When the K-Pop group received the award of Top Social Artist at the Billboard Music Award, it swept the internet, trending with hashtags like ‘Car door guy’ and ‘the third one from the left.’ With their absolute phenomenon performance during American Music Award, they swept the internet again. It left the audience overwhelmed and in tears. It’s BTS, the biggest K-Pop phenomenon to date. But for those who aren't in the loop with social media takeover, and are still confused over who BTS is, BTS is a Korean band. They are also known as “Bangtang Sonyeondan,” “The Bulletproof Scout,” or as they prefer to be called “Beyond the Scene” by their international fans. The band consists of three rappers (J-Hope, Suga, and RM) and four vocal artists (Jin, Jimin, Jungkook, and V). BTS debuted in 2013 with the album 2 Cool 4 Skool, holding mini-concerts with only as many as hundred in their audience compared to now with their world tours for millions. They are not the first to conquer America, but the first to so successfully punch a hole through the American pop culture wall.
"Please ARMY remember what we say: Love me, Love yourself."
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BTS is definitely not the first band to dominate in the USA and the world. In fact, K-Pop had exploded internationally and in the US long before ago. Excellent success acts like Wonder Girls, Super Junior, SNSD, KARA, and Big Bang have for long been trending across Asia. In the United States, although the K-Pop fanbase is loud, K-Pop remains an oddity. Artist's like Psy, Wonder Girls, SNSD, CL, and plenty of others have aimed for the US market, but in the end, were just booms and busts. Many of those as mentioned above were all products from relatively big record labels, or as Koreans refer to them as, “The Big Three” - JYP Entertainment, SM Entertainment, and YG Entertainment. These three all had the power and spending to use on their trainees in facilities, learning how to sing, dance, speak foreign languages and Americanize their work to appeal to the American market, but none of it proved any success. It’s hard to fit into the US market, and it’s even more surprising for a relatively small label to do so, one that BTS comes from.
ARMY, the BTS's fanbase, is overwhelmingly large in the United States. They have performed on popular American TV shows, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, as well as The Ellen Degeneres Show and The Late Late Show with James Corden. They have had endless interviews with the American media and cracked the Billboard 200 with the highest chart ranking for an Asian artist with their latest 2017 album Love Yourself; Her. Their collaboration with Desiigner and Steve Aoki debuts at #28, and it marks the K-pop kings' first top 40 Hot 100 entry and the first for any K-pop group. The group was even named on this year’s Time list of the 25 Most Influential People on the internet. With all their great success in the U.S., their next step in the U.S. leaves me in conscious fear of another boom and bust phenomenon. I genuinely feel that the only way BTS can continue their success is to continue making K-Pop songs and to stay true to K-Pop.
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BTS is very committed to their label and evidently proud and very comfortable with their collaboration. Although the band has been interviewed regarding the potential of creating music in English since both fans and reporters have expressed interest, the band denies any future plans of bringing their music to the english market. They do promise, however, to remain committed to make music that their fans love.
"I'm not a believer in releasing full English songs to the U.S. market as many K-pop artists have," he said. "We must focus on what we do best as K-pop artists and producers and maybe add some special features to which international or U.S. music fans can feel attached. That is the best way for us to put K-pop into the mainstream U.S. music market." The band reaffirmed their strong kpop union when they had the chance to release an English version of “MIC DROP” from their recent album, with the collaboration of Steve Aoki and Desiigner. Together, they decided to change only a few verses to English. BTS and their team are proud of their roots and proud of their K-Pop scene, which has led the groundwork of their K-Pop success.
Today, K-Pop continues to tend to play it safe, but BTS is tackling issues that are taboo. While some of their songs are extremely successful in the mainstream Korean music , such as 'Fire', 'Dope', 'Blood, Sweat, and Tears', and 'Not Today', but there are many songs that BTS wrote that lean heavily on struggles and social issues, which is not a norm and often discouraged for K-Pop stars to do. Their subject matters change throughout time, but they had been addressing social issues since their first album. From their recent album, Love Yourself; Her’s hot side-track, “Go-Go”, BTS member, Suga addressed the socially conscious lyrics, “The current generation uses phrases like YOLO and having fun squandering money, but I don’t think people think about why they use such terms so much even while using the terms.” “It isn’t a BTS album if there isn’t a track criticizing society.” While earlier songs, "N.O" targets the competitive education culture in Korea, RM’s "Change" collab with Wale, breaks down online harassment, South Korea's rigid hierarchies, and high suicide rate, alongside Wale's critiques of police brutality and the American government.
"ARMY, the BTS's fanbase, is overwhelmingly large in the United States."
With the Agust D mixtape, Suga openly reflects on his struggles with anxiety and depression with lyrics like, “Depression, OCD/ They keep coming back again from time to time.” Which is true for Korea, where there's a stigma around mental illness that continues to persist - this keeps many people from seeking treatment. "We try, to be honest to ourselves and it helps us be more flexible regarding censoring our music somehow. Music speaks for itself, and we believe people would empathize with our music if we stay true to lyrics by writing how we think and feel," they explain. K-pop lyrics tend to play it safe because of conservative societal values, but BTS' songs follow themes of personal growth as they try to be as true to self as possible.
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Over the years as BTS gains fame, they largely expand their fandom, ARMY, (or the acronym for “Adorable Representative M.C for Youth,”) with huge factions of fans in America, and endless online fan pages running abroad and internationally, the fanbase plays a major role in the attempt of sharing the name of the band worldwide. But at the same time, unavoidably, their antis grew too. If you are a fan of BTS, you’ll know that to have such success both idols and fandom had to overcome numbers of hurtful situations. While ARMY’s help BTS accomplish every wish they have, big or small, antis continue to challenge the band, which continues as the biggest motivation for BTS to work even harder. No one knows whether antis are too “holy” or not. Whatever expectation, standards, and challenges antis set for BTS, BTS will beat every single one of it.