Now, I consider myself quite a tolerant and non-judgemental type of person. But my ARMY-journey was nooot smooth by any measure. I did not just go "WAUU!" after watching my first BTS video and four years later here we are ... I mean I wish I was that cool and open-minded, but western perception of k-pop then was broadly speaking negative and FULL to the brim with the type of prejudice we've all heard: factory-made music, industry-dolls, commercial, not worth listening to... Like it was miles away from anything resembling the kind of music we listen to here - which is all REAL music of course (insert sarcasm here).
Mmmmmhhhhhh .....
The truly scary thing about this journey I was about to go on, was not actually how little we knew about this industry - but how we've all just accepted that that is how it must be, without questioning it even a little bit ? You know what that says about our perception of Korea? Or probably just Asia in general? THAT honestly scares me more than anything else. Yes, we are also terrible at differentiating the cultures and cuisines of different Asian countries - and when we talk about say China, it's rarely in a good way right? It's usually about politics or how everything material in this world probably is produced there according to our western heads. Then we talk about holidays in Thailand and Bali - and the Japanese hybe these days is WILD, everyone everywhere has Japan on their bucket-list. We know how to hybe Japan and how to brag about all the little things we know of the country and culture. But is it too harsh to say that this type of bragging only works BECAUSE the rest of us barely knows anything? And why is it cool to go to Japan and less cool to go to South Korea ?
Ignorance is what I'm getting at. The biggest issue here is our own ignorance, and the worst part is that we don't even really care. It's understandable that you can't know everything about every country in the world, that is not what I'm getting at. But the fact that we've accepted that we continually recycle the same misconceptions and the same limited knowledge over and over and over again amongst ourselves, that I do find problematic. How can we say that we live in a globalised world when we have no flipping idea how our neighbors live and work ?
This works as the back-story to my ARMY journey, as this is what little knowledge I had about Korea and Asia, before I was introduced to BTS.
MY FIRST BTS ENCOUNTER:
Okay, so I'm surrounded by this very prejudice-filled perception of kpop: My friend mentions it, when I finally disclose that I'm newly obsessed with this korean music group - and my family also struggles to understand why and how this obsession happened.
Mic Drop got me. I first came across their massive ON performance at the Grand Central Station in New York, and I was instantly obsessed with the dancing and the choreo. I rewatched it MANY many times and remember showing my bestie, and we talked (again) about wanting to be dancers in our next life. I then watched a performance of Idol and the Stephen Colbert beatles-tribute performance of Boy with Luv, but somehow none of those three songs really spoke to me .... I LOVED all the dancing, I've always been a massive fan of dancing. But the songs on their own didn't quite reach just yet, probably because of the genres and the Korean, which then sounded very foreign. I did save one of the performances in a youtube-playlist of mine, and THANK YOU past me for doing that ! Because a year or two then passed, and I randomly came across that video again -- and NOW was the right time !
I don't know exactly what made me sooo curious about other performances of theirs then, or why I was suddenly wanting to know more about this group here two years later. Maybe because I was packing up my apartment getting ready to move out, and I needed some good vibes? And this rush of something new and exciting was somehow the perfect fit? Probably that. I remember finding their SNL-performances and as soon as I saw the Mic Drop one I lost it completely ! I remember searching for it on Spotify and playing it over and over and over while I was putting things in boxes.
I know now that the rapping was needed to hook me in completely. I had been lost in a trance of Hamilton for a gooooood period of time, listening to the original cast recording on repeat - and watching the disney+ recording of the musical tooo many times to count. I was deep in with the rapping and the beats and the hiphop and the rhythm and the flows and 7000 syllables a second. I'm a 90s kid, so I grew up listening to rap, and a lot of it was through my brother's taste in music. But at this point I had outgrown the rap-songs I would listen to as a teenager, and so I'm convinced that Hamilton really found me at the right time.
Same goes for BTS. I finally landed on Mic Drop and everything changed from then on. I started exploring more of their songs but it took time for me to find ones that I liked - I think the Korean really was a barrier to overcome at this point. It distracted me. I preferred watching their performances because of the dancing, and I fully lost it when I found the dance practices ! And then I lost it again when I came across a Cypher pt 4 performance with the rapline ! Again my brain just went: "whaaaaat is THIS?!" and the obsession deepened further when I discovered that there even WAS a rapline and that they had their own songs.
WALKING HEADFIRST INTO MY OWN PREJUDICES:
But on this path of getting to know BTS as a group better, I kept stumbling into my own prejudices and always had to tiptoe around them to get to the good part. I would watch their performances on the korean music shows (inkigayo, music bank and those) and think to myself: "why those glittering outfits?" and "why is the set sooo colourful?" and "maybe that's too much lipgloss?" I think many of us western fans have had those thoughts right? Or is it just 'cause I'm Scandinavian and we don't really have popstars like that here? But I did grow up with Britney Spears and Pussycat Dolls ... and I never questioned their make-up or outfits, that was all just part of it.
It felt like my own prejudices against kpop were being confirmed right here before my very eyes, as the lip-gloss and the sparkly outfits were riiiight there on stage. And this train of thought kept happening the more performances I watched - and the fascinating thing were, that I was very well aware of it as it was happening. But I knew that I wanted to challenge these prejudiced views, and as I kept watching the idols started bowing to each other and it seemed like they wouldn't stop bowing and bowing and bowing. And of course my brain instantly went: "now THIS is interesting!" It didn't exactly counterpoint the prejudice, but the clash of contrasting cultures without anyone seeming taken aback, had me smiling soooo big. How could a sparkly show-off performance be followed by that kind of bowing ? Or even weirder (to me) how could rookie BTS perform a hard-hitting hiphop track with chains and bandanas and lyrics about standing up to societal standards, proceed to humbly bow to all their seniors afterwards ?
This seemed like such a foreign concept to me. The culture of hiphop is of course influenced by an American freedom-driven individualistic culture, and here it was mixed with the extraordinarily humble and respectful foundation of Korean culture. The contrast was obvious but sooo fascinating. Of course this is painting it veeery black and white in terms of how this dynamic really works within the Korean hiphop scene, but this was my first impression - and I still really didn't know much about Korean culture at this point.
What started to happen from then on, was that my prejudice would come on strong at the start of a new video but then ultimately dissolve by the end of it. The performances was one thing, but when I started to watch livestreams and behind the scenes and talking content of the members - in other words when I really started to get to know THEM and not just their songs and performances, I saw a whooooole other side of BTS and kpop ---->
When I would hear people say: "they don't make their own music anyway," I could turn on Namjoon's album reviews and listen to his detailed explanations of how each song came to be. When I would hear people say: "they only care about their fans for business purposes," I could put on the encore part of any BTS concert and observe the way they communicate and address their fans in their ending ments. When I would hear people say: "they probably don't even like each other," I could put on any festa-related content and hear them compliment each other endlessly. When I would hear people say: "I bet they hate their label and staff," I could turn on their variety show Run BTS and observe a wholesome and family-like dynamic with the production team. The list of things I had to do a full 180 on is SO long. ARMY is another one I was completely wrong about. This fandom that I'm now a dedicated member of and whom I consider my extended family - well they're not "just a bunch of screaming teenage girls." They're actually hardworking individuals who build platforms and organisations as well as structures and networks to help translate and educate and donate and unite and promote and communicate - all in the name of BTS and ARMY. And they're all ages and genders and races. I genuinely come across comments from "silver ARMYS" (meaning fans over the age of 65) on a weekly basis.
Point is that I continually had to alter the images and ideas in my brain to fit the reality of what I was actually watching and hearing. It was a strange experience but it also fed into my own curiosity, and the more I watched and learned - the more I wanted to watch and learn.
The journey was loooong and bumpy, and there's soo much more to say on the topic. But this post is already way too long, so I'll continue in another one.
APOBANPO y'all 💜💜💜
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