Why “Why” Matters in the BTS ARMY

[The following is an adaptation of a response letter I recently sent to a news outlet following a somewhat problematic depiction of the BTS fandom in a recent article. Though ARMY’s global charity efforts (through One In An ARMY projects) were represented well, the rest of the article came across as depicting ARMY as very intense in our support for BTS to the point where it sounded irrational, with examples used of people ‘streaming without even listening’, claiming ‘it’s like a religion and we don’t think logically’, claims we think ‘our idols are perfect’, and a reference to an incident where an…