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BTS: Belonging and Becoming
South Korean boy band BTS brings people together and gives them a sense of belonging to a “Mikrokosmos,” a universe created for love, kindness and oneness.
On 12 March 2022, as I entered the PVR cinema hall in Bengaluru to watch the live streaming of the BTS “Permission to Dance” (PTD) Seoul concert, I was transfixed by the huge number of Indian fans in the theatre, with their BTS hoodie, ARMY bomb (a light stick that the BTS ARMY often use) and posters. Even before the actual concert began, it already felt like a concert. There was a little girl dancing around excitedly with her ARMY bomb, an elderly couple looked on amused, with their grandkids and young teens full of energy. I was with a group in their mid-30s, but I did not feel out of place at all.
BTS is a South Korean band with seven male musicians—Kim Namjoon, Kim Seokjin, Min Yoongi, Jung Hoseok, Park Jimin, Kim Taeyung, and Jung Jeongkook. BTS is the abbreviation of Bangtan Sonyeondan (“Bulletproof Boy Scouts”). Their music engages with the challenges that the younger generations face in modern social life—everyday struggles, difficult school life, high expectations, judgmental elders, social inequality, unjustified stereotypes, low self-esteem, mental illness, etc. They have established themselves as global superstars in past years. They have fans all over the world. The diversity in that theatre is testament to BTS’s popularity. Behind BTS’s record-breaking success is their powerfully active and engaged fandom, aptly dubbed ARMY (Adorable Representative MC for Youth).
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