I've noticed that when other fandoms argue with ARMY, they often try to discredit the term "positive influence." So I looked into it myself and I'm going to share the information, including sources.

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2017: Total KRW 600 million
– KRW 100 million → Sewol Ferry Disaster Families “4·16 Foundation” (all seven members + label)
– KRW 500 million → LOVE MYSELF seed fund

2018: Total KRW 1.25 billion
– J-Hope KRW 150 million → ChildFund Korea
– KRW 1.1 billion → LOVE MYSELF annual fundraising

2019: Total KRW 2.17 billion
– Suga KRW 100 million → Korea Pediatric Cancer Foundation
– Jimin KRW 100 million → Busan Metropolitan City Office of Education
– J-Hope KRW 200 million → Gwangju International High School KRW 100 million / treatment for pediatric patients KRW 100 million
– Jin KRW 100 million → UNICEF Korea “Honors Club”
– RM KRW 100 million → Samsung School for the Deaf (music education)
– LOVE MYSELF cumulative KRW 2.67 billion (+KRW 1.57 billion)

2020: Total KRW 3.33 billion
– BTS & HYBE KRW 1.2 billion → Black Lives Matter (USD 1 million)
– BTS & HYBE KRW 1.2 billion → Live Nation “Crew Nation” (USD 1 million)
– Suga KRW 100 million → Community Chest of Korea (Daegu COVID-19 relief)
– Jimin KRW 100 million → Jeonnam Future Education Foundation
– RM KRW 100 million → National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Foundation
– J-Hope KRW 100 million → ChildFund Korea (children vulnerable to COVID-19)
– LOVE MYSELF cumulative KRW 3.2 billion (+KRW 530 million)

2021: Total KRW 1.65 billion
– J-Hope KRW 150 million → ChildFund Korea (children with visual/hearing disabilities)
– J-Hope KRW 100 million → ChildFund Korea / Tanzania child-violence victims
– J-Hope KRW 100 million → ChildFund Korea (heating & medical costs)
– Suga KRW 100 million → Keimyung University Dongsan Hospital (pediatric cancer)
– RM KRW 100 million → Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation
– Jimin KRW 100 million → Rotary International “End Polio”
– LOVE MYSELF cumulative KRW 4.2 billion (+KRW 1 billion)

2022: Total KRW 500 million
– Suga KRW 100 million → Community Chest of Korea (Uljin & Samcheok wildfire)
– J-Hope KRW 100 million → ChildFund Korea (heating & medical costs)
– J-Hope KRW 100 million → Community Chest of Korea (central-region floods)
– RM KRW 100 million → Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation
– Jimin KRW 100 million → Gangwon Education Scholarship Foundation
– LOVE MYSELF cumulative KRW 4.2 billion (+0)

2023: Total KRW 6.2 billion
– Jung Kook KRW 1 billion → Seoul National University Children’s Hospital
– J-Hope KRW 100 million → UNICEF Korea (Türkiye–Syria earthquake)
– Jimin KRW 100 million → UNICEF Korea (Türkiye–Syria earthquake)
– RM KRW 100 million → Overseas Cultural Heritage Foundation
– RM KRW 100 million → Korean Society for Legal Medicine ← added
– Suga KRW 100 million → Save the Children (earthquake relief)
– LOVE MYSELF cumulative KRW 8.9 billion (+KRW 4.7 billion)

2024: Total KRW 200 million
– RM KRW 100 million → Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs “Salute to Uniformed Personnel” campaign
– Jimin KRW 100 million → Gyeongnam Office of Education scholarship fund

2025 : Total KRW 2.9 billion
– HYBE KRW 1 billion → Cultural Heritage Administration & National Cultural Heritage Trust (restoration of wildfire-damaged heritage)
– Jung Kook KRW 1 billion → Community Chest of Korea (Gyeongnam/Gyeongbuk wildfire relief)
– V KRW 200 million → Korean Red Cross (wildfire victims & firefighter safety)
– RM KRW 100 million → Community Chest of Korea (wildfire emergency relief)
– J-Hope KRW 100 million → Support for families of Jeju Air Flight 2216 victims
– J-Hope KRW 100 million → Community Chest of Korea (wildfire relief)
– J-Hope KRW 200 million → Asan Medical Center Children’s Hospital (birthday donation)
– Suga KRW 100 million → Korean Red Cross (wildfire relief)
– Jin KRW 100 million → Asan Medical Center Children’s Hospital.

Seeing BTS getting attacked on Theqoo again lately reminded me of the whole Wing-Break era, so I decided to put this together.

BTS debuted in June 2013, entering a music scene where newcomers from outside the “Big 3” agencies (SM, YG, JYP) were often ignored or belittled. In these early years, Korean media paid them little attention – music shows gave them minimal screentime and popular variety programs hardly invited them, as BTS lacked the connections and clout of larger labels. Other artists and industry insiders also showed thinly veiled disdain. According to BTS’s own memoir, in 2014 some senior artists (sunbaes) would literally ignore BTS’s greetings and even mock the young group for “not even being candidates for first place” on music shows, treating them as unworthy rivals. This poor treatment came to a head at the 2014 Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA), where BTS’s song “Danger” wasn’t nominated – members later recalled their “unspeakable disappointment” at being snubbed, and how certain peers looked down on them that night. Such experiences lit a fire in BTS: they resolved to work so hard that “no one will ever look down on us again,” as one member put it.

Concurrently, BTS faced a flurry of petty accusations and rumors. With their edgy hip-hop image and storytelling lyrics, BTS didn’t fit the cookie-cutter idol mold, which drew ire from multiple fronts. Some in the underground hip-hop scene criticized them for “selling out” as idols, while certain idol fans spread accusations that BTS was plagiarizing concepts from senior groups. For example, when BTS released “상남자 (Boy In Luv)” in 2014 with a school-uniform concept, detractors baselessly claimed it copied EXO’s “Growl” staging simply because of the similar school theme. Every comeback, it seemed BTS “must have copied someone” – be it styling or music – according to anti-fans. These claims were often flimsy, but they created a negative narrative around BTS in online communities. Traditional K-pop media largely stayed silent or sided with the more established groups, leaving BTS and ARMY to defend the group’s originality on their own. Still, BTS pressed on, winning a small but passionate fanbase. ARMYs in these early days took to social media to promote BTS when broadcasters wouldn’t – sharing videos, translating BTS’s tweets and logs, and rallying newcomers from around the world. This grass-roots buzz hinted at BTS’s potential, but many industry observers continued to dismiss them as just another rookie group – or worse, as pretenders riding on others’ ideas.

2016 was a year of both triumph and tribulation – the climax of the “Wing-Break” saga. BTS’s popularity was reaching new heights: their October 2016 album Wings was a massive hit, breaking sales records and even charting on the Billboard 200 (a rarity for K-pop at the time). Sensing that BTS was about to soar, anti-fans and certain industry players dramatically escalated their sabotage campaign, essentially formalizing it under the name “날개꺾기 (Wing-Break) Project.” The explicit goal of this project was to damage BTS’s image and fan morale so badly that their growth would stall. Like breaking a bird’s wings, they wanted to ensure BTS could not fly any higher. Here are the main tactics that defined the 2016 Wing-Break campaign, as recounted by fans and observers at the time:

Smear Campaigns & Plagiarism Accusations:
The plagiarism rumors from previous years intensified. Every concept BTS came out with was met by antis scouring for any resemblance to others. They flooded forums with accusations that BTS copied other idols, trying to paint BTS as unoriginal cheats. The claims ranged from the absurd (e.g. BTS wore school uniforms, so they plagiarized EXO) to the desperate (criticizing BTS for using common fashion items like headbands). By constantly pushing these “copycat” narratives, detractors hoped to undermine BTS’s artistic credibility.

Coordinated Malicious Hashtags:
The anti-BTS coalition became highly organized on social media. They would time their attacks for maximum pain – for instance, when BTS members posted on Twitter or Weibo, antis would immediately launch negative hashtag campaigns to trend hateful messages. On a member’s birthday, instead of seeing celebratory tags, ARMY would find antis had trended a cruel hashtag mocking that member’s appearance. In one horrifying incident, when a BTS member’s grandparent passed away, these haters infamously spammed images of skulls and grave emojis to taunt him during his bereavement. The psychological warfare was relentless, aiming to exhaust BTS and ARMY with a constant barrage of negativity.

Chart Manipulation Rumors and Legal Battles:
By 2016, BTS’s album sales and music chart performance were undeniable – which only fueled the sajaegi (chart-rigging) allegations from antis. When Wings sold hundreds of thousands of copies, rival fans flat-out insisted “there’s no way they sold that much without sajaegi.” Online, they stoked a frenzy that BigHit was buying albums or using illegal streaming bots. BigHit firmly denied these rumors, and ARMY countered with proof of the fandom’s growth. The issue escalated to the point of official investigation: BigHit was taken to court over these accusations, where the claims were proven baseless – the court found no evidence of BTS having done any chart manipulation. (In fact, an extortion case in 2017 revealed that a marketing executive had tried to blackmail BigHit with false “sajaegi” claims, and he was jailed for it.) Despite legal vindication – essentially a formal “not guilty” on manipulation charges – antis in 2016 refused to apologize, and continued to whisper that BTS’s success was “manufactured.” ARMY, however, took comfort that the truth was on BTS’s side.