A Momentary Rainbow: BTS and ARMY as Co-Creators
One of the key questions that people always ask when they’re trying to understand the most enthusiastic and powerful fandoms is: Why are fans so invested? Why are they willing to give so much of their time, money, energy, and love?
Perhaps the most powerful fandom of the moment is BTS’ ARMY. The K-Pop boy group has earned world records for their YouTube views, Twitter engagement, and their live online concert audience. They outperform most mainstream artist in their album sales, their streaming numbers, and their concert attendance. BTS knows, their label and management company Big Hit knows, and their fans know: ARMY are a force to be reckoned with. But what drives them?
In popular discourse and media coverage, boy band fans — even when they are acknowledged as a force to be reckoned with — are often dismissed as a bunch of mindless, screaming teenage girls. The assumption is that these teenage girls are lured in by good looks and chastely seductive love songs.
The problem with this “mindless teenage girls” narrative is two-fold: First, it is rooted in patriarchal values that see female tastes and pleasures as frivolous — and potentially threatening. Second, it shuts down a productive conversation about why these fandoms deserve to be taken seriously. ARMY as a fandom works hard to raise awareness of their diversity across all demographics. But even if that weren’t the case, ARMY are not mindless in their devotion to BTS — in fact, it’s not even fair to call their relationship with BTS “devotion.” It’s more aptly described as teamwork.
And that’s one key “why” to explain what drives ARMY and what inspires their love, their labor, and their loyalty: the BTS/ARMY relationship offers an empowering and meaningful alternative to the traditional artist/fan hierarchy, especially for Western fans.
The BTS/ARMY relationship offers an empowering and meaningful alternative to the traditional artist/fan hierarchy
Much of my PhD dissertation was dedicated to exploring the ways in which fans and artists (and, by extension, the entertainment industries) are often at odds. In the West, one of the ways we understand the relationship between artist and fan is that the artist is in an elevated position of authority and expertise. The artist is the genius who bestows their creation on the world, the fan’s role is to appreciate and praise their work. My dissertation dealt with what happens when this relationship is challenged — what happens when fans want more? More recognition, more influence, more of a sense that they are part of the art and not just an audience. In my study, the answer was that these fans are knocked down a peg, they are labeled as overly invested, as entitled, as toxic. The response is to re-establish clearer boundaries and maintain stricter separation between fans and artists.
But what if there were another way? What if the artist could invite the fans to join them in their elevated position? What if they could make fans feel that they are on the same team? Not just pay lip service of gratitude to the fans, but truly acknowledge that the fans and the artist built something together?
Nancy Baym has written about how the invention of audio reproduction and mass media has changed the way we experience music from a participatory to a performative model (Playing to the Crowd). The first model has no clear distinction between artist and audience, everyone participates in an ephemeral shared experience. The performative model enables music to be recorded and distributed widely, but it also creates separation and hierarchy. Of course, there are legal and economic structures that now underpin this separation. (BTS isn’t profit-sharing just yet.) But there is an opportunity to create a much more participatory emotional experience in the fan/artist relationship.
What if artists could be fans of their fans?
When BTS talk to or about their fans, they consistently acknowledges that “BTS” (as a phenomenon) is essentially a co-created experience in which the seven members and their ARMY are equal participants. As BTS’ leader RM puts it,
“It doesn’t belong to anyone. It’s like an imaginary, momentary rainbow that’s been created by ourselves and the people who help us” (Break the Silence, Ep. 6).
Even better, what if artists could be fans of their fans?
“We’re just BTS and you’re ARMY. And at the same time, you guys are BTS and we’re your ARMY” (Rose Bowl, 5 May 2019).
Fan studies only offers limited perspectives to really understand this kind of fan/artist relationship. To broadly generalize decades of fan studies, fandom is deemed as interesting when it is resistant in some way: resistant to dominant cultural values, resistant to capitalist structures of consumption, resistant to accepting ideas as they are presented. What underpins this model of “resistant” fan studies is the critical distance between the fans and the objects of their fandom. As Henry Jenkins puts it,
“Fandom, after all, is born of a balance between fascination and frustration: if media content didn’t fascinate us, there would be no desire to engage with it; but if it didn’t frustrate us on some level, there would be no drive to rewrite or remake it” (Convergence Culture).
This drive to “rewrite or remake” the object of fandom is often termed “transformative fandom,” and it’s the heart of “resistant” fan studies.
Its less study-worthy sibling is “affirmational fandom,” which is more concerned with obsessively collecting knowledge, trivia, and merchandise related to the fan object. Boy band fans get slotted into affirmational fandom and tend to be dismissed as uncritical, consumerist, and emotional (can you hear the echoes of “just a bunch of screaming, mindless teenage girls”…). But by dismissing a fandom like ARMY based on pre-conceived notions and stereotypes, they fail to understand its transformative power on a personal and emotional level, and the way it transforms the fan/artist relationship itself.
Fandom can be a driver for personal growth, an opportunity for sincere connection in a cynical world, and a comfort during tough times
One of the biggest reasons that BTS fans give for why they love BTS is that the group helps them find strength, confidence, and inspiration. The most impactful fandoms shape fans’ identity and empower them to transform themselves and the world around them. This kind of experience cannot be divided into categories of resistant or consumerist, transformative or affirmational. ARMY fandom, in its various forms, contains elements of all these categories — sometimes fans spend a lot of money on merchandise and sometimes fans self-organize to support political or charitable causes they care about. Ultimately, fandom can be a driver for personal growth, an opportunity for sincere connection in a cynical world, and a comfort during tough times.
BTS fans do give a lot to the group, but they also feel like they get a lot in return. BTS regularly emphasizes the responsibility they feel to their fans and the way in which BTS and ARMY have supported, uplifted, and healed each other:
“I didn’t know anything about how to love myself. You guys taught me through your love, through your tweets, through your letters, through your everything. … It’s never intended, but it feels like I’m using you guys to love myself. So, I’m going to say one thing… Please use me. Please use BTS to love yourself” (Citi Field, 6 October 2018).
In the song “We are Bulletproof: The Eternal” from their latest album — one of the many songs BTS regularly write for and dedicate to their fans — BTS ask their own “why” questions:
Tell me your every story
Tell me why you don’t stop this
Tell me why you still walkin’
Walkin’ with us
Much of the answer can be found in the same song: We are not seven, with you. BTS and ARMY are together bulletproof.
So the next time someone asks, “why are fans so invested?” they should take a moment to consider what fans are getting in return, and how much their investment is welcomed, reciprocated, and celebrated.
