write essay on bts

Beyond The Story: BTS biography is a humanising, literary portrayal of K-pop ’s world-leading  stars

PhD candidate, Media and Communication, University of Leeds

Disclosure statement

Jenessa Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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In a climate of ever-increasing competition, it’s a real feat when any band makes it to their tenth anniversary bigger than ever. Such is the case with K-pop group BTS (short for bangtan sonyeondan , “bulletproof boy scouts” in Korean). The band have released their first official biography – Beyond The Story – to look back on their decade-long path to international, record-breaking success .

Initially rumoured to be a Taylor Swift autobiography , pre-orders had made the book a bestseller before its subject was announced. It was released to tie in with both BTS’s anniversary and their hiatus, undertaken so that the members could enrol in mandatory Korean military service .

For fans who have been there from the beginning, the book is a souvenir to covet. For western audiences who have discovered K-pop more recently, it’s a pleasant reintroduction to the group’s early incubation years. Having sold well over 40 million albums worldwide – and become the youngest ever recipients of the South Korean Order of Cultural Merit – BTS are among Korea’s most influential ambassadors.

Behind The Story was co-written by South Korean journalist Kang Myeong-seok and the band’s seven members. Following the oral history format that has benefited popular music journalism books such as Lizzy Goodman’s Meet Me In The Bathroom (2011), it tracks the band’s history across 544 pages, culminating in the release of their most recent anthology album, Proof (2022).

One by one, and in their own words, we meet J-Hope , RM , Suga , Jungkook , Jin , Jimin and V . They recall their nervousness at becoming K-pop trainees, their different motivations and the parts of performance they felt most vulnerable about. Each knew that they would have to work impossibly hard if they were to compete at the level K-pop culture demands.

Through anecdotes both humorous and moving, we learn how they bonded as a group. The seven teenagers, who were from completely different walks of life, were set up in a bunkhouse to learn how to sing and dance as a slick professional outfit.

In telling the story of BTS, Beyond The Story also tells the story of K-pop and how its dynamics have changed over the years. Fans who cottoned onto BTS in their international breakthrough era of songs such as Boy With Luv (2019) or Dynamite (2020) may assume that they always traded in upbeat pop. But their early years were actually deeply rooted in American Hip-hop , a genre K-pop has borrowed from since the early 1990s.

While K-pop groups often pride themselves on a style of perfectly-synchronous choreography known as kalgunmu (razor-sharp dancing), BTS’s hip-hop influence allowed them a certain looseness. Their musical hybridity helped to bring their individual personalities to life.

While it is true that Korean management companies closely guide their stars’ public image, and work them hard from a very young age , Beyond The Story challenges the stereotype of K-pop artists as mere performance puppets. There are several moments where members recall direct involvement in styling, choreography or songwriting. They also discuss using their platform to speak up on a range of social and political issues .

The group’s founding label Big Hit was considered small when they launched. This meant the group were frequently underestimated – even mocked – by their peers. But this underdog status encouraged them to experiment with DIY forms of self-promotion. The members blogged directly to a growing fanbase , for example, instead of relying on management-led channels.

It’s a model that has paid off. Though K-pop still evokes images of impressive polish and unison performance, newer groups such as Seventeen , Le Serrafim and Tomorrow X Together have been able to develop a model which matches feats of dance athleticism with more vulnerable, personal lyricism. This allows them to be both relatable and aspirational for worldwide audiences.

Read more: Hallyu! The Korean Wave at the V&A is an unflinching look at the country's creative rise

A new wave of music biography

Some prior understanding of the K-pop industry may be required to get the most out of the book (knowing how groups are typically assembled, for example, or how competitive Korean TV shows work). But as a contribution to modern music journalism, Beyond The Story is valuable. As they learn of the band’s insatiable work ethic, discipline and brotherly commitment, readers will feel as if they know each of the seven members much better, with a deeper understanding of how their music has developed since their debut.

It’s also highly visual. Lush photography neatly punctuates the chapters, guiding the reader smoothly through each BTS era. With pages that mark the track listings and specific details of each release, it’s easy to turn to your favourite album or treat the book as a reference text – a thoughtful, encyclopaedic blueprint for future artist biographies to come.

The use of QR codes throughout (330, to be exact) is also a smart innovation, recognising that fans might want to reminisce about (or discover) the group’s music videos, dance practices and video logs for themselves as they read. In this way, the book becomes a living museum, truly immersive and interactive.

Of course, the BTS story is far from over. Amid their hiatus, the members are experiencing international success with solo singles. Jimin recently became the first Korean soloist to top the US Billboard charts. At a time when K-pop feels bigger than ever, their success story can only inspire others who are ready to ride the unstoppable Korean wave to reach for their dreams, or indeed, for their local bookstore.

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On BTS, Writing, and What Makes an Artist

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In this essay, author Jade Song explores the impact of BTS on her artistic experiences and the writing of her first novel, Chlorine.

In 2021, BTS dancer and rapper J-Hope released a new version of his song “Blue Side” on the third anniversary of its original release, along with a letter explaining his decision to expand the song into something that felt more complete. He wrote that he wanted to find a realm in which he could transform into a mature artist, while simultaneously feeling nostalgia for the time when he was too passionate and heated to properly express his experiences. How he can’t go back to that innocence, but he can give himself a moment to provide comfort to his past self.

BTS — with members RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook — have a way of turning their past anguishes into that sort of comfort J-Hope sought. Throughout their music, there’s a sense of, okay, we are going to feel all these emotions, but then we are going to make something beautiful out of them. It’s a sentiment I’ve taken literally as I wrote my first novel, Chlorine (forthcoming from William Morrow), following a talented competitive swimmer under immense pressure, dreaming of becoming a mermaid, free from any silly little human whims.

By the time I began writing the novel, I was already ARMY for a wide variety of reasons: BTS’s gender-defying fashion, openness around mental health , fluid choreo , endless deluge of personable content, genre-encompassing nine-year discography, and the joy of being part of a die-hard fandom. But above all, I loved BTS because of their artistry, which inspires my own.

It may seem strange to connect writing a novel with stanning a K-pop band. But to me, it is normal, natural—I do not know how I can create anything without finding meaning in other artforms. Listening to BTS and being ARMY is, to me, an enriching experience similar to how RM and I both feel looking at paintings : “It’s living with and examining a piece of the artist’s life. It allows the work to breathe. It lets you have a conversation with it.” And like RM, I like keeping things that are close to my heart near me.

Chlorine is partially inspired by my experiences as a competitive swimmer for 12 years. When I was a young swimmer, I was too naive to understand my coach’s abuses of power, too clueless to understand the self-inflicted body horrors of endless dieting and muscle-building for the sake of athletic performance. I was floating atop blue pools of innocence; then later, as an adult, drowning in black holes of whatever sentences my brain conjured as I drafted the story. It didn’t help my mental health that I was reading rather bleak novels to help shape my own novel’s similar frame : Han Kang’s The Vegetarian , Anelise Chen’s So Many Olympic Exertions , and Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise , three excellent books featuring similar themes.

Submerging myself in these types of stories while excavating details from my own life felt like I was barely staying afloat atop the yawning abyss . Yet the only way to pull myself out of the abyss was to keep vomiting words onto my keyboard. To keep typing, in the hopes that eventually, someday, I’d finish the book, and that somebody would care. That I could offer comfort to someone if they read the novel, so they would know they weren’t alone in experiencing this grief, angst, and loneliness.

To me, this offer of comfort is one of the greatest hopes of BTS and their music, what makes them so wonderful. Together we will build a hope world , composed of our blue side stories. 

When I embarked on revision, rereading the unsteady hope world I had created in my first draft, I was struck by the intense, bitter anger radiating through the story. The main character has a body carved with both muscles and rage, rage that contorts how she treats herself and others. 

The anger in this novel emanates from me. I exist as a queer Asian American femme, a child of immigrants, who listens to my friends, mostly women and queers and people of color, as we vent about student debt, healthcare costs, rent increases, and more. I live in America. I read the news. I pay attention. Therefore, I am angry about so many things. How can I not be? 

In his recent Vogue Korea interview , Suga said that his first mixtape, 2016’s Agust D , was all about anger, but now, he has realized that he doesn’t know who to be angry with anymore. He had been making a weapon out of anger and a sense of inferiority, but then realized he couldn’t channel creative energy through only those emotions any longer. I recognize this arc. It’s how I experience anger in my own life: I seethe and self-destruct, and then I settle down. I get back to work and try to make art — art that unfortunately lacks this wisdom. I’m still channeling my creative energy through rage. 

I don’t want to do this anymore. 

In part from writing Chlorine , and in part from listening to BTS’s growth from 2013’s 2 Cool 4 Skool to 2020’s life-affirming BE , I’ve realized my softness came before my pain. Life and art do not begin with rage, fire that sparks in reaction to something. And life and art cannot rely forever on such an intense reaction, because it is all-consuming. Anger needs darkness to magnify its flare, and it sucks the light we might see from other sources. 

So when I revised my novel, I added more love, more tenderness, more humor. Between the characters and in how the main character treats herself. Because in the end, we’re meant to let our art be the containers of our soft and tender hearts, and I do not want to write stories that forget this.

After writing Trust Exercise , author Susan Choi told Vulture that the book “owes its final form to an upswell of rage, both personal and private.” I love Trust Exercise . I love the strength flowing through Choi’s words, because anger can be empowering. But as Suga has said, this kind of anger is, in the end, unsustainable. What will live on instead is the beautiful piece of art that comes from this anger — Trust Exercise , Agust D , and (dare I call it beautiful?) my novel. A beauty that reflects the other beautiful things in the world, like love for a band and a fandom, love for your friends. Love for the art that helps you stay tender.

There were 12 drafts of my novel with countless ending rewrites before I felt my manuscript was decent enough to send to agents. I say decent, not good, because even now, after the novel has been sold, I still think about how it could’ve been made better. I could have changed my characters’ trajectories, strengthened the plot. 

In BTS’s Break The Silence docuseries , Jimin spoke about a song he’s been writing: “...I keep changing it. I changed the message over and over again… I stayed up a few nights… I can’t say it’s super good, but it’s the first song I’ve written myself.” Like Jimin, I kept changing my novel’s message over and over again, I stayed up many nights to rewrite, and I can’t say it is super good. But it’s the first book I’ve written, and I’m so proud of myself that when my agent emailed me with news of the book deal, I immediately hugged my friends, who were with me when the email appeared. I sobbed hard. I sobbed with awareness of how much my body was shaking uncontrollably because the friends embracing me were unmoving anchors.

The tears I shed from my book deal were tears of joy, yes, but also tears of overwhelmed fear, fear that arrives with each new writing development. I believe this is a common feeling for many artists — Suga has said he cried in the shower the night of the 2017 American Music Awards, their American debut, from how overwhelmed and scared he was to be so close to his wildest dreams. Was Suga dreaming that four years later, in 2021, BTS would be at the American Music Awards again? That the king of manifestation would go from debuting there to winning its highest honor with a Korean language acceptance speech ?

I wish I could have this hindsight already. Instead, all I have are dreams for this novel and future books, unwritten. As Suga raps, my dreams are too small to fit in one room . Perhaps I’m in my Bangtan 2013 era — what will happen if my dreams rise? Will I be brave? Will I be ready to jump, hoping that my leap will not be my fall?

Though my legs are poised to leap, I’m awake to the challenges — I may jump, but then I may fall. I harbor no delusions about skyrocketing to fame after one book. Most novels do not earn out their advance; the majority sell less than 5,000 copies . The publishing industry itself has no idea which books will sell well. My novel could be the only book I ever finish. It could be the only book a publisher will want to acquire. Creative industries of all mediums are cutthroat and require a steady drumbeat of creation to build what they call an artist career. A successful artist is not brilliant but productive. Fine. I am at peace with this output — I have always loved this kind of work. But with love comes grief, and I am always preemptively grieving the inevitable loss of love. 

This lamentation is reflected in my favorite BTS song “ Black Swan ,” which details the pain of growing distant from one’s artistic calling and includes a stunning film encapsulating the Martha Graham quote: “A dancer dies twice — once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful.” The choreography and song is partially inspired by the 2010 Aronofsky psychological horror film Black Swan , where a dancer under immense pressure loses her grip of reality — a film I rewatched many times, because I could relate from my time as a swimmer, and because it helped inspire my own athletic novel with an unreliable main character. 

Dancers, athletes, idols, artists: we push ourselves so hard we forget about the passion that brought us there. RM sings, "If this can no longer resonate / No longer make my heart vibrate / Then this may be how I die my first death." I hope BTS will never die that first death. I hope I don’t either. I don’t plan to. But the pressure, both self-made and external, builds and builds, and so does the blood, sweat, and tears we shed to relieve it—if we are lucky, as BTS sings in their hidden track “ Sea ,” the blood, sweat, and tears can collect into a prosperous ocean.

As Jungkook sings in “ Euphoria ,” I can hear that ocean from far away: I have a book deal in hand. I am moving on from that lonely time . But I was an artist before this deal, before a monetary value was placed onto my art, and I am still an artist. I will be after too, whether people care about my work, whether I’m ever published again. Artists make art because we can’t imagine not making it, because art is our first love . To be an artist is not a particularly pleasurable or satisfying existence, but it is an existence imbued with, to quote Martha Graham again, “a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest.” And like Suga sings about his piano , I have been making sense of this divine dissatisfaction since I was young, alone in my bedroom, when nobody knew anything I made, when I would make no money from it, when all the art I made was bad, but it was ultimately mine, making it more special than anything else. Even if this trickle reveals itself to be a mirage, even if my novel completely flops, I’ll still be making sense of my blessed unrest, because as J-Hope has said, “It is the only thing I can do.”

Despite the manifestations of potential failure, it is a solace that I know how to land , thanks to BTS. After all, how can I hate the art I make, how can I fear the self that makes it, when Jin, worldwide handsome and self-love-extraordinaire, is getting me to belt out, I’m the one I should love in this world? That nothing can stop me from loving myself ? When I can remember that at the end of winter’s cold, a spring day will come again?

My flight to Los Angeles for the Permission to Dance concerts in November 2021 was a red eye, yet I was wide awake, surrounded by an excited ARMY crowd of all ages, races, languages, sizes, and genders — we were going to see BTS! We entered the doors in our hearts and emerged into paradise ; we were strangers yet best of friends, complimenting each other’s purple hair, comparing our BT21 tags, exchanging LA restaurant recommendations. We shared a love for BTS, and had spent so many years watching seven men support each other deeply, like Jungkook’s Golden Closet Films highlighting his fellow band members or the way they show up for each other’s solo songs . The same thing is surely happening for thousands this week, as BTS takes over Las Vegas, renamed as Borahaegas , for a four-date concert residency. ARMY bond comes automatically, inspired by the exquisite brotherhood running through Bangtan, reminding us we will never walk alone , a reminder given to me again and again by the people and art I love.

At the press conference in Los Angeles, Jimin said that “...we want to bring healing and consolation to everyone else who is also going through these hard times and living through these challenges together… [These concerts] made me feel like we are back where we belong, and I hope everyone can end up where they belong.” 

We, ARMY, did end up where we belong. We belonged at the concerts, singing and dancing and crying with each other and our favorite artists, and I can’t wait for us to keep nestling ourselves in belonging — at BTS concerts, yes, but also in bookstores, art galleries, movie theaters, our homes, our loved ones’ arms, our soft and tender selves — because we belong with whatever and whoever keeps us thriving and reveling and ruminating in this universe . 

In her book The End of the Novel of Love , one of my favorite writers, Vivian Gornick argues about her own favorite writer, Grace Paley, that people love life more because of her writing. That Paley’s writing makes us “feel again the crazy wild sexy excitement of life.” I, and many other ARMY, no doubt feel this way about BTS. Is this not the purest, truest, sense of art? This revel of life? 

How can you love them so much, asks a friend. How is your brain wired to fangirl so hard, asks another. The answers to these questions possibly lay in the fact that to me, there’s no difference between listening to a BTS song and standing in front of a Devon Shimoyama painting. No difference between watching a Leslie Cheung film and observing an Etel Adnan leporello and hanging up my friend’s illustration in my living room. It’s all art to me. Art that reminds me why this life is worth living. 

As V said , the future is not just grim darkness. The future is suffused with possibility. A future great art invokes — and the kind of art I hope I can make.

Jade Song is an artist and author whose debut novel, CHLORINE , is forthcoming in 2023 from William Morrow.

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Telling the Story of BTS

This piece originally appeared in our Daily newsletter. Sign up to receive the best of The New Yorker every day in your in-box .

The writer E. Tammy Kim recently published a piece about how BTS became arguably the most popular band in history . The newsletter editor Jessie Li spoke to Kim about what it was like to report on the Korean boy band and the thrill of seeing them live at their final concert before they announced, on June 14th, that they were taking a break.

What was your first introduction to BTS? What made you realize that this was a story you wanted to pursue?

I started noticing a few years ago that K-pop fandom was being eclipsed by a more specific BTS ARMY —which stands for “Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth”—fandom. But I sort of ignored it—thinking of myself as someone who reported on more “respectable” Korean topics—until I realized how silly that was. This is the biggest band in the world!

Devoted fans describe BTS as a form of self-care and therapy; they talk about how the band “saved” them, and how they “do so much for us.” How would you describe the special allure of BTS that distinguishes them from other bands, including other Korean boy bands?

There’s an intensely felt reciprocity between BTS and its fans. The members produce daily content, and shout-out and interact with fans on a very emotional level, which leads fans, in turn, to want to give back.

In April, you attended the final performance of the band’s “Permission to Dance” tour, in Las Vegas. What was the most surprising or unexpected moment you experienced when you attended the concert?

I’d never been in a concert attended by sixty-five thousand people—and then to have all those people, of every stripe, singing in Korean, my household tongue. I was overwhelmed!

If you had to devise a mixtape of just three BTS songs or music videos for a novice listener, what would you pick and why?

The music videos for “ Black Swan ,” “ IDOL ,” and “ ON ” are aesthetically thrilling and convey the band’s musical and choreographic range.

Having finally delved into the world of BTS (as you write, “nine years of music, dancing, articles, and tweets”), do you now identify as a member of BTS’s ARMY , as fans call themselves? And do you have a bias—a favorite member of the band?

ARMY ’s devotion is such that I wouldn’t dare call myself ARMY ! In terms of a bias, I can’t say for sure, but I really dig SUGA’s candor and appreciate the fact that, very early on, he wrote a song commemorating the Gwangju uprising of 1980, a key moment in South Korea’s democratization.

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BTS Reflects on Songwriting, Inspiration and Artistry

By Rebecca Davis

Rebecca Davis

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The band members of BTS — RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook — have conquered hearts around the world as consummate performers. They also frequently co-write their own material, with some penning their own solo works — all while collectively running their own prolific social media accounts, which they share as a group. Their next album, “BE,” has already sparked a firestorm of fan interest ahead of its Nov. 20 release.

In their interview with Variety , the members of BTS discussed what they see as their top artistic contributions to the world and what’s inspiring them now.

As artists, what do you see as your greatest contribution so far to music? How have you pushed the genre of K-pop forward?

SUGA: Talking about our impact on K-pop seems kinda grandiose. It’s serendipitous that what we did went the right way and was meaningful, and that these things happened.

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We were able to use and reap the benefits of a variety of online platforms. What we wanted to do was show as much as we possibly could through this wide variety of online platforms, and leverage that [reach].

So it’s not like our goal was to go to the U.S. All we wanted to do was show our performances to people who loved our music. Our goal at the start was never to get a Grammy. We’re just seven regular Korean guys who started to do what we really wanted to do, what we found fun, which was to make music. That led to where we are and who we are now.

What would you say you’re most proud of having accomplished so far as artists, particularly from a musical perspective?

RM: We are Koreans, and the fact that people are singing our songs in Korean, that we were able to expand the reach of the Korean language around the world — that’s something that of course we are very proud of. Also, if due in some small part to us, young people around the world are able to do positive things they want to do, that’s always going to be something we’re proud of too.

The music industry is composed of a variety of platforms nowadays — it’s not just about the songs or listening to the songs. For example, for BTS, performance is a very integral aspect of who we are and of our music. The acronym for our group is BTS: People are really curious about our ‘BTS,’ our ‘behind-the-scenes’ look. They want to see who we are both on and off stage. This is what makes BTS.

Music industry observers are probably impressed by the fact that these are Korean songs being heard outside Korea. But I think what is also notable to them is that it’s not just about listening to the music anymore.

For us, music videos are a very important part of our creative process and music. Our ‘behind-the-scenes’ peeks that we show through Youtube or social media — just us being ourselves and being cute, off-stage — these are all things that people want to see and are all integral parts of who we are and what our music is.

I wouldn’t say this change in how music is seen is something we started, but it’s something that we’ve contributed to in some small part.

You guys have broken so many YouTube viewership records, with “Dynamite” being just the latest example. Do you feel comfortable redefining how musical acts are reaching out to fans through online platforms like YouTube and WeVerse, or do you still feel pressured to make inroads into traditional platforms like radio? Why?

Jin: Our goal is to try to show and expose ourselves to ARMY as much as possible. There are a lot of platforms now. So, there are a lot of different things that we show through different platforms, especially now when we can’t meet our fans in person, since some things are more suited to one platform than another.

Jung Kook: What’s really the most important is for ARMY to hear our music, and love, relate and connect to our music. That’s really the most important thing for us.

What hobbies or creative endeavors have helped you get through this tough period of the pandemic?

Jung Kook: Because of the coronavirus, we had to cancel, postpone and reorganize a lot of our plans. Earlier, things were kinda aimless. I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to be doing.

Around the time of our FESTA fan festival in June [note: an annual release of content to celebrate the anniversary of their group’s debut] we wrote a song called “Still With You” that sort of contains what I was feeling at that point in time — that I really missed our fans. Around then, we also started thinking about how we could use this time to really prepare ourselves for the day when we can meet our fans again. All of us have been working very hard. We’ve adjusted a lot to this new situation.

Could you share with us a song that you love so much you wish you’d written it?

Jimin: I really love our songs and the style of BTS songs. I’ve been trying to work on my personal music, but haven’t really put something out yet. What I’m trying to do now is learn from the other members and try new things that are in the style of BTS, which I really love. I’d like to release and create my own music.

V: When I was much younger, I listened to a lot of top hits and songs that the other members recommended to me. I often felt that it would’ve been great if I’d written those songs myself. I’m trying very hard so that I can one day write one of those great songs and feel that sense of pride.

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It's more than just a parasocial relationship: BTS and their impact on my mental health

Listening to bts may not have cured my depression, but it helped me get through it, by lily doton.

2018 was one of the worst years of my life.

I was in my second semester of college, which was supposed to be part of the "best years of your life," but for me was anything but. I was severely depressed and could barely get myself out of bed to eat — let alone show up to my classes and do my homework. I felt isolated and lost. 

And then I found a love for K-Pop boy group BTS .

BTS, who you've likely heard of by now, consists of seven members — RM, Jin, SUGA, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook. When I got invested in BTS, they had just started blowing up in the west the year before. 

When I watched a video of one of their live performances of "Answer: Love Myself" for the first time, I started sobbing.

And despite what people often think, they weren't important to me because of how handsome they are or because Jungkook is boyfriend material. It wasn't because of the fashion and the dyed hair, or even because of the elaborate choreography and jaw-dropping performances. 

While those are pretty valid reasons to love K-pop, and definitely helped grab my attention, the reason BTS became so special to me is less surface-level. 

I had heard of them before. In high school, my best friend loved K-pop, especially BTS, and I had listened to and liked some of their songs. But as a Korean adoptee growing up in Vermont , one of the whitest states in America, I wasn't eager to make myself come across as any more Asian than I already was.

When we both went away to college, we kept texting. Sharing details of our day, talking about how hard things were.

Even though my mental health was declining, I was also beginning to come to terms with what being Korean American meant to me. It had always made me uncomfortable, made me feel "other," but I wanted to know more now.

And when BTS came up again in conversation, I decided to finally really look into them. 

Discovering the Bangtan Boys

I started with reading translations of the lyrics as I listened. Then I watched all their music videos. Soon, I was making my way through every live performance and every interview I could find and even going down the rabbit hole of watching fan-made compilation videos on YouTube. 

When I watched a video of one of their live performances of "Answer: Love Myself" for the first time, I started sobbing. I didn't even need to understand all of the lyrics — just hearing the crowd sing, "You've shown me I have reasons I should love myself," along with the seven of them on stage struck me. 

I was struggling to like myself enough to take care of myself in the simplest ways, but soon enough I was singing along:

I'm looking for myself again But I don't wanna die anymore Me, who used to be sad Me, who used to be hurt It'll make me more beautiful

BTS was not only my connection to the culture I had resisted and ignored my entire life, but also became a light for me when everything else felt bleak. 

At first, I might not have believed it when I was singing along to Jin's solo song "Epiphany" and declaring:

I'm the one I should love in this world Shining me, precious soul of mine I finally realized, so I love me Not so perfect but so beautiful

But I began to. 

It sounds corny, but they helped me through that extremely difficult period of my life in a way that nothing else really could. Listening to BTS didn't cure my depression , but the openness in their lyrics provided me with a sense of comfort and reassurance that I desperately needed. 

The song that made the biggest impact on me, and still does, is from RM's 2018 solo mixtape "mono." In "지나가 (everythingoes)," RM repeats over and over "It all passes, someday, for sure, certainly / It passes (Everything goes)." 

But instead of being a message of toxic positivity, he goes on to say that rather than using "unclear words saying to have strength" and "instead of the lies that it's all just the way things are," he prays that "like the winds it will pass." 

It may be hard to understand why BTS fans are so ride-or-die for them, but moments like that are part of the reason why. It's not just me who's been affected by them this deeply — seeing their impact is as easy as searching "BTS Answer: Love Myself reaction" on YouTube or googling "how BTS changed my life." 

Embracing the community

I first saw the widespread impact they've had when I rejoined Twitter and rebranded as a stan account. 

BTS was not only my connection to the culture I had resisted and ignored my entire life, but also became a light for me when everything else felt bleak.

At the time, the BTS members didn't have their own individual Instagram accounts, and Twitter was the place for updates, selfies and personal posts from each of them. Their Twitter account currently has 48.4 million followers and a quick scroll through will show you stan account after stan account dedicated specifically to them, with edited photos of one of the members as the icon and a handle that references their lyrics. 

It may appear that those accounts are faceless and impersonal, but when I was feeling isolated at a new school , I found a community there. There are countless examples of how toxic stan Twitter can be, but it doesn't always have to be. I joined group chats to talk about favorite albums, rehash the latest performance and dissect lyrics, and I ended up making friends across the world. 

It's easy to look at all of this and only see how it contributes to what we've come to know as the parasocial relationship between celebrities and their fans. Especially within the K-pop community, when fans do things like spend thousands of dollars on albums for a short video call, stay up all hours of the night to catch a livestream and even buy expensive and elaborate gifts for their bias on their birthday. 

While this certainly exists within BTS' fanbase, what sets the band apart is that they've consistently shared their personal struggles and journey to self-love throughout their career, in their music but also in interviews, livestreams and letters to fans. 

In 2016, SUGA released a solo mixtape under his alter ego Agust D in which he details his struggles with depression and OCD and how he's gotten treatment for it. 

In 2017, RM put out his song "Always" on SoundCloud that contains the lyrics:

One morning, when I opened my eyes I wished that I was dead I wish someone killed me In this loud silence I live to understand the world but the world has never understood me, why

In a 2019 interview with Entertainment Weekly , SUGA emphasized the importance of open dialogue about mental health . "I think for not just us but other celebrities, if they talk about it openly — if they talk about depression for example like it's the common cold, then it becomes more and more accepted if it's a common disorder like the cold," he said. "More and more, I think artists or celebrities who have a voice should talk about these problems and bring it up to the surface."

The members' willingness to speak about their own mental health struggles and counseling is not only important because it normalizes it for their fans, but because it sheds a light on mental health in Korea and within the K-pop community. 

According to The Korea Times , South Korea has held the highest suicide rate of OECD nations for almost 20 years, with a suicide rate of 24.1 deaths per 100,000 people as of 2021. 

Just this April, 25-year-old ASTRO boyband member Moon Bin passed away by suicide. This comes after other losses that have hit the K-pop community, like SHINee's Jonghyun who was only 27 when he passed in 2017. In 2019, 25-year-old former f(x) member and actress Sulli also passed away from suicide, with 28-year-old Goo Hara from Kara following just weeks after.

With far too many examples of young people in the K-pop industry, and Korea in general, taking their own lives, it just makes publicly speaking to these issues even more important. Especially when it's being communicated to a fanbase like BTS' that consists of so many young people.

As much as I love K-pop, I can see how damaging the industry can be. It's rightfully criticized for setting impossibly high beauty standards , highlighting issues with fatphobia and colorism, and for the immense pressure put on idols to be "perfect" both while they're performing and when they're offstage. 

With these kinds of standards, BTS being willing to acknowledge that they're human — that they struggle, question themselves and sometimes need help to get through it — is essential. At the height of fame, with the eyes of the world on them, they choose to be vulnerable and show others that they can do the same. 

The flaws in the industry still exist, but there's no doubt that BTS will leave a lasting impact.

If you are in need of help, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Hours of operation are 24/7 and it's confidential.

about this topic

• Representation heals: How watching K-dramas lifted the weight of white supremacy and freed my tongue
• "Oegugin" influencers are rising to stardom in Korea. But there's a dark side to pop-nationalism
• K-dramas cured my prejudice against Asian men

Lily Doton is an intern at Salon and will graduate from Castleton University in May. Though her true love is K-Pop, she is studying Media and Communication with a concentration in journalism and a minor in film studies. She is passionate about telling stories and seeking out Asian representation, whether that's in movies, shows, music or writing.

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BTS, the band that changed K-pop, explained

The keys to BTS’s success: emotional resonance, sincerity, and an ARMY of fans.

by Aja Romano

In 2012, Rolling Stone published a list of the 10 K-pop bands most likely to make it big in the US. Achieving significant US fame was a newly attainable, if still distant, milestone for South Korean pop groups thanks to the 2000s’ tremendous exporting of South Korean culture overseas — a trend known as Hallyu, the Korean Wave. Rolling Stone’s list, which appeared two months before Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” included groups like Big Bang, Girls’ Generation, and 2NE1 — the greatest bands of what’s generally thought of as the “second generation” of pop groups to emerge during K-pop’s rise to international prominence.

It didn’t, however, include a group of teenage boys, then-recently assembled through a studio audition process, who were being meticulously polished and prepped for their debut. On December 22, 2012, the group released a number of Soundcloud clips featuring its seven members rapping in Korean and English — including a rap cover of Wham’s “Last Christmas.”

It was hardly the stuff of attention-getting Korean hip-hop. But the band in question — Bangtan Boys, later officially known as BTS — would go on to completely transform the image of all-male boy bands in South Korean music and shatter conceptions of what breakout success looked like for South Korean bands overseas.

• How K-pop became a global phenomenon

BTS’s rise to prominence has been so immense over the last few years that the band’s latest single, “Butter” — their first since a trio of groundbreaking, historic No. 1 singles in fall 2020 — is a major event.

BTS made headlines in 2020 with the hit single “ Dynamite ,” which became the first K-pop song in history to debut at No. 1 on the US Billboard “Hot 100” chart.

Having already racked up more than 60 million YouTube views in its first 12 hours online, “Butter” already seems positioned to be an even bigger hit for the band.

• With “Dynamite,” BTS beat the US music industry at its own cheap game

These US chart-toppers are huge accomplishments for BTS. The band has spent years building to this point, slowly conquering the American music scene with one milestone after another. Since 2018, when they became the first South Korean band in history to debut an album at No. 1 on the US Billboard chart , they’ve collaborated with major artists like the Chainsmokers , Steve Aoki , Nicki Minaj , Ed Sheeran , and Halsey . They’ve performed everywhere from Good Morning America to Saturday Night Live , from Times Square’s New Year’s Eve concerts to Grand Central Terminal .

In 2020, BTS garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group performance. They’ve even snagged a couple of Guinness World Records for their incredibly engaged fanbase .

So why was BTS the band that finally broke through the culture barrier overseas to make significant waves in the US? The answer lies in a combination of factors, and most of them are about change: the changing nature of K-pop’s studio culture and the way “idols” are produced; changing depictions of masculinity in South Korea; changing ranges of acceptable expression in K-pop; and, above all, the approach BTS has taken to building its fan base and interacting with its fans.

But to understand all this change, we have to back up a few years to understand how K-pop became the regimented industry it is today — and how BTS subverts that regimen.

How did K-pop become a $5 billion global industry?

Vox explore K-pop’s elaborate music videos, adoring fans, and killer choreography for our Netflix series Explained .

Watch now on Netflix.

BTS is the product of an industry insider who wanted to create a new kind of idol

K-pop began on April 11, 1992, when a hip-hop trio called Seo Taiji and Boys performed in a talent show on a national South Korean network. Seo Taiji and Boys were innovators who challenged norms around musical styles, song topics, fashion, and censorship, which was unprecedented for a culture whose musical production had spent the past few decades subjected to strict government oversight. But it wouldn’t last.

In the ’90s, three powerhouse music studios began cultivating what would become known as idol groups. Assembled through auditions and years of grooming within an intense studio culture — the highly regimented system of idol group production in Korean and Japanese music studios — idol groups are polished to perfection, designed to present the very highest standards of beauty, dance, and musicality. Children who enter these studios spend most of their lives enduring rigorous training to become part of an idol group. If they’re chosen, the studio exerts a huge amount of control, not only over the songs they sing and the way their band is marketed but also over their daily lives .

Idol groups have come to dominate the Korean music industry, but there are well-known toxic and abusive elements to idol life. Over the last decade, the Korean government has taken steps to end the structural exploitation that has been a major part of Korean studio culture. But in the early 2010s when BTS was formed, most studios had a highly regimented, restrictive approach to idol group production. As part of the process, they systematically ironed out most of the personal expression and socially conscious music that Seo Taiji was originally known for — after all, it’s hard to express yourself when you’re contractually forbidden to have a personal life. Even today, idols typically only feel free to open up about their struggles after their studio careers have come to an end .

It was within this environment that a man named Bang Si-hyuk began to quietly build a different kind of studio, and to cultivate the band that would become BTS. A successful songwriter and music producer, Bang was nicknamed “Hitman” for writing a string of popular songs, from g.o.d.’s “One Candle” in 1999 to T-ara’s “Like the First Time” a decade later. He worked as an arranger and producer with the studio JYP until 2005, when he left to form his own Big Hit Entertainment.

But Bang also struggled with his position within the industry. As a studio owner, he confessed to insecurity about his work and said he admired singers who could express their personalities in their music. This combination of ideas — the honest musical expression of one’s creative anxieties — would become a crucial element of BTS.

In 2010, Bang began to assemble a group of teens for a group he called the Bulletproof Boy Scouts. This would go on to become Bangtan Boys, then BTS, but the ingredients of their success were inherent in the original name. Bang intended “bulletproof” to function as a celebration of the kids’ toughness and ability to withstand the pressures of the world. But he also wanted the band to be able to be sincere and genuine — not immaculate idols groomed amid studio culture, but real boys who shared their authentic personalities and talents with the world.

This approach was quite different from the normal studio approach to idoldom, wherein idols are trained to be pleasant but mild — to function as blank slates upon which viewers can project their fantasies. By contrast, Bang wanted BTS to be full of figures that audiences could relate to. In a 2018 interview with the South Korean newspaper JoongAng, he described how he originally thought of BTS as consisting of gentle, sympathetic idols who could mentor their fans:

I recently came across a company document from [2012,] the year before BTS debuted, in which we were debating what kind of idol group to create. It said, ‘What kind of hero is the youth of today looking for? Not someone who dogmatically preaches from above. Rather, it seems like they need a hero who can lend them a shoulder to lean on, even without speaking a single word.

To create that band, Bang had to shake up the established precedents for how idol groups are treated. BTS wouldn’t have strict contracts and curfews, and they’d be allowed to discuss the pressures of stardom. Their lyrics would be open about the cultural pressure placed on Korean teens to excel and do well and to repress their anxieties. In short, they would be frank, honest, and natural.

How they did it: a consciously authentic style combined with socially conscious messaging

“We came together with a common dream to write, dance and produce music that reflects our musical backgrounds as well as our life values of acceptance, vulnerability and being successful,” said BTS’s leader, RM, in a 2017 interview with Time . There are six main ways BTS breaks with established precedent for K-pop boy bands to carry out this mission:

• They frequently write their own songs and lyrics.
• Their lyrics are socially conscious and especially attuned to describing the pressures of modern teen life in South Korea.
• They create and manage most of their own social media presence.
• They aren’t signed to “slave contracts,” nor do their contracts have the grueling restrictions of other idol groups.
• They tend to focus on marketing entire albums rather than individual singles. (This is essentially still true despite their recent string of singles in the US.)
• They talk openly about the struggles and anxieties of their career instead of presenting an extremely polished image at all times.

It should be noted that most of these elements have been present in numerous other recent K-pop groups — most notably Big Bang, which probably influenced BTS more than any other K-pop group. What Big Hit Entertainment did, however, was systematize these elements in BTS, and market them hard.

In the earliest videos of the band, from the months before their 2013 debut, the members were styled as young and sweetly innocent , maintaining the common “schoolboy” concept of male K-pop idol groups. When the group officially launched in June 2013, however, it was with a hard style paying homage to old-school gangster rap. Their first single, “No More Dream,” was an ode to teen apathy, a rebellious rejection of Korean traditionalism.

And it wasn’t exactly popular: Early audience reactions included a lot of eye-rolling at what was viewed as a superimposed gangster image the band hadn’t earned. And while they were clearly leaning on the confessional lyrical apathy of Seo Taiji and his early successors, it all seemed contrived rather than real.

A K-pop commentator who goes by the mononym Stephen ran a weekly podcast, This Week in K-Pop , from 2013 to 2017, which chronicled new releases in K-pop and inevitably documented the rise of BTS. But Stephen and his co-hosts were initially skeptical of the band. “Now K-pop has faux hip-hop undertones everywhere,” he said. “But in 2013 there wasn’t really that much, other than Big Bang. So when [BTS] came out with this very in-your-face, ‘We’re hip-hop’ image, it felt a little silly.”

Stephen pointed out that K-pop in general suffers from this problem. “K-pop really likes the look and attitude of hip-hop, but not too much . It’s very surface-level: hip-hop as a culture rather than as a musical genre.”

BTS’s climb to success, then, involved the band finding a way to communicate that this confessional image was real. They did this by mixing their openness on social media with blunt and honest lyrics — and owning their status as an underdog group battling to succeed against other bands who came from established studios with larger budgets. They spoke openly of the influence of Big Bang, which was also known for its socially conscious messaging. And they covered Seo Taiji’s ”Come Back Home”:

In essence, they found a way to imbue their musical style with substance. This led to well-reviewed, pointedly personal works like their three-album series The Most Beautiful Moment in Life , which deftly mixed “theater [and] autobiography.”

Their two most successful singles from this period managed to neatly encompass this new direction. “ I Need U ” (2015) was a refreshing, personalizing step away from hip-hop toward an R&B sound, while “ Dope ” (2015) openly celebrated the endless grind of their lives: “Over half of the day, we drown in work / Even if our youth rots in the studio / Thanks to that, we’re closer to success.”

“Dope” also drew attention to the band’s talent in a major way: It was the moment South Korea realized that these boys could dance.

“‘Dope’ is probably my favorite video of all time,” Stephen told Vox in 2018. “Focusing on dancing like that — they weren’t the only ones doing it, but they were definitely the best ones doing it.”

“And they alternate,” he added. “They do the big, boisterous, in-your-face dance video. But they also do those more emotional mini-art-flick type videos.” And no BTS art flick is better than “Blood Sweat & Tears,” the gothic, gorgeous 2016 single that launched them into a new level of international fame.

Colette Bennett is an entertainment reporter and a huge fan of BTS — but even though she liked their music, it took a while for her to take their message seriously.

“When The Most Beautiful Moment in Life series started, I saw something,” she says. “And that’s when I went back and watched their old vlogs. Up to and after debut, [these] skinny kids all crammed in a studio the size of a broom closet. Just … being honest about how much they poured into what they were doing, humble about being scared and unsure, etc.”

To Bennett, the band’s frank discussion of mental health and the expectations placed on Asian teens was revolutionary. In 2016, she wrote a profile of the band that argued that they were changing the nature of K-pop through their interpersonal approach to image-making. While watching them on their 2017 “Wings” tour, she said, “there was a moment that really stuck out.”

“There’s a song the three rappers do called Cypher 4 . The refrain is, ‘I love, I love, I love myself / I know, I know, I know myself.’

“I looked around me at hundreds of people in their 20s cheering every word, and I thought, ‘My god. They’re using their influence to teach young people — the ones most inclined to grapple with self-hatred — to start considering what self-love means.’”

The BTS ARMY is real, and it is mighty

BTS’s fans — who collectively gained the nickname ARMY for their well-organized and loyal following of the group — responded to that confessional strategy so well that by 2015, tickets for the band’s sold-out limited US tour were reportedly being scalped for more than $10,000 . Since then, the band has sold out all of its four subsequent world tours , including a record-breaking 2019 tour that included a landmark concert at the Rose Bowl, and a 2020 tour that ultimately had to be canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stephen told me that it took a while for the hosts of This Week in K-Pop to realize how big BTS had gotten. “We always thought the next big group to cross over would be a girl group, somebody like Twice ,” he told me. “I don’t think it really hit me how big they were until I moved to Korea in 2014 and talked to the children. Every single person in my school system, from teachers to high school students to middle school students to elementary — everybody knew who BTS was.”

• The big business of BTS, the K-pop band that’s changed music

BTS’s international fandom was also hard at work making sure the band had a chance to break through. Throughout 2017, fans systematically bombarded North American retailers like Walmart , Target , and Amazon with pleas to stock BTS’s new albums — and then promptly pushed the albums up the sales charts . The ARMY was so mighty that by the time BTS made their US television debut at the American Music Awards in 2017, the audience was treated to a time-honored K-pop spectacle: an auditorium ringing with fan chants .

The international BTS fandom has worked to mainstream K-pop as few other factors have. On Tumblr, the internet’s unofficial home for fandom communities, BTS and its members reign supreme, recalling the vast reach of One Direction in its heyday. In April 2018, Tumblr decided to stop breaking out K-pop as a separate category in its popular weekly Fandom Metrics, an official Tumblr product that measures the popularity of fandoms and related subtopics across the site. By merging K-pop with English-language groups, the account could more accurately reflect the relative popularity of K-pop bands to their Western counterparts.

The first week the categories merged, BTS debuted at No. 1 on the platform, ahead of Beyoncé and Harry Styles.

So who are these guys, anyway?

Bang’s initial idea for BTS was to build not a boy band, but rather a supporting crew around one talented teen: Kim Nam-joon, a.k.a. RM. He quickly opted to go the idol group route instead, and it took nearly three years of trying out different combinations of members and styles for the boy band to finally emerge.

Most K-pop groups have band members who occupy fixed, noticeable positions within the band: the leader, the public “face” of the group; the “visual,” whose main role is to be pretty; and so forth. Not every group has set roles, and most roles change over time. And because BTS is trying to be less staged than other groups, its roles are a lot blurrier than other groups. Still, there are a few constants.

The leader and lead rapper: RM

Born Kim Nam-joon, RM is a 26-year-old rapper and the first member recruited to BTS. It’s not exaggerating to say that the entire band was built around him.

RM first made his name as an underground rapper; still in his teens, he was frequently spotted spitting verses alongside his friend Zico, who would go on to become the leader of the K-pop group Block B. After a friend told Bang about the rapping teen, Bang recruited him into his studio, where fans gave him the pre-debut nickname “Rap Monster.” From there, the idea to form an entire idol group rapidly took shape, and the Monster shortened his stage name to RM.

The dancer/rapper: J-Hope

Jung Hoseok, a.k.a. J-Hope, sometimes called Hobi, is most frequently described by fans as a ray of sunshine, thanks to his sweet personality. The 27-year-old is one of the group’s main songwriters as well as a frequent choreographer, its lead dancer, and one of its three main rappers. (He sings well, too!) Since joining the group, he’s had a notable solo debut that landed him in the top 40 on the Billboard 200. And have I mentioned his chin could cut glass ?

The vocalist/dancer: Jimin

No single member of BTS is its “face,” but the spotlight often belongs to 25-year-old singer and dancer Park Jimin. Jimin is frequently positioned as the group’s lead vocalist. He’s also a part of the group’s dance line, for good reason , along with J-Hope, Jungkook, and Taehyung.

The mentor vocalist: Jin

The 28-year-old Kim Seokjin, a.k.a. Jin, is the group’s oldest member, and as such he frequently occupies a mentorship role within the group (complete with dad jokes). He’s one of the group’s main vocalists, and though he’s not officially the group’s “visual,” he seems to have a habit of accidentally going viral for being beautiful.

The prodigy: Jungkook

Depending on when and whom you ask, Jeon Jungkook is either the designated “face” of the group, the designated beauty, the designated main singer, the group’s centerpiece member, or all of the above. But there’s one role that never changes: At 23, he’s the youngest. The group often calls him the “golden maknae,” a.k.a. the golden child, because he’s a bit of a wunderkind in terms of talent. In fact, he was in high demand before he settled on joining Big Hit because he looked up to RM. But he’s unquestionably the baby of the group — and arguably its most popular member.

The rapper: Suga

Min Yoongi, stage name Suga, is one of the group’s three rappers — though it should be noted he, like fellow rappers J-Hope and RM, is also a decent singer. At 28, he’s also one of the oldest members, which makes him something of a group dad. His name comes from his preferred basketball position of shooting guard, but legend has it that Bang chose the name for him because it reflects his “sugary” personality — subtle, yet sweet and generous .

The vocalist/dancer: V

The 25-year-old Kim Taehyung chose the stage name “V” for victory — but it could just as easily stand for “versatile”: He’s one of the vocalists, he worked his way onto the dance line, and he’s even tried his hand at rapping. His playful, quirky personality (let’s call it “singular” ) and penchant for stealing the spotlight have made him one of the group’s most popular members. It also probably doesn’t hurt that he has chemistry with everything that moves.

Each of the members of BTS has been hands-on regarding their own careers from the start. As the group has gained more and more power in the entertainment industry, they’ve also each developed their creative and professional sides. By this point in their long careers, every band member has produced, written, or co-written multiple tracks on the group’s albums, and most of them have also worked on independent productions and songs outside of BTS.

For example, rapper Suga has also released two bestselling mixtapes under his alter ego rap handle, Agust D . And vocalist Taehyung co-produced and co-wrote the hit 2020 single “ Sweet Night, ” released as part of the soundtrack to the popular Korean drama Itaewon Class .

On top of all this, the band members all play a variety of musical instruments, in addition to routinely splitting the duties of dancing, singing, and rapping. They’re an immensely talented group of artists.

But perhaps their biggest asset is their shared ability to directly communicate their love and affection to fans. When the band appeared in the annual Time 100 in 2019, entertainer Halsey wrote their profile, making a point of highlighting BTS’s authenticity:

Outwardly, they are polished and professional, but hours of laughter, secret handshakes and gifts exchanged show those around them that underneath this showstopping, neatly groomed movement are just some guys who love music, one another and their fans.

Stephen told me there’s a real core appeal in what BTS is doing. “A lot of their ballads really do sound like they’re talking to you and confessing to you, more so than a lot of pop standards,” he said.

BTS has pulled off this confessional, one-on-one intimacy all while building an international fanbase, despite considerable language and cultural barriers. And in that respect, BTS has truly become an international revelation.

BTS has made major inroads for other K-pop bands and changed the way we think about international fandom

Understanding BTS’s rise to the top also means acknowledging that they’re not alone in their class: They’ve succeeded and grown alongside other bands that have also been innovating and reaching new levels of international success — like Blackpink, which in 2019 became the first K-pop girl group to perform at Coachella . Collectively, this K-pop generation is rapidly changing the conversation and pushing the limits of what K-pop is allowed to be.

But BTS has also done more than arguably any other band to expand K-pop’s international reach — as well as the way international media and the music industry are forced to contend with K-pop. After all, as the lyrics to “Butter” note , the band’s “got Army right behind us when we say so” — a major brag, but one that’s clearly accurate. And BTS fans aren’t just making themselves visible to the music industry. They were also at the forefront of the 2020 push to drown out racist hashtags on social media, and both fans and the band itself have condemned anti-Asian racism .

As BTS and their fandom gain more attention, they’re diversifying mainstream music in America at a moment when artists like The Weeknd have called out the recording industry for its gatekeeping . Between the band’s undeniable talent and diligent work ethic and the fandom’s immense influence over charts, sales, and media coverage, the BTS phenomenon is essentially unstoppable.

Moreover, whatever groundbreaking changes come next for K-pop will likely be a direct result of BTS’s influence. Already, American production companies are moving to bring even more aspects of K-pop to the US. For instance, MGM recently partnered with K-pop studio SM Entertainment to bring the K-pop reality competition format to Hollywood.

Even more intriguing: On the back of BTS’s tremendous success, its parent studio BigHit recently renamed to HYBE Entertainment and, in a billion-dollar deal , acquired heavy-hitting manager Scooter Braun ’s entire portfolio of clients. That means BTS’s studio now oversees artists like Justin Bieber, Demi Lovato, and Ariana Grande. With that potential industry power, and that much fan support at its back, HYBE and BTS could well be poised to shape the music industry in ways hitherto unseen.

And whatever they do next? Will likely be Dynamite.

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How Park Jimin of BTS Helped Me Feel Seen in My Brown, Queer Body

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, I fell into a hole of depression. After graduating from Wellesley College in 2018, I was unsure about career or grad school prospects, separated from my friends, and the concerts I’d been looking forward to were postponed indefinitely. Above all, one thing plagued my mind: I had no idea what my gender was.

Two years prior, I’d felt safe in my nonbinary body at my historically women’s college. But in the “real world,” I struggled to share my pronouns and was confused about what they even were. The pandemic only made it worse. Trying to label my gender began to take a physical toll on me. I started having panic attacks in my sleep. Clothes stopped fitting. I’d also been obsessively listening to the K-Pop band BTS since early 2019 — so to shut out the questions about gender rushing to my brain, I dove even deeper into the fandom.

With more time on my hands and no energy to do anything else, I watched their videos, listened to their albums, and soaked up every interview on late night television. So when BTS released tickets to their October “Map of the Soul ON:E” online concert, I pulled myself out of bed to make sure I was one of the first in line to snag tickets to the show.

The group performances were as incredible as I expected. But while each member shone during their solo sets, the section featuring Park Jimin, the charming Libra of the group, grabbed me immediately. Performing his 2020 song “Filter,” Jimin began by approaching a female mannequin cautiously, admiring her, and grabbing her scarf. He stepped away, while wrapping it around himself. Then, he slid back toward her and grabbed her white floppy hat, bowing his head down, as if he’d done something wrong. Finally, he slinked to her a third time, quickly sliding her blazer off her shoulders. Wearing everything but her skirt, Jimin acted like he was feeling himself. His moves became increasingly confident, as he took Pink Panther -esque strides through the chorus.

One by one, he shook off the mannequin’s clothes and tossed them aside. In the next verse, a group of all-male backup dancers playfully handed Jimin a more traditionally masculine black jacket and hat, pulling his hands in different directions like a puppet. During the bridge, he tossed both sets of clothes aside, and after the quickest quick-change, he emerged in a bright red ensemble that possessed elements of both traditional masculinity (a formal suit jacket) and femininity (a corset). This was signature Jimin: his look defied the black-and-white gender binary represented by the mannequin and backup dancers. He stood in his vibrant and colorful final form, singing, “Mix the colors in the palette/Which me do you want?/Pick your filter.”

I hadn’t even realized when tears had started streaming down my face.

Jimin’s “Filter” performance, which I interpreted as a representation of gender fluidity and experimentation, assured me it was okay not to know which box I fit into, to constantly question, and to try new things. I felt affirmed in lacking the perfect word to pinpoint my gender identity. My struggles with my body, impacted by my strict upbringing, had made me feel isolated in sharing my ideal presentation with others. But Jimin had proudly displayed his moves on a global stage that was live streamed by more than 10 million people. In his rejection of gender norms, in wearing whatever he wanted, he’d reminded me that my body was more than the object of ridicule.

Growing up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, I was all too familiar with feeling like I needed to escape my fleshy prison because of these rigid binaries. As a teenager, I was forced to switch from wearing t-shirts to more traditional salwar kameezes, a set of long tunic-like shirts paired with loose, cuffed trousers, typically worn by women, and could feel male gazes piercing through my outfits like X-Ray machines. The sense that my body held me captive was further drilled into my head by my relatives’ non-stop comments about my shoulders, hair, weight, and — my personal favorite — that nobody would marry me if I “dressed like a boy.”

The first time that it occurred to me that I might be queer was while watching Bend it like Beckham as a seventh grader; my ears went completely flush every time Keira Knightley came on screen. (I blamed it on the humid day and didn’t revisit the movie for eight years afterward.) But I didn’t know a single queer person who looked like me — a brown pre-teen with oiled braids just struggling to fit in. In hindsight, there was a reason Knightley was the one I found attractive in the film and not the lead, British-Punjabi actress Parminder Nagra. In my head, there was no way a brown woman could be desired by another brown girl.

Arriving at Wellesley in 2014 completely overthrew my previously limited cultural bubble. During orientation, I encountered nonbinary people, individuals who used “they/them” pronouns, and queer South Asians for the first time. I soon gained confidence to experiment with my physical appearance. My hallmate gave me undercuts, I started buying denim jackets from men’s sections, and I keenly emulated Zayn Malik’s haircuts. I no longer felt like I needed the queer representation on Glee and Grey's Anatomy that I clung to in my teenager years, but still never felt right to me. Then, I discovered BTS.

At the time, BTS was rapidly taking over the world — they are the only act to have topped the Billboard Global 200 three times — while proudly singing in their mother language of Korean. Watching this group of men my age ascend, despite the heavily anglocentric western music industry, gave me hope as an immigrant writer trying to succeed in the US. BTS was a complete sensory experience with a message. Songs like 2019’s “Dionysus” incorporate broad themes like art, religion, philosophy, and mythology, while other tracks 2014’s “Spine Breaker” and 2015’s “Silver Spoon,” tackle issues like youth struggles and social class.

From the first time I laid eyes on him, it was obvious that Jimin was unabashedly different. His bubblegum pink hair, love of jewelry, and magical, mermaid-like voice shocked me at first, likely because I still had internalized ideas of misogyny and queerphobia within me instilled by my childhood. But as I dug in deeper into each member’s back story, I soon learned that he had undergone his own journey when it came to breaking gender norms.

Born in Busan, South Korea, Jimin started training in contemporary dance in his pre-teen years. But when he joined the record label Big Hit Entertainment as a 15-year-old student at Busan High School of Arts, he realized that his passion wasn’t always appreciated. Around the time, some of the online discourse surrounding K-pop stars involved calling dancers homophobic names, disparagingly comparing them to girls. So when BTS debuted in 2013, it seemed like Jimin was hiding a part of himself. Clad in heavy necklaces and snapbacks, his outfits read hypermasculine and in performances, he would lift up his shirt to show off his rock-hard abs.

Around early 2015, as BTS rose to fame, Jimin’s public appearance slowly began to shift. He began incorporating his ballet roots during performances, and in the following years, fans started to notice a significant change in his appearance: The heavy necklaces were replaced by more traditionally feminine necklaces and rings . In his 2016 video for “Lie,” Jimin stunned audiences with his modern dancer side — a part of him that would continue to show up again in other songs from the era such as “Blood, Sweat, and Tears.” He finally was praised for his fluid movements that were once the source of his ridicule, with Billboard complimenting his “expressive delivery of the song's dramatic choreography” in 2017.

It’s easy to say that gender doesn’t really matter, but the K-pop industry is heavily gendered. There have only been a handful of mixed gender bands among hundreds of boy and girl groups, and being openly queer is often completely out of the question for most K-pop stars — even heterosexual artists aren’t allowed to date publicly. Despite everything, Jimin started coming out of his shell, openly wearing outfits originally designed for women , shirts with the words “gender equality” and “radical feminist,” laughing at his bandmates for claiming selfies aren’t for men , and letting his dance moves flow freely.

Jimin reminded me of myself — I was born 75 days before him, 2500 miles away. Yet both of us had tried hard to please society and performed gender in a way we weren’t meant to put on. It both took us time to realize that society’s gender norms weren’t the law, there was no “male” or “female” when it came to fashion and behavior. We would still be loved, even if we took the risk of expressing ourselves in a real way.

In a recent interview with Sirius XM discussing his song “Filter,” Jimin explained, “Filters can be the things within a camera application, or social media, but it can also mean people’s perspective or prejudice.” He mentioned how he wanted to present to the world in different ways. His explanation resonated with how I’d restrained myself while growing up in a homophobic, cisnormative society: I put on this image of a straight, modestly dressed, long-haired cis girl. After watching Jimin’s choreography that showed him rejecting those various expectations, he helped me come to terms with the fact that I also needed to shed the stereotypes that defined my upbringing.

Our respective Korean and Bangladeshi societies rejected us daily and tried viewing us through pre-conditioned filters rooted in misogyny and homophobia, but we retaliated in our own way. Jimin did ballet, and didn’t care about others’ opinions. Soon after the concert, I told friends that I identified as nonbinary; I was okay with any pronouns because they were all equally confusing and satisfying.

My brown, queer, uniquely-shaped, gender-confused body didn’t headline movie posters or magazine covers. But it was mine. No societal boundaries could dictate my process of learning to love it.

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The BTS story: how K-pop’s superstar boy band conquered the world

It was clear from the group’s debut in 2013 that they had something different, helped by suga and rm’s background in underground hip hop fans often reference bts’s first win on south korean music programme the show in 2015 as a huge turning point in their story.

K-pop outfit BTS are without doubt the biggest boy band in the world, so it was no surprise that their four upcoming shows at Hong Kong’s AsiaWorld-Expo Arena next week immediately sold out.

Their popularity is not confined to one region – or even continent – as the seven-member act are global in every sense of the word. Their story is integral to understanding their remarkable popularity, so let’s take a look at the band’s origins, rise and major achievements over the past six years.

The seven musicians all shared one bedroom. Their label, Big Hit Entertainment, was a small company within an industry ruled by the “big three” K-pop oligopoly (SM, YG and JYP Entertainment). So despite the band’s meteoric rise, they made their debut as underdogs.

However, there were already hints of their future crossover success as their first single hit reached No 14 on Billboard’s World Digital Songs chart two weeks after it was released. At the same time, they received recognition in South Korea as the best new artist at the 2013 Melon Music Awards.

I wrote my college essay on BTS

I'm a high school student applying to colleges at the moment, and one of my prompts was:

Choose an article of local, national, or international importance and share why it engages you.

So of course I chose to write about BTS.

EDIT: I WAS ACCEPTED

Here's the essay:

“BTS Surge Up Album & Song Charts Following American Music Awards Performance” wrote Billboard on November 28, 2017. Link But who is BTS and why is this news? Well, recall the “British Invasion” of the 1960s when The Beatles took America, and the entire world, by storm. Today there is a new wave at the shores of the global music industry. In this “Korean Invasion,” otherwise called the “Hallyu Wave,” Korean pop (KPop) groups such as BTS are taking over.

I am a fan of BTS, otherwise known as an A.R.M.Y. In November of 2016, I first watched their music video “Blood, Sweat, and Tears,” only to buy my first album of theirs within the same month. Within the year I’ve been a fan, the group has set numerous records and then broken those very same records and have achieved success unexperienced by other groups in the KPop industry. Furthermore, this group leading the Hallyu Wave was, and is only just beginning to stop being considered as, the underdog. In the KPop industry, there is what is known as “The Big Three.” This refers to three entertainment agencies which have a monopoly on the industry: YG entertainment, JYP entertainment, and SM entertainment. Instead of any of the gaggle of groomed groups under these labels, a new performance group from an obscure company verging on bankruptcy drives this invasion. BTS alone as the only active artists under BigHit Entertainment brought the company out of bankruptcy. So it's no wonder the entire company (with no exaggeration) attended their performance on the stage of the American Music Awards as the first Korean performance group to do so.

BTS has caught my attention, as well as the attention of fans worldwide, through their stunning choreography, amazing beats, and meaningful lyrics. I love the fact that they sing about so much more than love and heartbreak, using their music to discuss mental health, temptation, flawed education systems, and corrupt government. BTS’s success is also significant to me because it marks a transformation in mindset against globalization. I have grown up with many languages surrounding me. Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi, and Hindi fly about my house while my sister throws in some French for no reason in particular. My best friend and her family had introduced me to Spanish before I even took my first Spanish class in high school. Ever since middle school I had been a fan of anime, thereby adding Japanese to the bag. Internationally, people tend to be bilingual or multilingual while English speakers like myself travel and expect that someone must know English, the lingua franca of the world. Western media is similarly close-minded, paying no mind to foreign music. However, BTS became hard to ignore when they beat Justin Bieber by a landslide for a Billboard Music Award that he had previously won since 2012 consecutively. BTS is helping to break the mold in western media, opening doors for even more diversity in global music. Americans have only begun to accept foreign music beginning with the viral hit Gangnam Style years back. Even then, most took the song as a quirky exotic new fad. More recently, Despacito rose to popularity, being accepted as what it is: a good song, rather than being belittled to just an exotic strange thing.

BTS's rising popularity excites me because it helps to open the minds of so many internationally. Their music shows that language and distance can’t divide us. I am as far from what any member of BTS is as can be, a Muslim first generation American teenage girl of Bengali and Pakistani heritage, but somehow I still relate to the lyrics and messages of seven Korean men across the sea. This article is only one of many, and hopefully one of the first of many more in the future, recounting the impact BTS is making on the global industry. Like The Beatles in the “British Invasion,” BTS is here to impact the global music industry.

So what do you guys think? Think I'll be accepted? Let me know, comment your thoughts below!

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Comments (21)

not me here to find ideas for my personal essay :skull:

its my research work based on kpop and kdrama

do fill that form ArmY

https://forms.gle/LXECgGFtpQBC6Gtm8

i have already taken my final year research project as kpop and kdrama

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Home / Essay Samples / Music / Band / BTS: The Phenomenal Iconic South Korean Music Band

BTS: The Phenomenal Iconic South Korean Music Band

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