Ancillary #7

Though there are multiple core reasons for explaining why BTS has been such a massive hit in the United States, the primary reason they have have been able to succeed so greatly is because BTS has been able to hone in on their ability to incorporate the cultural trends of our society, and in every single facet of their image. The man behind the band, a.k.a. a man named “Bang”, whose job it has been for many years to identify the American market and hopefully one day break through to it, states that everything from the clothes his artists wear to the incorporation of trendy lyrics to the structure of their music (i.e. incorporating pop and rap into their songs) are in large part what have made BTS so big in the United States. Subsequently, as has been witnessed many times in the past, Asian based artists and bands who do gain traction in the US — usually do to a hit single or two — tend to ride their temporary wave of American fandom but as soon as their song(s) get old and out of the American spot light, they almost always revert back to their eastern audiences rather than honing in on the American audience and trying to create another hit here. This is because it is easier and less risky to do so because prior to BTS, the American market for K-pop and asia centric music in general was not proven to be constant.

What BTS has done differently is that rather than reverting back to the East, they have realized that the audience and fanbase for K-pop in the United States is big enough to put their entire focus on. Rather than making music catered specifically to an asian fanbase with the unrealistic hopes it might catch on in America, BTS has put a primary focus on American culture and American listeners — thereby flipping the equation of past Asia based artists and bands.