BTS and ARMY in the last two years.

In the last two years, the popularity of BTS has increased way more than it was before COVID and that's really good. A lot of new ARMY have joined the family after MOTS7 and Dynamite.

Dynamite quite honestly blew up the internet like it's name seeing how it was their first English song. It had a fun retro vibe that drew in many casual listeners too. And though during this spike people started calling them overrated and undeserving of the success, it's not like it stopped them. Nothing really new when it comes to haters, they just don't do their research well.

However, following the great success of Dynamite I always feel like MOTS7 and BE were robbed of the popularity they deserved. MOTS7 is hands down one of the best album of all times and I don't care if you agree or not, ON deserved more awards, especially the best performance if BTS winning was already decided.

Similarly, Black swan deserved a Grammy. If not in the category of pop then in the foreign language songs category cuz it is one of the best musically arranged and lyrically superior songs of BTS. You can fight me if you don't agree but something tells me you won't.

The way Dynamite blew up, it took all the attention from the deserving songs. I mean, you can't possibly convince me that song is better than every single song is MOTS7 because it is not and I'm always going to be salty about how Dynamite got what it didn't deserve.

You are telling me, a song that spent 10 years in a closet and has the same loopy lyrics with an upbeat background got nominated to Grammy? As opposed to Black swan that has superior lyrics, almost rivaling Spring day and mind blowing instruments.

Like come on, get out of here.

And coming to BE, I can't even begin to tell you how disappointed I was with ARMY when it released.

The same people who made the success of Dynamite possible suddenly disappeared for Life goes on. What can be more devastating and this is me talking as a fan.

In the festa dinner, BTS expressed how they were sad about what happened with LGO too just bcuz it was between Dynamite and Butter. And let's not forget it was a hard time for BTS too.

The covid was in peak and there was so much despondency around the world. In an attempt to bring some brightness Dynamite was released but when it was clear covid was staying, BTS released Life Goes On which embraced that sadness and decided, despite everything, we must go on. If that isn't typical BTS, I don't know what is but what did it do, the song was nowhere around Dynamite and Butter.

BTS had planned a world tour with locations they hadn't yet gone to and those plans came crashing down bcuz of covid. I'm sure a lot of you went through that and know how devastating it must have been for artists like BTS who thrive on the audience's energy. To lose that is like losing your identity and I can only imagine what must have gone through their heads.

Despite all of that, they pushed themselves and released BE which has some of their best work till date individually. That album was like a gift, a comfort meant to say they are not alone, someone is with them and the way the media completely ignored it and caught onto their next English single, Butter was just disappointing.

Then comes Permission to dance and people are throwing shit at them for yet again releasing an English that has none of that personal BTS magic to it. But it still did good despite everything bcuz English.

I'm not saying English songs were bad, they made it possible for international fans to not put too much effort into learning the fanchant and all but it still left a bitter taste when their Korean songs were ignored.

I really can't understand how people managed to ignore a whole ass self made album and focused on those 3 English songs but that's beside the point.

All I know is that the last two years messed up everyone. I won't deny I didn't say shit either and that is why I write this bcuz I feel like as fans, as ARMY we put so much pressure on BTS, wanting them to do good and be the best when all we should have known is that their message had always been about going against the society's expectations and doing what you want. But we put those same brutal expectations on them and they exhausted themselves, lost themselves trying to satisfy us.

Somewhere I think it was also their desperation to win a Grammy after being so close to it. They knew they wouldn't get a Grammy for any of their Korean songs and that's why I think Butter and PTD exist. There's just no way you can ignore it bcuz we all as ARMY hyped them up.

We put them on a pedestal as if they were some outwardly beings and expected them to keep on astonishing everyone. But that's not who they are. As humans they crumbled beneath all those expectations and now reading their interviews for weverse magazine, it's even more clear how damaging we were.

Going forth though, I hope they give themselves chance to explore who they are for real and don't think about what the fans would think. I understand why it happens cuz their success depends on what we think we are willing to pay money for so that it fills their pockets but they have achieved everything they possibly could as k-pop artists in such a small amount of time. They have neglected themselves for far too long.

And this is why I don't feel sad seeing them going on an indefinite hiatus. Whether they come back or not someday, they've given us far more than we can imagine getting elsewhere and I just hope everyone cherishes it and supports them with their solo activities unconditionally.

With this, I also want to touch on the topic of how a lot of people have left the fandom. Some left because it was toxic and some left because they don't need BTS anymore.

I wouldn't say I hate them or anything because I understand them wholly. Something similar has been happening with for the past year. I'm at a phase in my life where I don't have time to obsessively keep track of k-pop. I like the music and that is the sole reason why I was even interested in kpop but over years I've turned to other groups and even genres like k-indie and k-rock but I'm not obsessive about it and I'm actually very happy about it.

Somewhere along the line I forgot what was important for me and now I'm realising that the music is enough to define me as ARMY or Moomoo or Monbebe, MOA. Keeping up with them doesn't make me a stan, appreciating the music makes me a fan and I don't care what others say about it (pretty sure whoever has anything against this is a baby fan, no hate).

I'm in a happy place bcuz of BTS and their music and I'll always be grateful about it.

Gosh, I still can't believe I've been here for 5 years now.

But that's it for today and thank you for coming to my Ted talk XD

-love appi ❤️