Kpop Stans and Our Perennial Love for Idols
We face challenges yet accomplish incredible things.
The first time I got a glimpse into the world of K-pop was a couple of years ago while not paying attention in class as a friend extolled the virtues of the boy band BTS from a self-made PowerPoint presentation. This was at the height of their worldwide fame, with the release of their new comeback single “Idol” to immediate fanfare.
“THIS. CHOREOGRAPHY. IS EVERYTHING,” this person tweeted. People streamed their songs nonstop to get their videos to 100 million views as fast as possible, breaking their own previous record in the process; they raged at YouTube for unfairly deleting their views. If you embarked on a quick foray into Twitter, you’d find thousands of tweets from the self-proclaimed Army, the BTS fan group mostly made up of teens and tweens.
It was a crazy time. I remember thinking wow, these people must really love them a lot, while eagerly clicking the view next button to another one of their highly-viewed videos on Youtube. I did too; I was becoming a stan.
