ARMY BREAKS BARRIERS
Middle-aged moms and teens alike share a love for the K-pop band BTS
Beth Murdock didn't expect to like Korean pop.
As a self-admitted stereotypical, white, middle-aged woman from Georgia, Murdock was skeptical of the genre. But she agreed to accompany her daughter to a BTS show.
“I knew I would be bored out of my skull, but my daughter is the most important thing in my life, and I was willing to sacrifice my concept of a great concert for her,” said Murdock, 54. “Did they solve all my problems? Lord no. Did they change my life? Well, sort of. I am not the same person today because I opened my mind of what was acceptable and good.”
The group's fandom, called ARMY (Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth), is why seven 20-somethings from South Korea singing mostly in Korean can repeatedly sell out shows, top charts and break records, changing the face, business and culture of pop music around the world. Together, the fandom is family, supporting each other through the Black Lives Matter movement and global crises such as the pandemic.
BTS's “success has signalled a global breakthrough for artists around the globe,” said Indian composer A.R. Rahman, the man behind many Bollywood and Hollywood hits.
Besides last year becoming the first group since the Beatles to earn three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart in less than 12 months, BTS's latest single Dynamite recently spent 12 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart.
“ARMY had both incredible online impact and even financial power, shown in records and websites we'd broken, items we'd sold out and album sales,” said Erika Overton, 40, who helped found One in an ARMY, a charitable organization that rallied the ARMY to match BTS's $1-million donation to Black Lives Matter. “I discovered their desire, like mine, to help these boys achieve success ... the camaraderie and sense of family and friendship across all boundaries ... and the incredible focus of power that happened when everyone focused on the same goal.”
Mobilized over social media, these fans are the ultimate hype crew for BTS, propelling the group to become a global brand, selling everything from its own line of Barbies to an SUV. And unlike many artists, BTS members own a stake in their label, Big Hit Entertainment, which went public in October with South Korea's biggest stock offering in three years.
Like other boy bands, BTS has the looks, the pipes and the style, but it was the group's message that changed Murdock's mind.
“They seemed `real,' discussed challenges, very unlike the rock bands of my past, where the lyrics were about getting drunk, fighting, playing hard,” said Murdock. “I did not know I was looking for it or even needed it, but it was refreshing. I have been depressed, I have suffered loss.”
And while fans also applaud the band's attitude, starting off as underdog at a smaller label, BTS did have the benefit of the label founder's experience, explained Tamar Herman, who has been covering the group for Billboard Magazine since 2016. Big Hit Entertainment co-chief executive Bang Si-hyuk, known as “Hitman” Bang, was a composer for one of the biggest labels, JYP Entertainment. He worked with such artists as Rain, the first Korean to win an MTV award. Initially, Big Hit's other artists “didn't have much luck,” Herman said. “BTS was really their last shot and they kind of gave it their all.”
So instead of primarily appearing on South Korean television, like other K-pop groups, BTS tried out social media, chatting with fans on Twitter.
BTS's songs were not typical pop either. While the group started in hip hop, their music encompassed different genres, Herman said, and incorporated a vision for the world to be a better place.
“I was able to find comfort through their music during my dark days,” said Danielle Given Acido, a 20-year-old college student in the Philippines. “They speak the words I cannot speak on my own.”
To better help each other, fans created an ARMY Help Center in 2018, a network of 150 trained volunteers across 40 countries willing to be a “shoulder to lean on, especially those who are from countries and cultures that still consider mental illness to be taboo,” said Asmae El Mansari, a 27-year-old administrator from Morocco. She estimates that the network has been able to help at least 30,000 people.