Pacenotes: Diving into the BTS ARMY

Picking up from the last edition of Pacenotes from before the break, I wanted to delve deeper into the world of BTS fandom.

We already know that BTS fans are uniquely active and engaged, capable of driving songs up charts through coordinated action, and taking part in distributed forms of fan labour.

I wanted to find out more about BTS fans coordinate among themselves, and more about who they were as individuals. I was guided by the book BTS, Art Revolution: BTS Meets Deleuze by Jiyoung Lee, a philosophy professor at Sejong University in South Korea (here’s a nice New York Times profile).

The book itself is worth a read. It’s a slim volume that takes the rather unlikely lens of analysing BTS fandom through the philosophy of the 20th century theorist Gilles Deleuze. Lee tells us that BTS fans, known as ARMY (or Adorable Representative M.C for Youth), organise themselves in a decentralised, non-hierarchical way. Importantly, ARMY is independent of BTS, performing labour and producing work of its own volition.

BTS and ARMY thus create a network that feed off each other. Lee relates this Deleuze’s concept of the rhizome, which is a network structure where “any point can be connected to any other point ceaselessly without any hierarchy between centre and periphery.” The relationship between BTS and its fans is therefore less that of a commanding pop band and an adoring legion, but a horizontal, and decentralised one between peers on a network. Lee calls this idea “the network image.”

To learn more about BTS fandom, I got in touch with Nicole Santero, a sociology PhD at UNLV in Nevada. She’s studying BTS fandom and runs the Twitter account Research BTS 🔍 which has nearly 100,000 followers. The account regularly tweets statistics, maps and other data about BTS and its fans.

I’m going to highlight a few things from our conversation, with the full Q&A below:

• Santero will release the results of an ARMY census in February, where demographic data about the BTS fandom will be published for the first time. And unlike the stereotype, they’re not all teenaged girls.
• BTS fans recently successfully lobbied the band’s label, Big Hit, to provide translations of popular videos instead of relying on fan translators, who had been performing the service for free for years.
• BTS fans have formed support and educational groups of all sorts, ranging from healthcare professionals to language tutoring. For instance, fans crowdfund merchandise and music for other fans who can’t afford to buy the products.
• Fans actively develop grassroots marketing campaigns to boost the sales and listenership of new singles or albums, coordinating to ensure BTS is at the top of the streaming or radio charts.

Do you have a good picture of what the BTS ARMY looks like? How many people are there, and so on?

What we’ve been learning about the BTS fan is that they exist in every part of the world. And we try and find ways to to showcase that, especially through data. Because there is still a lot of misconception … [people] who think that the only people who like BTS and K-Pop are limited to Asians … We’ve seen with a fandom like ARMY, it’s incredibly diverse. And I can speak on this myself, I’ve been to a few BTS concerts. And I remember the first one I went to, in 2018, I was so amazed and shocked at the diversity of people. And even me, who I wasn’t really into K-Pop previously, I even came in with this mentality, like, oh, I’m probably going to see a good Asian population at this concert—and it wasn’t the case. And so through data, we try and highlight that.

As far as how many fans there are, that is one of those still mysterious things. We don’t quite know how many fans there are, but we know there are a lot of them, perhaps more than than the average fandom. One thing myself and two other ARMYs tried to do is, these last couple of months, we launched a BTS ARMY census. And so we thought, maybe we could get a chunk of people to take the survey, maybe it’ll help. It’ll help capture how many fans there are. It’s a lot tougher than it seems but we did get over 400,000 responses, which is great in terms of having a significant amount of sample size and data. So we’ll be releasing that in early January. But yeah, there’s tonnes of speculation that there probably are millions of fans. They’re not all on Twitter, right. So it’s kind of hard to capture that. But hopefully one day we’ll get closer to that number. We just know there are a lot of them.

What’s the main stumbling block in trying to quantify the number of BTS fans?

It’s just hard to capture, because we know not every fan is on Twitter. So we would have to reach out to them through other platforms, which are kind of tougher to engage in. Twitter is kind of that central hub for a lot of fandoms, based on its environment. It’s kind of that place where a lot of fandoms can thrive and grow, just based on its features. So that’s why we targeted this ARMY census to capture a lot of people through that platform. But we know that not everyone uses Twitter. And so a lot of them on Instagram and on Facebook, it’s a lot tougher to capture on those platforms than it is on Twitter where everyone can easily just share [content]. With Instagram, content isn’t easily shareable. And then Facebook, you have to find all of the different groups that people are in and there’s just tonnes and tonnes of them. So we really set our sights on Twitter, knowing that we could get a significant sample size.

So we’re really happy with the 400,000 [responses] that we got because I mean, that’s kind of a researchers dream. To have that many people take a survey, I mean, we had no idea was going to even be that much. So I think at the very least what we’re going to be able to do is at least have some really great data in terms of those demographics to help show people that this is a fandom that goes beyond those stereotypes of what people think K-Pop groups and boy bands are in terms of their fan bases.

And then we get to see different types of data such as, you know, what people’s educational status is; if they work, what career fields are they in? Because those are things that we don’t, I don’t think we talk as much about in terms of fandoms. I think sometimes people on the outside look at fandoms and they see them as kind of these mysterious beings, right? Without really thinking that these are just normal human beings. We work and we have lives outside of our fandom, too. And so this is a chance for us to showcase those aspects beyond just the music and beyond the fandom activity.

Beyond the census, tell us more about your research work on BTS fandom?

So my background, I actually earned my masters in 2016 in journalism and media studies, and I did a thesis studying the One Direction fandom and their influence on Twitter. Now it’s kind of overshadowed by ARMY. But if we look at the earlier part of the 2010s, a lot of social media, and especially Twitter was dominated by fandoms, like the One Direction fans. And we were kind of seeing the birth of those online social media practices, because people were still kind of figuring out how to utilise platforms like Twitter. So that’s kind of how it all started. And then over time, fandoms just got more natural and savvy when it came to social media and the big product of that is something like ARMY who’s so much savvier and more strategic when it comes to those things.

So I was studying the One Direction fandom, I remember getting my masters and thinking, well, we probably won’t see another phenomenon like this in such a long time. And then here comes ARMY, right? So I didn’t really have plans to get my PhD, I kind of was burnt out after my masters. But then, I had seen the news about BTS performing at the Billboard Music Awards in 2018. And I was just so confused, because I’ve never seen Asian people performing on such a big stage. I was like, who are these guys? How did they get here? How are there so many people screaming over them? Like, they must be a big deal. So I dug into their music a little bit and looked into some of their music videos and was immediately captivated and hooked by them. But having that background studying a fandom, my curiosity was more in the fans. So thinking about how is it that that we’re capturing a good chunk of people who love BTS? Like how is that even possible, because I don’t think we’ve ever seen that before. And so I really wanted to dig deeper. And then I applied for a PhD programme and started working on that.

The whole Twitter thing is quite interesting, because I didn’t really intend for it (@BTSResearch) to be as big as it is, or it wasn’t meant to be this kind of fan base or anything. I figured early in my programme that I needed to attract some data and at least keep up on the fandom because they were so active. So my thought was, well, I’m probably not going to start a dissertation topic for another two years or something. But if I don’t capture anything now I’m probably going to miss out on a lot. So I thought it might be fun to create just a Twitter account and then archive information and data through there … And so I was documenting a lot of Twitter trends because that’s when I was stuck in one Direction fandom. I was looking into the way they dominated worldwide trends. And so we were seeing similar patterns with ARMY. And so I figured that I would do that on Twitter too, except I would log it on Twitter.

So as I was doing that, I was starting to get followers and was really freaked out by it. Because I was like, oh my gosh, I didn’t really mean for people to follow me. I just wanted to create this account for myself. But then looking back, it probably was one of the smartest things I ever did, because I initially thought I was the only person studying this. And it turns out, there’s like a whole community of people who are really interested in BTS research, right? And so account kind of became something much bigger than my own self. And so I started connecting with people who are doing similar types of research and in other areas. And, you know, I found out that there was going to be a BTS conference in London, which happened earlier this year in January, right before the COVID situation.

How different is BTS fandom from, say, the Spice Girls or Beatlemania?

As far as the Western world of music, this is kind of the first time we’re seeing a fandom overcome obstacles like race and language barriers. And I think that’s something that was really special and something that obviously drew me in to the fandom and wanted to make me want to learn more. Because like I said, and the One Direction fandom is probably the most similar in terms of impact, but with One Direction fans, we didn’t really have similar obstacles to overcome, right? This was an English speaking group. And while there are tonnes of other countries that obviously listen to them, we didn’t have this need for things like translations and whatnot, right? Translators within the BTS fandom are so important, and I think are credited to a big part of why they’re so popular too. We never really had to deal with that before. And so it’s kind of fascinating watching the fandom navigate through this and, you know, they do an amazing job getting BTS, this message and their lyrics out there. So it’s pretty incredible.

Is there a good data point to demonstrate how important translation is to the BTS fandom?

I don’t think that’s a number that we have, because translations are happening pretty often, but I will speak on the importance of translations and how that plays in with BTS and Big Hit. For many years, they actually didn’t really translate a lot of their content into English. So it forced a lot of fans who did speak Korean to translate it for other fans, right? At least in recent years, fans [started] speaking up and demanding that Big Hit start translating this content because it was really important that it was done. Because translating is a lot of work, right? I mean, these translators spend hours just doing this, and it’s all for free. And I think it’s incredible. And so, you know, right after fans spoke up about it, BTS and their team, they started translating content so I think that really shows they listen to the fans and and what they asked for. And it shows that impact of why translation is so important.

Gotcha. So fans were doing a lot of work for years, and they wanted the label to share some of the workload. And the label responded?

Yeah, they ended up actually putting out a job posting for translators. And they hired translators for this, and so it’s awesome. I mean, the [fan] translators still have to work but it’s not as much as they used to, in terms of things like one of their video series in particular, everyone talks about on YouTube, it’s called Bangtan Bomb, where they released like these clips, and those used to not be translated, and now they are, which is great. So like I said, it kind of saves the workload for translators, but they still do a lot of work in terms of other content, but at least it lessens that load for sure.

Big Hit had its IPO recently. Did the opportunity of owning shares in Big Hit change anything within the BTS fandom that you have observed?

I don’t think it has changed much as much as people might think it would. I think for fans, it just gives it a sense of more… I mean, it just really shows the value of BTS and their impact with all of this coming together. So yeah, to be honest, I don’t know much about that business side. Like, I’m not business savvy. So when it came time for all that IPO talk, I was like, I have no idea what’s going on. But I do know people who ended up going through the process and with the stocks. So it was interesting and unsurprising that fans did that. This is a passionate group. I think because the opportunity presented itself, of course, there were going to be some people who did that. But yeah, within the fandom, not really much has changed, to be honest.

I read a great essay from Abigail de Kosnik on fan cultures and how people assume that fans are sort of slavishly following the work of a creator, when actually, the existence of things like fan fiction shows that this is not the case. Fans actually have some sense of dissatisfaction with the artistic work and they want to modify or customise it in some way. It speaks to the autonomy of the fandom. Does this impulse come through in the BTS fandom?

Very much. So I think what’s really cool about them is they are very much like a grassroots effort, especially at the beginning. In the early years, there wasn’t really a lot of promotion happening for BTS, and K-Pop, in general, right. So a lot of fans kind of took it upon themselves to kind of act as the PR and promotional team for BTS. So we saw a lot of fans in the beginning, they were, you know, sending gifts and making requests to radio stations and trying to convince people to support BTS, right? So they spent years doing that. And then gradually, their fan bases were growing not just in the US, but all over the world.

As far as right now, there are some great current examples. One of the really special things about ARMY is they kind of have created this culture of not only supporting BTS, but of supporting each other. And I think that’s part of the reason why they have such a strong bond and relationship with each other. And, and so for instance, I mean, they’ve created kind of like their own world where they can be self-sufficient as their own society. So we have fanbases dedicated to things like we have groups of lawyers, and then groups of researchers, and then you have, like healthcare professionals who have come together, we have tutoring services for students who need it, right, we have a charity organisation, so they do all kinds of these things. They do it in the name of BTS, but understanding that they have other interests beyond that, and so it kind of strengthens that bond with each other.

And then as far as, like promotion and marketing, the fans really take it upon themselves to do that. For instance, when ‘Dynamite’ was announced, when that song was going to come out, fans immediately were like, okay, cool. So we know our metrics, this is what we’re going to achieve this, you know, this is how we’re going to do it. Let’s start creating, like marketing materials and start creating this promotional plan, like how do we get the word out? So, I mean, they’re really quick, really savvy. And it’s all based on experimenting and experience of the last couple of years. So, you know, BTS and Big Hit don’t really even tell them what to do, right? Like, they just say, Okay, well, this is what we’re coming out with, and you kind of just leave the fans to it. And I think that’s why we saw ‘Dynamite’ become such a huge success because even from the beginning, I was watching the fans and seeing how they came together and mobilised just to let people know, We’re going to make this a huge success. So I always thought that was really interesting.

And then a cool example, something that I’m so intrigued by — BTS fans don’t just do this, it’s other fandoms but we haven’t really seen it on the big scale that ARMY has done — they do a lot of funding for music, so they have accounts specifically dedicated to getting donations from fans. And those donations go towards buying albums and singles for other fans who can’t afford it. And I had no idea that that even existed until I became a part of this fandom. And I always think that that’s such really cool idea. And I know some people criticise it on the outside, but I think for a fandom like this to, it kind of kills two birds with one stone, right? It supports BTS and gets them at the top of the charts, but it also supports these fans who, especially during this time, may not be able to afford it or gives them some happiness and some comfort that that they are being supported in that way.

So those are kind of a few examples that I can think of, but yeah, they definitely act on their own a lot of the time and you know, it’s pretty fascinating to see them like very self sufficient. And so, yeah, they’re really incredible.

Have there been incidents where BTS and the fandom disagreed?

I can’t really think of any off the top of my head, probably because it hasn’t really happened too often. You know, within every fandom there’s definitely arguments about, especially how management should should be in terms of promotion and in terms of scheduling, right, like, it’s not just BTS fandoms. But we saw this and even in the One Direction fandom, so there’s definitely fans who disagree with the way Big Hit and management does things and that’s totally normal, right? But I don’t think we’ve really seen too much of them disagreeing too much openly.

In the case of Black Lives Matter, BTS donated a million dollars to the movement. That could have been a pretty binary or polarising thing to do that could have upset some fans. Was there any tension around that issue?

Yeah, so the the the situation with BLM and the Match Milion campaign, that’s a whole big monster in itself to go over. So prior to BTS speaking out and making that donation, there was definitely a lot of discussion and perhaps some disagreements about whether or not BTS should say something. And, I think this was kind of the first time we were seeing people within fandoms in disagreement because these fandoms, especially K-Pop fans, and BTS fans, they’re so diverse. Not everyone is American, not everybody was really in tune or aware of the entire situation. So there’s just so many different perspectives, so many different opinions about what was going on.

So there were essentially two different sides, right? You had people saying, Yes, BTS should talk about it, because, you know, these are individuals [the band]who say that they stand up for social causes. They have a big platform, they should be setting a good example for their fans that they care about causes like this. Because for a lot of fans, they said this wasn’t political. This is a social issue and a human rights issue and and they should support fans, and especially in K-Pop fandoms and BTS fandom, there are a lot of Black fans, so they should be supporting them. And then you had another group of people who said, well, a lot of this is an issue that was started in America. So should [BTS] as Koreans actually speak out on it? I don’t think they have to. So there was kind of a lot of like back and forth in there. And I know it’s a stressful time for everybody, especially in these fandoms, where there was a lot of conflict, it almost felt like inner conflict with each other.

But I think one thing that was really interesting and kind of cool, was we were seeing fans in a more human perspective. Like, we weren’t just talking about the music anymore. We were talking about these real issues and how they play out in these fandoms. But, you know, when BTS spoke out and gave their statement, and then we found out that they donated a million dollars, I think for the most part within the fandom, that was a moment when everyone came together and said, okay, you know, we’re really proud that they did speak up on it. I know, for a lot of fans, it was really comforting that they did, especially if you were a Black fan.

And so and that’s kind of how the Match a Million campaign started. It was fans kind of being inspired. Keep in mind, it’s not like fans weren’t donating previously, right. They were doing as much as they could beforehand. And then BTS had spoken out and donated, and they were like, okay, well, that happened. And I think it’s really cool. It’s really inspiring, like, what more can we do as their fandom to show that we support it? And, you know, go above and beyond? And that’s kind of how that campaign happened.

But yeah, I mean, prior to that, there definitely was a lot of conflict, even within the fandom and across other fandoms right. So it was kind of an interesting time, but I didn’t really see that as a disagreement between BTS and the fans, it was more everyone trying to figure out what they should do in that situation. It’s just a complicated situation, considering there are a lot of fans from different backgrounds and different countries who, depending on where you were and your perspective, you had your own opinion on how it all went.

I read in the critical theory book ‘BTS, Art Revolution’ by Lee Jiyoung that one thing that marks BTS as unique from other K-Pop bands is how they handle the language barrier. Instead of trying to speak perfect English like K-Pop bands in the past, they just speak broken English, and that comes across as more natural and authentic, and works in their favour. As a result, you have this music with Korean-language lyrics that sort of transcends the language barrier. Do you have any research on the number of Korean speaking fans BTS has, for instance?

I don’t think there’s a clear number but we have seen in these recent years that there is this increase in people wanting to learn Korean. Across the board, it’s, become a big aspect. I know within the fandom there is an interest. There’s, you know, fan bases who are dedicated to holding Korean language learning classes, just for fans. And I know one of my friends, she’s part of thisKorean academy, where they get together at least once a week to do their classes and to teach each other Korean so I think that’s really cool. And then obviously, would be Big Hit’s educational component as part of their label. They released their educational series … I know there are people who’ve actively been trying to learn and so I think that’s a really cool thing.

Myself and a couple of other researchers, we’ve done interviews with BTS fans, and we asked them, you know, what have you learned as being a part of this fandom or being a BTS fan? And a lot of them talk about how, you know, this is kind of the first time where I opened my eyes to the idea of how important it is to learn about other cultures outside of our own right. I recall a couple of people telling us, before BTS, I didn’t really think it was that important, like, why do I need to know about other cultures? I should just know about my own. And they said that BTS allowed them to be more open minded to be open to learning about other countries and what’s important to them. And, you know, with BTS, they often highlight the importance of their own culture, right. So it forces a lot of fans to, you know, if you love BTS, you have to understand, their culture too, and things like that.

So I think that’s what’s really cool. And something we haven’t really seen in a lot of fandoms in the past. Like I said, we haven’t actually really had to go through this kind of similar situation.

I wanted to go back to this notion of fan labour. I wonder if there are any other areas where fans think Big Hit should be doing more?

I think that’s [translating videos] is probably the biggest one I know of. I can’t think of too many examples. But, you know, I think the one thing I’ll point out is, is nonetheless, even if it’s a lot of work, fans just love that labour part. Like it really is that labour of love, and giving yourself to BTS and showing your support and showing your dedication in so many different ways. These fans do it all for free, right? And don’t ask for anything, but they do it with this notion that it’s a way of supporting BTS and giving back to them because they’ve impacted them in a real way. And so the easiest way to give back is to, you know, take part in these different types of activities.

So family is a huge part of the fandom and I think what’s cool is fans kind of find their way. It’s such a complex fandom to begin with, but every fan no matter how many followers they have, they kind of figure out their role within the fandom, right? Using their expertise and their skills from personal experience, they learn to utilise that and implement it within the fandom and they kind of find their role, right. And so everyone kind of figures out how to navigate it and support BTS in the best way that they can. They definitely work hard for BTS. You have people besides myself who do a lot of these, like data tracking and chart tracking, and try to figure out how songs are going to do [on the charts] and how albums are going to do.

And then you have artists who just love sharing that content with a lot of fans. And then of course the translators, and then you have writers. We’re seeing so many different groups of people. At this point, there’s so many different fan bases, and different subcultures within ARMY you just think nothing else is gonna pop up. But then the next week, some other account pops up, and you’re like, I never would have thought that that would be a part of a fandom.

So it’s always really fascinating. I think one of the recent examples of a fan base that just got started is an Engineering Society of ARMYs, which I thought was really interesting. I never would have thought about it. But we have so many groups that are coming up in that way. And like I said, they all come together with this common interest in BTS, but they all find a way to showcase their love and showcase their support for the music. So yeah, I mean, fan labour again, is such a huge part of this fandom, for sure.

It’s been said that the BTS fandom is extremely flat and non-hierarchical. But if you perform more labour, won’t you also accrue more status?

This is definitely argued about whether or not there is a hierarchy. So based on my experience, based on my research, I would argue that there is a hierarchy, but not in the sense of like, here’s the leader, and then here are the people operating under that person. ARMY likes to consider itself without a leader. They’re very leaderless, but they operate in kind of a system and structure that’s already in place, right? So you do have these hubs or pillar accounts who have a tonne of followers. I mean, I think just in the hierarchy of social media, it’s obvious that whoever has the most followers has great influence, right?

But the way I always see it is you have these larger accounts, who kind of help to really amplify messaging and get the word across. But I think the people who have the most importance are the ones who are driving the conversation. And that’s the rest of the network, right? Because there’s tonnes of them. And you need that support from those people to be able to spread the word even more widely and across boundaries. So I think they’re super important.

So yeah, in terms of a hierarchical structure, that’s how I see it. There are these pillar accounts that have influence but a lot of the message is really driven by those accounts underneath them as part of their network. But overall, there’s no leader and I don’t necessarily agree with this flat structure, because I don’t think that really exists, even in social media in general.

So could we say that BTS fans are not compensated for their labour financially but they receive some sort of social capital in return?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s kind of like social media in general. It’s a lot of social capital. But you know, when you look at it on Twitter, not a lot of [fans] participate in it for the monetary benefits, [unlike] YouTubers and things like that. This is purely free fan labour, and all in the name of supporting BTS. So, yeah, I do agree there’s a level of social capital for sure.

And a lot of fan bases are definitely those who have a lot of followers, I think they’re looked at as kind of higher status by a lot of people. But at the same time, they do a really great job, in showing that they kind of equal to a lot of fans. Even if you do have a lot of followers, you’re still the same in a sense as everybody else; it’s just now you have an influence and you have a power to share certain things even more widely than other people. And you do need that, right. That’s a big part of why this fandom is also so powerful; you’ve built up a lot of these accounts who have probably more influence than even a lot of celebrities, right? So they have like, hundreds of thousands to millions of followers. So how do you utilise that? A lot of these fan bases have done a really great job in taking advantage of the platform and the influence they have to be able to support BTS and support the fandom in itself.

So yeah, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a hierarchy like that. I think as long as there’s some sort of boundary, and a lot of fans, you know, they don’t want to be controlled, they don’t want to know that there’s somebody at the top dictating everything, right. There’s still this level of teamwork that has to happen. But a lot of these smaller accounts know that in order for that teamwork to go far, and for the fandom to succeed, you need these big accounts to be able to just spread the word. So I think everybody in this fandom, again, is just as important. But we do have these different levels in terms of following and influence, for sure.

How much does fan labour contribute to the value of BTS? Can we put a number on it?

I wish there was a value connected to it. I think the way people people see that is more just, you know, time and effort put in, but I don’t think anyone’s ever put a value to it unless you actually do pay for some services. I myself admit, a lot of what I do, that I share within the fandom is because I pay for programmes that I’m able to use to, to share that type of data, right? Like, for instance, those maps that I shared that I’m known for, I do pay a good amount of money for that. And that’s totally fine with me, because I see the value in it for myself and love sharing that with the fans. And I would never charge them for that right, or ask them to compensate me for that. So that’s kind of how I see it. Like, I know how much time I spend on the work that I do. And I know how much certain things cost. But yeah, I don’t know, I wish there was kind of like a monetary value in terms of fans paying other fans.

Would you be able to start charging other fans for your work? How would they respond?

Yeah, that’s a whole complicated issue. I personally, from what I’ve seen, I don’t think fans are too supportive of this idea of fans monetizing the efforts that they do. I think it’s a complicated situation because for years fans have been doing this for free. So who is someone like me right? To come in and be like, Okay, well, I’m going to keep giving you this content because you seem to like it and I’m going to now ask you to pay a fee so that I can continue it. I’m pretty sure that fans would not receive that very well. Because like I said, it kind of erases the work that everyone before me has done. A lot of people have been working hard and whatever way they’ve tried to contribute to BTS and have all done it for free with this idea that as long as it helps BTS it’s a success, it helps to elevate their status and their achievements and that’s the best payment and reward. So I personally wouldn’t pay for that. And I probably wouldn’t really look at it too positively. And I know a lot of fans probably wouldn’t either. But yeah, I mean I’m sure there are some fans like that I just have not come across it. It’s not very common within this fandom and I think that’s for a reason.

How does Big Hit or BTS interact with the fandom? Is there a person in charge? A department?

No, I don’t think they’ve been totally open on that, that there’s specific people doing that. But I think there’s an agreement within the fandom that we know that in some capacity, at least somebody is watching, right. And it makes sense. I mean, I also work in PR and communications. So I know that that’s totally normal. You know, in organisations and companies I’ve worked with, we do watch all the ongoings within social media. So I’m very sure that it’s happening. I know fans are sure. And BTS themselves have hinted on the fact that they do see things on social media and acknowledge some of the work that’s being done by fans. So we do know that they’re at least on [social media] and looking at things. We don’t really know the extent of it. But I think what’s cool is we see little hints of BTS taking some stuff that’s been in the fandom and at least mentioning it, or incorporating it in some sort of way in their own work. I think acknowledgments like that is really cool for the fandom. So yeah, I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure there’s people who are hired to monitor conversations and what’s going on, but to what extent I’m not really quite sure.

That’s really interesting. Big Hit leaves it quite vague and mysterious instead of formalising a channel for the fans to communicate with the band. Is there anything you’d like to add on the topic in general?

I think the fandom sometimes feel like they’re misrepresented and misunderstood quite a bit. And there’s still a lot of work to be done to share their story and to get away from all the misconceptions and the stereotypes and the stigmas related to being a part of a fandom like this. And you know, a lot of the fans just want people to know, like, everyone has their own music preference and they love BTS and these are people, right? They’re not just teenagers and they’re not just these like mindless fan girls, right? This is a really intelligent, socially diverse bunch.

Is being a BTS fan stigmatised?

Yeah, I think you do see a lot of people who hate the fact that there’s still this stigma around being a fan of a boyband, right? Because the general public sees that as, you know, only teenagers like that, and why should people older than 30 think it’s weird that you would support something like this. But you know, why should music have any sort of expiration date as far age? But when we look at a fandom like BTS is, I mean, their diversity is really wide and I know a lot of K-Pop fandoms are as well. But, you know, something that we always try and highlight, and I think what we’re excited about this ARMY census, is to have official data on it is fans, from kids to people in their 60s and 70s. It really goes to show that BTS can be enjoyed by anybody, essentially.

And I think people on the outside, they hear K-Pop or they hear boyband or they see BTS, and they immediately dismiss that, and then they dismiss the fans. I think ARMY especially is very frustrated with that. And so they just don’t feel like they’ve been accurately depicted. And I think that some journalists have done a really great job in trying to capture that but there’s still a lot of work being done, which I guess, in alignment with fan labour, a lot of ARMYs, that’s why they they’re really great initiative-takers, right? Because if other people can’t tell their story accurately, then there’s no other choice left than to tell your own story, and they kind of understand that. So a lot of them have created platforms to be able to tell their experiences, talk about the fandom in a way that other people can’t really do in depth. So, you know, you have a lot of people who’ve started blogs, there’s like publishing organisations within the fandom. You know, we have our own, like peer-reviewed journal now, so there’s different mediums that are being created within the fandom, because they want to make sure that we can look back 15 years from now and say, Okay, this is the history of the fandom, and not let anybody else dictate that.

Even looking back at the One Direction fandom, I wish that we had some level of a system like that, because I’ll be honest, I don’t think we’re going to be able to actually accurately talk about the One Direction fandom in a way that fans probably want to be highlighted, because we didn’t really have a lot of that initiative. And then now ARMYs are like, Okay, well, you know, we want to make sure we make our own history, and we show people who we actually are because we don’t want media. And we don’t want the general public to to be the ones dictating that narrative. And so I think that’s something that’s really cool. So there’s a lot of work being done as far as like writings and archiving In the fandom, which I think is going to make a really awesome, long lasting impact.