand accounts from friends of friends who said they had seen Person A with Person B but never got pics, etc. It was like trying to pin down water in some cases, which frustrated people on the forum who were desperate for 'solid evidence', real confirmation.
One day, a very-famous good friend of Person A, perhaps more famous than either member of this speculated couple, came into my place of work, which was pretty darn exciting on its own. It also contradicted some narratives held on that forum regarding who was where and in which countries at what times. And that made me wonder how many other times that had been the case.
Now naturally, my initial plan was to report back to this forum and tell them about briefly meeting Famous Friend at my work. This was a Mild Scoop after all, another piece to the puzzle, a correction to the records. But a few things stopped me from doing it. I had no photo evidence that this person had been there at all, so it was another 'useless' unverifiable sighting.
But much more importantly, I realised if I posted ANY SPECIFICS WHATSOEVER about who it had been and where it was, then fans with fewer boundaries than I would be able to use my information to stalk. A very determined person could probably even have used the information to figure out whereabouts Famous Friend lived. Famous Friend was apparently a semi-regular at this place, on this occasion they had been with what seemed to be an older family member, and they were clearly dressed to go incognito. Hat and sunglasses indoors, etc. My place of work was somewhere they felt safe enough to go to repeatedly in their downtime, in the knowledge that they wouldn't be bothered or harassed by fans. I didn't want to be the person who ruined that small bit of normalcy for them.
So... I never posted anything to the forum. I just held onto the knowledge in my head that one particular thing wasn't true - Person A and Person B definitely DIDN'T meet with Famous Friend in Countryland at that point, because Famous Friend was in Placecountrytown at my work. I would simply never be able to prove it without compromising the privacy of people involved. And again, I wondered how many other times this could have happened with other people. Maybe this was why it was like trying to pin down water. Maybe that was a wonderful thing, actually.
Going back to Jikook - this is why it seems SO ENTIRELY BELIEVABLE to me whenever we hear that K-Army has stuff and keeps it LOCKED DOWN. That they see them a lot, but rarely let it leak to the international fanbase. That they know stuff we don't and will probably never know. The stakes are so much higher for Jikook if their relationship is a thing. I have no trouble at all believing that there are people all over Korea who have seen them out and about, but not wanted to be the weak link in the chain that breaks their bubble of privacy.
And not hearing about them going places, not seeing photographic evidence of friendships - does NOT mean they are not close. It means that people are doing the decent thing and saying nothing.
I know you know all of this already, but it seems some of your recent anons don't. Sorry again for the rambling message! 😶
I mean, the most recent and prime example is when that white Day photo leaked. Of Jikook with some friends out at a restaurant. K army was PISSED and so were so many other people. Fans started flocking to the restaurant and asking about jikook being there. Servers confirming that they used to come there and had gone there many times. But that they hadn't been coming back lately. And we had never heard of them going there before that leak, when staff stated that they had been coming multiple times before that. They stopped going once that photo was leaked. It was no longer a safe private place for them. Someone compromised that security for them and so they stopped going there. And for the most part k army (and j army too) are VERY protective of BTS, all 7 members. And I'm glad they are. I can't imagine the amount of exhaustion that comes from constantly having your privacy invaded and never knowing who is going to treat you normal or stalk you with their phones out whenever you leave the house. I'm positive all 7 of them, not just jikook, have safe places they like to visit and go to that give them that privacy and security too.
It's incredibly disrespectful to continuously invade their private time and their private life. And it's also incredibly disrespectful to assume they don't have one you aren't apart of because they are so famous. They will have their safe spaces and they deserve more of that. And they shouldn't have those spaces compromised.
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