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goldteethonice · 5 years ago

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A most valid addition @an-asocial-girl

While ship names are widely used within the fandom even just as shorthand, Taekook is definitely the most popular by far and used with the most frequency even by non-shippers. There's a very deliberate avoidance of using Jikook outside of explicitly Jikook-supporting accounts.

@mim6s also makes a very sad, but true point. To call a horse by its name, tkkrs and their big accounts have truly done such invasive and disgusting things (from the incidents I mentioned above and as far as intentionally ruining Jimin's birthday celebrations online.) Not to even mention the famous Taekook-lives and her absolutely vile and reprehensible content that she makes money off of and whose channel still has 300k+ followers. Channel that was brought back by 3 of the biggest "ot7" accounts on twitter after many battles to take it down and that keeps growing by the day, no matter how many times tkkers claim they "don't claim" her. I truly do not want to generalise, but at some point when the minority become the exception, I feel that it is warranted. There's only so many excuses you can make for a group when they constantly prove the opposite. They are also absolutely relentless bullies, with very big numbers. Jikook accounts get suspended at a word and hash tags and other content (whether fake or not, although most often it is at least misrepresented in some way) gets passed around as the gospel truth. Woe upon the people that try to point this out in any way, they get dog-piled and absolutely trashed. I've seen personal information about jikookers get leaked, accounts being hacked and all sorts of other vile things I don't even want to mention. There's a few big Jikook accounts that still hold strong, but compared to the numbers tkkers have, the gap is frankly very big.

That also unfortunately speaks to your comment @keeperoftinyarmy

I'm not surprised by this at all. At this point it's sadly almost expected. Jimin, JK and Tae are all subjected to such an unfortunate powder keg of deliberate misinformation and fan agendas that it's truly vile to witness. Once again, not to generalise, but while akagaes and solo stans are definitely a big part of the problem, the biggest portion of it can indeed be traced back to tkkers and their entire behaviour and the systems that these big accounts enforce.

Um, I suppose I should put a warning for a big post coming up ahead? Feel free to stop here, because what follows is my personal experience with the kpop fandom and how it's evolved over more than 10 years, as well as the issues mentioned above specifically. Obviously it's my personal opinion and thus subjective, but since the topic has been raised why not share it, right?

To relate to the points above, one other thing that very often comes into play when talking about tkk and Jikook and how the fandom moves when it comes to them, is the sheer amount of manipulation and selective editing/misrepresentation of moments that include Jikook and their relationship, both with each other and the rest of the members.

Now just as a disclaimer, I hesitate to address such a thing in the first place, because once there’s at least somewhat valid grounds to claim that a fandom (or parts of one) intentionally skew and re-frame events to fit made-up narratives and pass them off as factual reality, I think the situation is so far out of boundaries, that it starts to appear overly paranoid even to the people trying to rationalize it. It might sound delusional or made-up. It did to me in the beginning as well, possibly because I didn’t want to believe that people could really build up such toxic relationships with specific ideas or structures, that are not even based one real facts, in the first place.

I’ve been in fandom spaces and specifically the k-pop fandom for over a decade now, since 2008/2009 to be exact. I’ve seen a lot, both in terms of fandom on its own and how it changes depending on the interaction with the artist. There’s always been fan-pandering woven into the very fabric of the industry; to almost obscene and unbelievable degrees in some cases. (Take as reference the DBSK/TVXQ mini drama “Dangerous Love” that literally had the members involved in the most popular ship - Yunjae, composed of Yunho and Jaejoong, act out scenes from fanfics. And that was happening around 2006.)

The difference with that and other such examples was that, barring the extreme niche and deluded parts of fandoms, people were aware that in this case the artists were actors and it was content catered and made specifically to fit consumer desires. The current of self-awareness was there, because the industry and the fandom operated by different rules and expectations. Idols back then had very, very limited control over how to express/present themselves, often being forced into specific roles, to a degree that I don’t think younger kpop fans are even aware of or want to acknowledge in the first place. Point being, people did not perceive idols as humans outside of their idol persona. People got into them and their fabricated roles and content, but there was this separation from reality that also offered them protection. People were mostly content with idols being what they were, because no-one was different. There were no other implicit expectations of perceived authenticity in that regard, if that makes sense.

(This has improved overtime, but it’s still present. Jimin himself recently opened up about the fact that the company pushed a macho idea unto him in the beginning.) So this was, and to some degrees still is, a very present element even in the current k-pop industry. Especially for girl groups, poor them, but I digress.

What makes BTS special in this context is the fact that bighit pushed them out into the world with the very strategic intent of making them relatable and authentic, which means that from the beginning there was this idea that the content they put out is truly what is presented and should be taken at a greater face value. (This was executed both wonderfully and very poorly in some cases but that’s a topic for another day.)

As with all things, this was both true and untrue to a point, especially if one thinks back to the awkward paper-to-mouth games they were forced to play in their early days and the statements we’ve gotten from the members over the years. The boys were, and are, wonderfully kind, talented, hard-working, loving and honest people, which is why they’ve achieved the things that they have achieved, But even they were not exempt from that more ingrained mechanisms of the kpop industry. With time and the consolidation of their value and playing power, this has slowly faded away organically. As of last year and the renewal of their contract, I’m sure they have more freedom than ever, this time on paper too.

So keeping all the above in mind, what truly set them apart even more in my opinion, was the fact that this more evidently commercialized nature stopped being imposed unto them, thus removing them even further from the bulk of the kpop industry. But this was also a double-edged sword, because it also regrettably opened them up to a relationship with fans that was no longer that clear-cut, because once you feel people are truly sharing their real selves with you, you get the impression you actually know them. To some degree we do. To a greater one, we truly do not and many people can no longer make that separation. In presenting themselves as authentic, fans start off with that expectation and reality in mind. BTS are authentic, therefore the content I see of them must also be the truth, as spoken and presented...by whom? And that’s the big factor here.

This whole info dump (which I’m very sorry about) was actually just to get to this main point: people expect the content they get from BTS to be true, therefore they accept presented content as such.

Now if it all came from BTS and bighit themselves and would be taken at face value and with trust, that would be one thing, but as I’ve mentioned before, more and more this has no longer been the case. More and more people rely on fanaccounts for their experience and this had led to such a skeved and easily manipulated perspective, as well had enforcing said accounts as gatekeepers with loyal minions ready to defend them for anything.

There are so many points to address regarding how these accounts then operate and the repercussions it has on the bts fandom as a whole, I honestly don't even know where to start, but I suppose it can be reduced to the following timeline of events :

1. Old misconceptions from their early content that got passed around so much within the fandom and fan generated content, that it has been adapted into the "accepted" reality. Under this umbrella fall things such as: Jungkook hating Jimin when he was younger (even though official content and JK showed the opposite even back then) or Yoongi being the perpetually lazy, crabby one, Jin being the "mom" of the group, etc. By themselves they're just normal, if unfortunate, things that happen in every fandom. But when there is a group of people deliberately enforcing some of them, the situation gets more complicated.

When BTS started finally gaining widespread popularity in 2017 this was exacerbated by a lot of western fans from fandoms such as 1D migrating over to BTS and kpop and latching onto said existing misconceptions. Most people latched onto JK and Tae and Taekook as a result and the rest, well... It evolved the only way it could have when you combined: western lack/acknowledgement of boundaries and cultural differences and subtleties + young shippers that just wanted a new "boy pair" the likes of Harry and Louis or Larry I suppose + the above mentioned sentiment of authenticity from the boys and the impression that one truly knew them intimately.

2. Which brings me to my 2nd point, namely the active perpetuation of both the things above, as well as of the fake narratives/facts that have been deliberately created to mislead. People shipped 2 of the guys and they finally had something they believed was absolutely true. They did not understand how their expressions of affections are rooted in their culture or how they've grown from those initial impressions. And they certainly would not accept anyone saying anything contrary. But that only applied to their own wishes and desires.

Taekook-lives for example popped up 2 days after GCF Tokyo was released and since then she has made hundreds of videos with the blatant intent of manipulating tkkers and new armys into believing certain things: Taekook is forced to hide by bighit and they do this by making Jikook act the way they do. Jungkook is disgusted by Jimin and hates him. Jimin is a slut and homewrecker. Trying to twist the interactions they have. Taekook talk in the soop was scripted, it's all lies. Bighit is hiding Taekook because there are no interactions. Bighit shows Taekook interactions but they're fake and scripted! And other such things.

Does it sound like a cult yet? A bit dramatic, but there are certainly very worrying elements of it showing. This is kpop and it really shouldn't be this serious, but it regrettably is.

The things above, as well as countless other falsities, have been spread around as the truth in the fandom and this is what new Armys stumble upon. This is what they interact with first. There is unfortunately no surprise then that people latch onto the tkk narrative and can only see Tae as a perpetually jealous and scorned person forced to hide his relationship by the company, Jungkook as this object of desire in a tug of war that has absolutely no agency or worth outside of said ships and Jimin as a home-wrecking whore, pardon my quoted language. And this is barely scraping the tip of the iceberg.

And while all the maknae line gets subjected to this, most people within that corner are Tae biased. So really Jungkook and definitely Jimin get the absolute worst of the insults, false narratives and sheer dehumanisation from the fandom. I will fight anyone that tries to claim otherwise. Jimin especially gets subjected to such atrocious levels of vile things there's quite literally not a week that goes by where he's not being dragged or insulted for something.

And still, the accounts that allow and encourage this to happen persist and keep on getting bigger, whilst any Jikook focused one that gets even mild repute is immediately attacked. As is anything pertaining to Jikook.

They share a cute moment of JK comforting Jimin on stage? (on:e concert) Stop spreading that around you are sexualising and fetishizing them! Same with rosebowl and countless other moments.

Jungkook sits on Tae's legs? He was trying to grab his dick under his shorts!

But JK pats Hobi or Namjoon on the butt? Or feeds Jin? And the shippers of those pairings pump out dozens of explicit fics or fanart? Nobody cares about that.

It's only Jikook that elicits that reaction. I suppose when confronted with the one relationship that has the highest and most realistic chance of being true that's how they choose to go about it. The irony is that by doing so and treating it the way they do, they only manage to validate and offer it a different status from all the others. They don't feel threatened by any other ship or their intimate moments.

It's truly never-ending cycle. People are mad they don't get content and then create false narratives about imaginary moments being maliciously hidden away by bighit in order to pander to jikookers. And then when they do get content and it's never what they want, they get mad and do the same thing. And so on and on it goes. And therein lies the fundamental difference in how these 2 groups. Jikook has a lot of moments, sometimes really ridiculous amounts. To this day some of it and their actions still baffle me to the highest degree. But its there for all to see, presented by bighit with the (at least for arguments sake) presumed permission of the boys and constantly referenced by them. Tkk does not have the same pool to pick from, a constant source of much anger and frustration from their side. Not to be misunderstood, they have always had lovely interactions and they care enormously about each other, but as said with their own mouths in official content, it's a relationship that has changed over the years, as they've grown. They did such a brave and frankly humbling thing by letting us in on that and to witness at least a small portion of them coming back to each other, but the fact remains that this only further proves that dynamics (between all of them most likely) have changed with time. As is normal, given that it does not mean they love each other any less or that they've changed in a negative way. We've recently seen a surge in such lovely interactions from them, most likely following the heart to heart they had during " in the soop" and I couldn't be more glad for it. Yet even this is not enough for some people.

But I believe I've rambled in more than frankly needed, so I think I'll leave this off here, to not risk talking in circles.

Safe to say, there are unfortunate precedents being created and enforced and it breaks my heart to see the members being so blatantly dehumanised and disregarded in everything they say and do. Such a big part of the fandom nowadays keeps demanding more and more while not even listening to their words and believing them anymore, instead heeding the words and posts of said big accounts. Sometimes I do indeed wonder who they actually stan, BTS or these accounts? And as they keep getting bigger, so do these accounts and the unfortunate ramifications of their problematic behaviour.

In the end, the fact remains that if we are to take bighit at face value, it means that certain members have more content because they really do spend that much time together. Buy 1 get 1 free pretty much. It is what is, but certain groups are utterly incapable and frankly don't even want to take reality as is. And that level of delusion (that is being constantly validated and enforced and strengthened with numbers) is a very difficult thing to oppose, much less turn around at this point.

I'm sorry once again for the long and somewhat off topic addition, but twitter does not lend itself to such discussion and I suppose it all came spilling out. 😳

Why do you think Jikook doesn't trends? Tk cuddling? Trending. Tkkrs expect for a subunit? Trending. Jk released Still with you? Tk is trending. Tk breathed next to each other? Trending. but jikook on the other hand,never trends. Even when the spooning photo was released which made even non-shippers coo over it, didn't trend. The only time I remember jikook trending was when they made gimbap vlive.

Hmmm they don’t trend? I didn’t realize. However I think TK is a louder (maybe larger) ship. It also is a default ship for many newer army. They get schooled by various accounts that TK is THE main ship.

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goldteethonice · 5 years ago

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Hi! I've been an army since 2015 and started out here on tumblr, but I've steadily migrated over to twitter since last year, so I thought I might share my observations on the topic.

I think a big part of why Jikook does not trend is also the fact that big accounts literally don't post Jikook moments and sometimes they are deliberately (and very quickly) buried with complaints/other shipping posts and people actively trending other tags.

If peaches wasn't active on twitter, most people wouldn't have access to a very, very big portion of their moments from various content, because other accounts ignore them. (And here I am talking about both new and old fans. There's so much that comes out only in paid content like Memories, that not everyone has access to. And there's a regrettably big amount of fans, both new and somewhat old, that rely on these accounts for content. They do not watch the actual content themselves from beginning to end. So if big accounts don't post these moments, they don't exist for most fans.)

This is why most people do not get exposed to their interactions, unless they deliberately go and search for it. Which sadly most often does not happen with new fans, especially given the overwhelming amount of content BTS now has.

Also, not to generalise, but most other ships do not get the overwhelming amount of hate Jikook get. And certainly not as aggressively as they do.

For example, even a short while after the concert today, there was already hate directed at the simple fact that people were gushing over Jungkook going over to Jimin to comfort him. People love, love throwing around the accusation that Jikook shippers/supporters sexualise the fuck out of even the most innocent of interactions, even when it is most decidedly untrue. Even when it was such an emotional moment and people were most definitely not making any other sort of comments. Meanwhile, other shippers go on the accounts of people that work with the boys and leave a wall of messages asking them if their ship is true, or write the one openly gay idol and ask him to out other queer people in the industry. But those problems never receive much traction within the general fandom, whilst even very mild Jikook "issues" get front stage.

No group of shippers is exempt from such toxic behaviours, but whilst the other ones are left alone and only mildly reproached, jikookers get policed for even the smallest things. By the entire rest of the fandom and even by other jikookers when it comes to certain topics.

So this keeps most people pretty low-key, out of the simple desire to not be dragged into drama. Also, as keeperofthetinyarmy said above, this also leads to people being exposed to very specific things when they get into the fandom. Given how a majority of big accounts are very much opposed to posting Jikook related content, I think it's not hard to assume which content I'm talking about. Combine this with the stigma that people attach to them and the very concerning amount of big blogs that have very large following that literally worship these fan accounts...yeah, Jikook does not trend as often.

#Jikook #Jimin #Jungkook

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goldteethonice · 5 years ago

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Hello! I'm sorry for jumping into the discussion, but I saw the few asks you've been receiving in regards to the BTS and Jim J*nes discussion and I wanted to maybe provide some more information/perspectives on the whole situation.

I completely understand if you don't want to further involve yourself in this or speak on it and it’s in no way meant to encourage that! I don’t want to start a debate or anything of that sort or speak for anyone, but I would like to respectfully insist that the donations coming from BTS and their fans were not in the slightest just performative or intended as anything other than genuine support for black people and the recent protests.

People will unfortunately be people and there will always be pockets in any fandom that will use any and all opportunities to make it about their faves, completely disregarding the more important issues. That being said, that minority does not reflect the greater fandom and I would hate for anyone to make it appear so, especially in times like these. Their fans matched their 1 mil donation in 24h in the hopes of carrying forward what BTS had already done and that is to support black people in the ways that they best felt able to, in this case by supporting organizations at the forefront of the movement. It was most certainly not just for bragging rights, as many people love to claim. BTS donated in secret and they would have kept it that way, had the BLM organization not made it public.

Before their donation was made public, people outside (and regrettably inside) of the fandom started spreading massive hate against them online for not speaking up about the issue, including but not limited to calling them racists and cowards and all manner of other things and putting them up for comparison against other celebrities (Korean and non-korean) who showed some type of public support (be that even minimal) for BLM during this time. That disappeared and those very vocal people shut up very quickly once their donation was made public.

Naturally, you should please take this information with a grain of salt given that I am part of the fandom myself and look into the situation yourself for a more objective view, should you wish. But this is very much not the first time people (whether they be anti-fans, fans of other groups or merely people looking to create scandals) use and hijack social/political matters (that should absolutely not be pushed to the back or used for such things) to harp on BTS and spread misinformation and hate only to be proven wrong and then go silent. All of that instead contributing in some meaningful way themselves, no matter how small.

To the topic the anon mentioned, namely the Jim J*nes sample used, I’d like to leave a few links below that offer some interesting perspectives and discussion points:

From this twitter user that goes into the historical and ideological side of the situation: https://twitter.com/gmcantave1/status/1268452857654763521 (thread breaks off) + (cont.) https://twitter.com/gmcantave1/status/1268453889528995840

And from the perspective of a person that has been heavily in the hip-hop culture/music side of the industry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFl1kqPlJKE&feature=youtu.be

This is NOT intended to invalidate or dispute what anyone might feel or think in regards to the Jim J*nes issue, merely to showcase other points of view that come with a factual breakdown and personal experience regarding the topic at hand. Everyone is indisputably entitled to their opinion, and there are far more important matters going on in the world, but I would hate to see misinformation of this sort about BTS and their fans’ intentions be passed on without any factual backing, especially when it’s going directly against the things they try to promote and give forward.

Once again, I am very sorry for just jumping in, so if you would like me to delete this, please let me know and I will do so immediately.

It’s just sad to repeatedly see this sort of misinformation being spread around.

Non-black army's basically used that one black fan's statement (as they always do with a black fan that defends bts when they do questionable things) to fight back at black armys saying that they should stop bringing yoongi down and that they were just haters and that they weren't fans of African Americans, just BTS (yes someone tweeted that). So the whole donation thing was sweet of them to do, but armys only used it to brag about how great their faves were, not caring about black people. 2/2

#bts #bangtan #yoongi

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