Jin, With Sincerity
In keeping with our intentions for this blog, we hope on each member’s birthday to describe how BTS’s artistry and sincerity move us: a tribute to each as our gift to them. In this essay celebrating Jin’s birthday, we write about the ways his solo music videos lovingly continue the desert and sea metaphors in the career-long arc of BTS’s storytelling. Happy Birthday, Jin.
In “Yet to Come,” BTS’s last music video before going on hiatus in mid-2022, member Jin is seated atop a truck in the desert, a callback to the band’s music videos for “Run” and “Euphoria” and BTS’s masterpiece storytelling in their “The Most Beautiful Moment in Life” (HYYH) era.
Near the end of 2022, before going into military service, Jin released his solo song “The Astronaut.” At the time, Jin said, “(With this song) I wanted to express my love beautifully and give it to ARMY. I wanted to show how you made me feel.” In the music video for the song, he portrays an astronaut who has landed on Earth and befriended a young girl who symbolizes ARMY. She helps him realize his humanity, and near the end we see Jin again with a truck, this time riding in the back of it, through a desert, having left his spaceship behind.
The return to BTS’s legacy of desert and sea metaphors in Jin’s solo work embodies his love for ARMY and BTS, the co-creation of meaning and storytelling they share, and his vision for the future. Since BTS’s first album and through extensive storytelling across their oeuvre, images of the desert in their lyrics and videos symbolize the artist’s struggle as they journey back and forth through the desert in search of the sea, where they together find comfort and creativity.
Jin made “The Astronaut” as a final gift to ARMY before going into the military, knowing he would not be fully reunited with them and BTS again until June 2025. His expression, bathed in the setting sun as he rides through the desert in the back of the truck, seems accepting of the journey he is on. The music video ends with Jin returning to a comfortable house where he is completing a puzzle whose words form a tribute to his relationship with ARMY. He smiles when he hears the bicycle bell of the little girl he has befriended in his time on Earth, symbolic of the joy ARMY brings him. However, he is not with her — she is somewhere in the distance, off-camera.
“The Astronaut” bookmarked the end of an era in December 2022. Eighteen months later in June 2024, released from his military service before any of his other bandmates, as if to prove his and their love and appreciation, Jin went directly to be with ARMY at fan events, including three concerts broadcast worldwide, and many TV show appearances which demonstrated his charisma and impeccable comedic skills.
Through this period, he also worked on his first solo album, Happy, released five months later, in November 2024. Jin stated that his intention for the album was to celebrate with ARMY, who had waited for his return from military service: “I have a very clear idea of what kind of emotions I want to share with our fans,” he explained. “I want our fans, our ARMY, to be happy.”
But as with all things BTS, there are layers to his message of happiness.
The music videos for Happy continue BTS’s story of the desert and sea, picking up where “The Astronaut” left off. Indeed, the titles of the three versions of Happy, Journey, Imagine, and Navigate, suggest a continuation of the astronaut’s voyage.
In the “I’ll Be There for You” video, his first upon release from the military, he is in a barren, concrete space under a bridge (in the real world, LA’s Sixth Street Aqueduct). Why is he celebrating under this bridge? Is he returning from the desert of “The Astronaut” to another kind of desert? Jin’s joyful, sunlit performance brings happiness to this unlikely place, now full of people celebrating with him.
Toward the end of the video, Jin is alone, still joyfully dancing and singing, the sun setting, the lighting changed to dusky desert-like colors as he runs away, destination unknown.
In the music video for his next Happy release, “Running Wild,” Jin runs over another bridge in joyful concert with a dog. These bridges propel him forward in his quest to be with ARMY and BTS. He is running again just like he did in his favorite scene from “The Astronaut,” with his bandmates in the Run HYYH era music video, and in the symbolism of one of the last songs BTS released, “Run BTS.”
Where “Run BTS” is a defiant song celebrating BTS’s career, a statement of their clarity in their achievements and that they will continue to be together, “Running Wild” is not defiant. Even with comets falling to Earth, he is telling a story of joy in moving forward with BTS and ARMY.
What is Jin running toward in the “Running Wild” video? He explores other parts of the city and drives through the desert mountains toward the coast, where he runs on the beach with his dog. He has left the desert and reached the ocean, this time running with wild abandon.
This scene is reminiscent of the lyrics for the song BTS released for Festa 2023, a year into their hiatus: “Take Two.” This song is also about the relationship between BTS and ARMY. It is full of sincerity, devotion, and love, and a continuation of the story of their journey through the desert to the sea:
사막도 바다가 돼서 we swim forever
Even the desert has become the sea, so we swim forever
These lyrics look to the future of “we,” ARMY and BTS, having found their way through the desert and to the sea, where they will be together, in their most creative and happy state of being.
Despite the danger the comets represent in the “Running Wild” video, Jin safely reaches the sea, but this is not to last — in the closing scene, he is back in the city. Of course he is back — he came close to the sea, yet his bandmates, who he must run with and who are destined to join him at the sea, are still in the military and so the journey cannot yet be completed. Jin and the dog watch the exploding sky, a metaphor for life interrupted, bathed in desert colors, standing calmly, looking toward the future when he can run wild again toward the sea with BTS and ARMY.
-Kim
