BTS, ARMY, and the Vocabulary of Intimacy

Disclaimer: The ideas and statements included below are solely my own and do not reflect the opinions of BTS, ARMY as a whole, or anyone other than myself. Participation in any fandom is a subjective experience, and no single person can hope to fully express its meaning or significance in its entirety. I hope others will explore these same concepts and ideas as well, so that many perspectives can be heard and a more comprehensive picture of this experience painted.

Intro: Perception Gap

Since the release of BTS's album Map of the Soul: Persona in May of this year, I have sat down to write out a full album analysis more times than I can count. Every time, I have given up. Initially, I wanted to write the analysis in response to the various reviews of the album by Western critics who obviously and entirely missed the point of the album as a whole. Then, I wanted to write an analysis that would flesh out for ARMY the finer details of meaning in each of the album's songs. Eventually, I realized the first would be pointless because there is no way to convey the depth of meaning in the album to those outside ARMY without first subjecting them to a dissertation on the history and development of BTS, and the second is unnecessary because the album speaks directly to ARMY in a way we all understand.

However, as I permanently set aside the idea of fully analyzing Map of the Soul: Persona, I was unable to shake the idea of these huge perception gaps that exist within BTS's current audience. There is no doubt the way non-ARMY listeners receive BTS's music is vastly different than the way ARMY receives it. The distance between ARMY and non-ARMY responses to BTS is, in fact, the Grand Canyon of perception gaps. It is obvious in the thousands of ARMY and non-ARMY reactions to BTS found on YouTube and in personal comments tweeted into the void by those just finding BTS, but nowhere is it more clearly demonstrated than in critical reviews and journalists' analyses of BTS's work. To read critical reviews of BTS albums or concerts or other works written by journalists who have no familiarity with the group's history or message is to witness a significant disconnect of understanding. Whether intentional or unintentional, much of the material about BTS which has been published in the past several years demonstrates more ignorance than insight. For any ARMY reading these reviews, the critical analysis feels out-of-touch and flat, as if a deeply colorblind person attempted to fully describe the wonder of a sunset's colors.

BTS: Global Artists

At the time I am writing this, BTS was the #1 group in the world and the #2 artist in the world in 2018, as documented by the 2019 IFPI report, and is on track to improve that statistic for 2019. The worldwide media exposure which every move they make and every track and album they release receives is so enormous that it has become difficult to comprehend. The coverage is so great, in fact, that they have become nearly inescapable for anyone who owns a device that connects to the internet. Whereas at the start of their career, in 2013, they were an underdog group from a small company in South Korea whose audience consisted primarily of South Korean, Asian, and a small but growing group of international fans, their lives and work are now viewed by nearly the entire world, in real-time. There is no "average" audience member for BTS anymore. Their audience spans cultures, ages, genders, religious backgrounds and every other metric imaginable. They are truly global artists in a way no other artist performing primarily in a language other than English has ever been.

What this means, in practical terms, is that more people from more cultures, backgrounds, generations and perspectives are hearing BTS's music and messages as they are released than at any other time or for almost any other artist in the history of the music industry. And since Korean is spoken by under 80 million people worldwide, this also means the vast majority of the audience being exposed to BTS cannot understand their words or music without the help of translators. Despite this, and to the bafflement of the entirety of Eastern and Western media and music industries and many "experts" in music culture, BTS has, over the 6 years of their career, amassed untold millions of fans who are known not only for their passionate love of the group but their commitment to actively take part in promoting them via every available opportunity in every country of the world. Although they have faced xenophobia, general prejudice against "boy bands", and dismissive attitudes toward "K-pop groups" at every turn, BTS has become ubiquitous within the music industry to the point that they can no longer be ignored, even by journalists, media outlets and critics who would ordinarily have pretended the group did not merit analysis. Yet much of the media output which has attempted to review or respond to BTS's music, message and albums has felt stale and limp, and has been more frequently an expression of each author's own confusion than an insightful discussion of BTS's work.

BTS is a South Korean group releasing music into a world that is essentially unfamiliar with their culture of origin, language, and many of their early music influences. Confusion, therefore, is actually what you might expect to see; it might seem predictable for international audiences to have more questions than answers about who BTS is and what their music means. What is striking to note, however, is that this confusion only exists outside ARMY. Between ARMY and BTS, in fact, there exists near-perfect understanding. Despite the ever-broadening range of cultures, backgrounds, genders, and ages which constitute the population of ARMY, within its ranks there is no disconnect and no confusion when it comes to who BTS is and their relationship to the fans; on the contrary, the relationship between BTS and ARMY is so intimate that it defies explanation, baffling any outsider exposed to it. Read any review of a BTS concert by a non-ARMY and you will see what I mean; seated in an enormous stadium with 60,000+ ARMYs and the 7 members of BTS, they will describe witnessing an exchange of love and trust that they find beautiful but inexplicable. Over the past several years, hundreds of articles have been written about the relationship between BTS and ARMY, often to the exclusion of discussions of BTS's music, yet no one outside ARMY has yet been able to define exactly what it is that has bonded fans of BTS to the group so passionately and unshakably.

So, then, this is where we find the Grand-Canyon-sized perception gap. On the one side we have non-ARMY consumers of BTS, who are fascinated and often baffled by the group, their music, and their fandom. On the other we have the individuals who make up the BTS ARMY, who feel such a deep connection to the group, their music, and their message that they are willing to sacrifice money, time and even great personal effort to support them.

Beyond Language

While many attempts have been made to explain what causes this gap, I believe there is one essential factor that nearly every analysis has ignored: the way they employ and use language. Not the Korean language, nor its English translations, but the highly specific, nostalgia-laden, intricate vocabulary of the interchange between BTS and ARMY.

This vocabulary populates their lyrics, their personal interviews, their direct messages to ARMY, their statements to each other and about each other, and is interwoven into their dialogue at their live concerts and fan meetings. It is BTS's way of communicating with their fans beyond the borders of what any single language could accomplish. By repeatedly using certain thematic keywords and phrases in their communication with ARMY, BTS has managed to do what so many others have been unable to; they have created a universally applicable code that acts as the connecting element in the BTS-ARMY relationship and is accessible to anyone willing to take the time to learn and employ it.

The greatest irony of the BTS story is this: Their words, seen by outsiders as their most "alienating" feature, have become their primary and most effective means of forging intimate connections with, and within, their fandom.

Since before their debut, BTS has communicated with ARMY extensively via social media. At the start, they primarily used their Korean fancafe, Twitter, and YouTube to post their thoughts; on the fancafe and Twitter, in particular, they were able to directly interact with fans as if they were their friends. Their YouTube content at the beginning was mostly made up of journal-style video logs where the members spoke honestly about their lives, showing impressive transparency as they discussed their frustrations, fears and struggles. After their debut, they continued to upload more and more content on YouTube, not only continuing to periodically share their vlogs but posting short "Bangtan Bombs" and "BTS Episodes" which provided ARMY with glimpses into their activities backstage as they participated in various performances and schedules. In 2015, the Vlive app was created by Naver, and for the first time BTS was able to have more direct "face-to-face" style conversations with ARMY via their livestreamed broadcasts. Over the 6 years since their debut, BTS has logged a truly incredible amount of content, and all of it has been faithfully translated by ARMY translators who volunteer their time and energy to allow international fans to understand BTS's message and perspectives. All of this is in addition to the enormous amount of music BTS has produced in the same span of time; their output to-date includes six studio albums, four compilation albums, and six EPs, containing over 100 tracks. And every bit of this BTS corpus is immediately available to anyone who finds themselves asking the question, "Who is BTS?"

While Korean-speaking ARMYs (and at times Japanese ARMYs) receive BTS content in its most unfiltered state, since they understand the language BTS uses most frequently, International ARMYs are not far behind them. Any content BTS drops is translated either simultaneously (in the case of livestreamed events) or translated within hours of when it becomes available. This isn't simple translation, either; translators have the task of interpreting the words as BTS presents them, but they often find themselves explaining the Korean cultural and linguistic context, as well, so that the audience is able to fully understand the significance of each new statement's or song's meaning. This produces a situation in which ARMYs around the world experience the same range of reactive emotions nearly simultaneously; and they continue the conversation about their shared experiences with each other 24 hours a day via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms which allow communication, regardless of location or time zone. BTS's work is translated into dozens of languages, news about them is published around the world, and each portion of the fandom works to update, inform, and educate each other at all times, fostering connection between various ARMY communities at an unusually intense level. ARMY is united in its love of BTS, but it is also united in its unique dedication to making BTS's corpus accessible to and known by as many people around the world as possible. In the history of music, no other artist has ever had a fandom which worked as unceasingly and intentionally, nor as passionately, to give them constant visibility and promotion on a worldwide level.

What makes all of this so impressive is not necessarily the volume of the content being shared, nor its accessibility, but rather the way BTS has used it to invite ARMY to participate in a never-ending dialogue about authenticity, self-discovery, and intentional positive influence. This dialogue is so all-pervasive in every aspect of their lives and work, and its message has been so consistent since their pre-debut days, that it has become the defining characteristic of BTS as a group and ARMY as a fandom. The stories BTS was telling at the start of their career about the challenges young people face in school may be contextually different now that they are adult men dominating stadium stages around the world and exploring the question "Who am I?", but the intention and authenticity undergirding their message has not changed. While BTS's corpus is complex and layered, involving their own personal histories and stories, mythological and philosophical references and literary works, and spanning everything from tweets to lyrics, every piece fits with all the rest. And because this is a dialogue, not a monologue, its scope is constantly growing. As the conversation between BTS and ARMY continues over time, it is building upon itself and is highly self-reflective; as often as new stories, new songs, and new ARMYs are added to the dialogue, the older stories and lyrics are retold and understood from new perspectives both by the group and by their fans. The corpus BTS has amassed is not simply a documentation of their own development; by inviting their fans into dialogue they have made it the foundation of a collective consciousness within ARMY.

BTS & ARMY vs. The World

In essence, to become an ARMY is to begin the process of learning the vocabulary - a kind of secret code - necessary in order to participate in this dialogue with BTS. And, in order to learn the vocabulary, each individual must go on a very deep dive of the BTS corpus. ARMY often jokes about this process, calling it the "black hole" and gleefully wishing new fans well as they embark on their own journey into it. Given the enormity of BTS's output, this is no small task. However, once the vocabulary has been learned, and the DNA of ARMY has been received, it adds meaning to everything BTS produces. Simple words and phrases such as "Magic Shop", "Forever, we are young", "Fake Love", "Our biggest voice, ARMY", "ARMY, our wings" and "Nevermind" become laden with heavy significance. ARMY operates more like a gigantic family than a standard fandom; there are inside jokes, memes, stories from the past that are told and retold with tears and laughter, and bonding over the love and respect felt for BTS's seven members. Yet to anyone outside the boundaries of this BTS-ARMY ecosystem, it is almost entirely incomprehensible; in fact, it is rare for those outside the coded BTS-ARMY conversation to even recognize its existence unless they go beyond a cursory glance. Sincere speeches and messages from the members, which bring ARMY to tears immediately, seem to the uninitiated as if they could not possibly be genuine. Lyrics ARMY recognizes as laden with significance, both in terms of the group's history and their relationship to their fans, look like standard pop fare to those without the key to the secret code that unlocks their underlying meanings.

Reactions to BTS's most recent album, Map of the Soul: Persona, are an excellent example of the way this dynamic impacts reception of the group's output. When the album's teaser was released, in the form of the MV for the intro track Intro: Persona by the group's leader, RM, ARMY immediately recognized that in theme, sound and visuals it was a direct reference to the group's earliest days, specifically the 2014 album Skool Luv Affair, from which samples were taken to serve as the foundation for the track. ARMY was also able to recognize on first listen (and upon first reading the lyrics) that Persona has a sound reflective of the group's early hip-hop roots and is a complex and dynamic exploration and expansion of various themes BTS has been introducing over the past few albums. Critics, however, dismissed the track because the vintage hip-hop sound confused them, and most never even made an attempt to analyze the lyrics or theme, choosing instead to focus only on the aural experience of the track to the exclusion of its meaning. This contrast of response continued when the full album was released. As ARMY listened to the tracks on the album, they recognized a multitude of thematic references which were familiar as belonging to the BTS-ARMY vocabulary. BTS themselves also spoke about the album repeatedly and extensively, both at their press conference and in personal vlogs and statements, calling it a love letter to ARMY and describing the way each song in the album had been crafted as a representation of the journey of discovery that brought them from a place of loneliness to recognizing that wherever ARMY is has become "home" for them. ARMY processed all of this information and immediately incorporated it into their understanding of the album. Through this exchange, the tracks became deeply moving to ARMY as previously-seen themes gained greater significance and new vocabulary was added to their conversation with BTS. Critics tasked with reviewing Map of the Soul: Persona nearly universally either ignored the lyric content or took it at the most basic face-value level, making no effort to link it to any of BTS's past work or thematic concepts, failing to include or take into account any of the comments made by the members of BTS about the album, and spending no time at all on exploring the significant symbolic elements contained in its tracks. It would be difficult to imagine more diametrically opposed responses to any artists' work than these two.

The disconnect between ARMY's perception of BTS's work and the way it is perceived by those outside the BTS-ARMY conversation causes enormous friction between the fandom, media outlets, and the non-ARMY public around the world. Since ARMY cannot help seeing the full complexity and significance of BTS's corpus as a whole, they become extremely frustrated and even enraged when it appears that critics have been too lazy to explore, are willfully blind to, or are intentionally dismissive of the most meaningful elements in their albums. Similarly, when members of the non-ARMY general public treat BTS as "just another boy band" or "just another K-pop band", ARMY finds these labels to be reductive and demeaning because they are deeply aware of and personally invested in supporting the massive creative effort BTS gives to everything they do, and they see BTS as unique within the music industry. As a member of the BTS ARMY, it is often tempting to believe that every critic and non-ARMY is either an idiot or actively trying to misunderstand BTS, given the lack of insight demonstrated by their articles and comments. However, if we set these ARMY instincts aside and look at the situation with more objective eyes we can see that what keeps critics and outsiders from seeing and hearing what ARMY sees and hears is not always laziness but rather their lack of access to the collective consciousness of the BTS-ARMY dialogue.

Outro: Intimacy

Like any other secret code, this exchange between BTS and ARMY looks like so much gibberish to outsiders. Yet for those with the key to unlock it, it holds all the meaning in the world. Sadly, it seems doubtful that most critics will ever take the time to step over the threshold of this global community BTS has created far enough to truly grasp that what makes this group so unique and has garnered them such a passionate following is encoded in their corpus. It is highly likely that criticism of their work will remain in the shallow end of the pool for the entirety of their career, settling for the lowest-common-denominator version of aural interpretation. For the few who do choose to search further, however, there is a whole world of meaning waiting to be explored, and a vast worldwide ARMY waiting with open arms to help anyone willing to embark on a journey of discovery.

Everything, in the end, comes back to this truly unique conversation between BTS and ARMY. It is a near-perfect, highly emotive, deeply personal form of intimate communication that is both self-perpetuating and always undergoing development and expansion. If ARMY is BTS's home, then the collective consciousness of this coded vocabulary is the foundation of that home. By transcending the capabilities and limitations of any single language, BTS has bypassed cultures, generations, geographic boundaries, and every other dividing factor imaginable to create, with ARMY, one of the most powerful displays of unified experience the world has ever seen. Whether or not those outside this community ever realize it, those who are privileged to be a part of this BTS-ARMY dialogue, as I am, are truly experiencing the most beautiful moment in life.