Thread by @sweetbtstea

By Poll Vote: Why BTS Scares K-pop -- A Thread

(PART 1)

Again, sorry for the delay, but this thread started to get WAY too long, and I felt chopping it up was a good idea. 👍🏾

Anyway, let me begin by stating the obvious: BTS is a monster. An adorable monster that you can "boop" on the nose.

But they're not adorable to everyone They can be quite intimidating depending on who you are.

After all, BTS, through their current success, harbingers of change within the K-idol industry.

Change is scary. It has a way of forcing many of us out of our comfort zones. We don't always go quietly either. As with death, we can go through the various stages of coping: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

With their success, BTS has brought some important changes to the K-pop landscape. First, they demonstrated that international success isn't a ladder strictly for "Big 3" artists to climb.

They also showed the importance of a grassroots connection to one's international fandom.

Most importantly, BTS is challenging long-held Western biases against Asian pop groups and perception of the music quality amongst K-pop groups. Style and visuals are one thing, but critical acclaim is something entirely different.

koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20…

Even with the upsides experienced by BTS and their fans, there are aspects that might prove to be terrifying to others.

So why is BTS so damn scary?

FEAR OF CALL TO ACTION: POSTURING AND OPINIONS DON'T KEEP THE LIGHTS ON

I previously read about a Pungdeng-E fan who loved the girls so much, he bought 500 CDs and gave them out at a K-Co, hoping they wouldn't be disbanded. That level of emotional investment combined with financial investment isn't one to which many K-pop fans can relate.

I'm not saying you have to go out and buy 500 CDs. However, I am saying this type of fan understands something most don't about the reality of K-pop today: a lack of a strong, financial supportive fandom is often a death sentence.

Don't worry about receipts. I'm in the process of putting together case studies of groups that DIDN'T make it. It's a very common reality for groups to fail, often because casual K-pop fans do nothing to save or support most K-pop groups.

Now, if you're content with the way things were (casually listening to music from a distance but not really expected to contribute to Korean "PAKs" and Korean fan poll awards), then BTS and ARMY are an absolute nightmare.

BTS has pretty much shown all the wonderful things that can happen when you have a Korean and international fandom locked together from all sides and everyone is pulling their weight. Success, international fame, huge collabs, Vogue spread, the like.

But the i-Kpop fandom is terrified of BTS and of ARMY. And It's not merely because they're running rampant all over Kpop ... ARMY are cr*ckheads in a way that I can tell you from experience the i-Kpop fandom is NOT.

(a) i-Kpop fans aren't spending money at the same rate as ARMYs. This is how BH was able to exceed "Big 3" groups in profits. BTS fans make them more valuable than some companies with a stable of artists.

metro.co.uk/2018/03/22/bts…

I'm sure we looked crazy to the average K-pop fan, thousands of us waiting to buy a damn cushion.

Not go to a concert. Not attend a handshake event. No, we were buying pillows, plushies, and eye masks, and waiting HOURS in the cold for the opportunity.

And forget bootlegging on YouTube, we buy free mixtapes.

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I've noticed that i-fans have a habit of mocking BTS fan behavior and then seeking to replicate it. Before it was mocking our BBMA win. Now it's haunting the TSA in a desperate bid for a nomination.

Before it was "western validation" and "local only" and now it's begging foreign radio stations who've never heard of your fandom or the group you're pushing to play their music "too."

This year, there's a new, very telling trend. "BTS is overrated," "ARMYs only care about records" and "ARMYs spend money but don't appreciate the 'music."

What will follow this trend? CHAOS.

You see, as BTS and ARMYs continue to work at solidifying BTS's international success and aspiring to break old records, the industry will become increasingly desperate to replicate their success.

There's just one problem: To do that, they'd have to convince the i-Kpop community to change their entire approach to K-pop and mirror K-fandoms in their "we all only support one group policy."

The i-fandom isn't used to this kind of pressure or being relied on seriously. Before BTS, it was all about "PAKs in Korea" and K-fandoms were the ones mainly responsible for fan poll votes for shows like the MAMAs. Korea was the center of EVERYTHING.

And when Korea is NOT the center of everything, that means that i-fans have to do way more work. They have to do the promo. They have to organize hashtags, they have to actively convert everyone they know, they had to approach radio stations and TV producers.

Right now, fandoms figure they can get a bit of clout by poking the bear (ARMY) and riding our coattails.

At some point, they're going to come to the terrifying realization that social media clout doesn't translate to millions and millions of dollars.

*Boromir voice*

One does not simply call a new group "The Next BTS" and call it a day.

Idol companies, idols themselves, and k-fandoms are going to start wanting, needing, and demanding MORE of casual, multi-fandom Kpoppers.

The shady rants at us about how BTS isn't worthy of our support and we're doing too much -- ignore it, it's a dog whistle scream. They know that what we're doing now is what they'll have no choice but to replicate.

And as they're going to learn, it's not as easy as it looks. And, as i-fans find themselves being heavily relied on and looked at for perhaps the first time ever, the struggle is about to be more real than ever to prove that they're not "useless."

/END PART 1

The next part will look at why BTS is scary from a K-idol industry perspective and Part 3 will look at the positive and negative reactions to that fear and how it can change things for the better (and worse)