#sorrynotsorry that my curiosity and awe of BTS hit me like a rock first

[emveepea]

Okay, so I have finally sat down to write this essay for you all explaining exactly how I became an ARMY.

So I started a new job in the Great State of Louisiana earlier this year (I’m originally from Mississippi), and for a good portion of the summer, I had mostly desk work to do, the kind of monotonous work where you can sit and listen to music or podcasts. I had found the podcast of Simon and Martina, who I’ve been a long time fan of their youtube channel of the same name, Eat Your Kimchi. Somehow over the past 3 to 4 years of watching their channel, I had not really delved into kpop, even though their mostly food-based channel focused specifically on kpop or the kpop industry. Long story short, I downloaded the app (SBSPopAsia) to listen to their podcasts, during which they have kpop music breaks, and after quickly running through all their podcasts, I finally just started listening to the 24/7 radio stream of kpop.

Now my journey to finding BTS and becoming an ARMY is a little more involved. After about a week of listening to the SBS PopAsia app, I noticed I kept seeing BTS and a thought kept nagging me, was this the group that Simon and Martina were really big fans of called “Batoost”? In one of their podcasts, they discussed how the group changed its name from “Batoost” (the pronunciation of B2ST) to Beast and then to Highlight when one of the members left and the group signed with another company.

So to answer this pestering question of mine, I obviously had to look up BTS.

No, they were not “Batoost.” 

They are Bangtan Sonyeondan, aka Bulletproof Boy Scouts, aka Bangtan Boys, and (more recently) aka Beyond The Scene.

And here’s where the magic happened.

Once I saw pictures of the members, I remembered that I had seen a music video of theirs already. Their music video “Dope” was featured in one of those “YouTubers React to Kpop” videos I had seen last summer (how did I not get into kpop or BTS last year from this video, literally hooooooow).

So I went back and watched that video. 

And then I found out there was a “YouTubers React to Kpop” video that focused just on BTS.

So I naturally had to watch it, too.

And thus, my obsession began.

Because I couldn’t just watch their music videos and enjoy the on-point choreography and addicting music, I had to find out who the members were. And I had to see if I could recognize who each of the members were in each music video I watched. There initial “No More Dream” video kinda helped start this obsession because it literally introduced each of the members with big block letters spelling out each members’ names above their faces.

So I learned their names. Then I had to learn their faces.

And so here I am almost three months later after my BTS obsession started (est. July 13th, 2017), and I’m still just so continuously impressed and awed by this amazing group of humans. And y’all, I’m still kind of in shock about how I feel. I’m 26 years old. I never expected to feel this way about a music group, much less one from a country I haven’t visited yet. Even though I grew up during the 90’s boy band craze, I’ve never really understood what that feeling was like until now. I grew up in the American South with country music and church hymns. I hardly ever heard pop music unless it was played at a school dance. I wasn’t allowed to listen to rock music until high school. And then I got into Jrock (hahaha) because of my love of anime, but I never really gave a second thought about the singers and songwriters and musicians of any music I’ve ever listened to.

BTS is like a breath of fresh air in my otherwise monotone music life.

I have so much more appreciation for singers and songwriters and music performers than I did before, and as crazy as it sounds, they’re inspiring me and they’ve changed my life in so many ways I hadn’t anticipated. The stories and emotions they tell in their songs about the hardships of young people’s lives and of the hope and love they share is so moving and inspiring. And I am living for this new era of Love Yourself (especially the song DNA, which is my personal theme song). They are the living embodiment of Bulletproof Boy Scouts: they fight for and protect the hopes and dreams and voices of young people around the world.

I see comments all the time about how fellow new ARMY’s wish they’d found BTS sooner, and I empathize with that. I also think I’m so happy I found them when I did because they’re songs and hard work have inspired me so much to work hard and become a more hopeful and happy person. As Jin says, the more youthful you act the more youthful you feel and look, and I also feel more youthful after watching them goof off in their youtube and vlive videos XD

Btw, I gotta put it out there that I don’t have a bias and I don’t ship any members because not only do I not want to ship real people, I’m married and demisexual and don’t look at any of the members with a romantic view. Because I’m older than all of the members, I view them as my precious children that I must protecc <3

And I am all about the memes yall make, cause let’s be honest, BTS is such a meme. Yall’s memes are so funny and show the down-to-earth and playful nature of the boys so well, keep up the awesome work <3