Fandom Blog

Who are BTS?

    BTS is a seven member Korean pop band better known as K-pop. The members consist of RM, Seokjin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook. They debuted on June 13, 2013 and has been continuously growing in a global phenomenon. However, BTS were not famous right from the start. It took them two years after their debut for people to recognize their talent. BTS has performed in many famous American award shows like Grammy Awards, American Music Awards and Billboard Music Awards. So far BTS has won various awards from Billboard, American Music Awards and much more and their newest song Butter is currently nominated for a Grammy award. 

Fanclubs

    One behavior of fan participation is joining their official fanclub. People who join the fanclub have special perks like hand-written birthday notes from BTS and early access tickets to their concerts (Wade, 2020). It costs about $22 for the regular army membership and $150 for the army membership:merch pack. Every k-pop group has a nickname for their fans and BTS fans are called armys. The regular army membership provides benefits like discounts when purchasing BTS merchandise, opportunity to pre-book their concerts, opportunity to apply for or participate in online and offline BTS events and much more. The merch pack contains all of the benefits listed in the regular membership plus 4 special products reserved only for merch pack holders that is sent out every year. 

Buying Merch

Examples of BTS merch
Merch is short for merchandise. Some examples of merch include albums, jewelry, clothing, bags, posters and literally anything that is related to BTS. There are many k-pop stores that sell BTS merch all across the world. 





Fanfics
Reading fanfics and creating fanfics is an example of fan participation. Fanfics are fictional stories about real people written by fans. Some popular ones can be found on wattpad. https://www.wattpad.com/stories/btsfanfic. These fanfics have accumulated over hundreds of thousands of views and even over a million views. 

Concerts and lightsticks
    Going to concerts is one the main ways fans show support and love for their idols. BTS has announced their first world tour two years after the start of the pandemic. Their first concert is in California at the SoFi Stadium which holds a capacity of 70,000 people. It is a 4 night concert on November 27-28 and December 1-2. Pre-sale of the tickets opened on October 9 this year and it was sold out instantly (Chiu, 2021). Some people were buying a bunch of tickets and trying to sell them to others at a ridiculous price. Some were priced in the thousands and even tens of thousands. 
Concert ticket being sold for $31,003
    Lightsticks are one of the main things you would see at a k-pop concert. A BTS lightstick is called an army bomb which is literally shaped like a bomb. It has many different colors and every fan would bring it to concerts. 
army bomb
Armys holding their army bombs at a BTS concert

Why BTS are so loved

BTS has been and will continue to be a inspiration for many people. Whether it's through their music or BTS themselves. They are humble and down to earth people. They are also very caring and socially aware of what is going on. They have partnered with Unicef back in 2018 with the Love Myself Campaign that has raised over $1 million. BTS has also been on TIME 100: Most Influential People of 2020. 
BTS speech at the United Nations 




References
Wade, B. (2020, October 11). How did the BTS ARMY get their name? The secrets     of the fanbase. Filmdaily. https://filmdaily.co/music/bts-army-history/

Chiu, F. (@021, October 11). BTS SoFi Stadium Concerts Sold Out In Pre-sale;        AMRY Expresses Disdain On Twitter.                  Republicworld. https://www.republicworld.com/entertainment-news/music/bts-sofi-stadium-concert-tickets-sold-out-in-pre-sale-army-expresses-disdain-on-twitter.html


 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jordan Rivers - The Natural Grouch Face

Image
Jordan Rivers The Natural Grouch Face     My father seems like a very stern man, but he truly is kind. Every time I see him, his face is stiff and looks almost as if he's glaring all the time. When near him, it's almost as if the wind near him gets colder and colder. Even so, behind that cold and strong look is a caring, kind, and a sarcastic joker.      On a warm, calm day during spring, my father and I decided to go to the mall to get me some more clothes. I look over at him and see him with his usual stiff, stern, annoyed face.     "Yo, Dad?" I asked hesitantly. "You good?" I've been with him since morning and I have not seen anything that would have made him upset.     "Yeah, Scrap, I'm chilling." He replies. "Want me to start yelling to make you feel better?" He says jokingly. I knew he wasn't lying since he used my nickname. He usually says my actual name when he's bothered.       He's the type of person that cha...
Read more

The Star Wars Fandom

Image
The Star Wars Fandom      Star Wars is perhaps one of the most popular and successful franchises of all time. Even if someone doesn't know much about Star Wars, the name is still recognizable and exposure to some sort of Star Wars media is almost inevitable. The Star Wars franchise is a collection of movies, TV shows (Figure 1), comics, and videogames that all take place in a galaxy far, far away and tells a connected story over a long period of time. The main storyline is referred to as the Skywalker Saga, stretching through nine movies in order from episodes one to nine, telling the tales and struggles of the force wielding Jedi, Sith, and Skywalker family. It's popularity exploded in 1977 when the first ever Star Wars film, A New Hope, debuted in theatres and kickstarted the Skywalker Saga. Despite the initial low expectations and many issues while filming, A New Hope ended up being one of the most successful movie releases to date. As more Star Wars movies and shows...
Read more

Miley Cyrus Fandom

Image
The Smilers Figure 1: Miley from a recent photoshoot   I have been a fan of Miley Cyrus ever since I was very young. I remember feeling a rush of pure excitement whenever watching her TV show, Hannah Montana. Later on in life, after her show TV ended, I found myself continuing to love everything that she did, whether it was music or starring in a movie. Over the years, not only has she become my all time favorite artist but someone that I admire and look up to. Miley Cyrus  started to gain a fanbase when she was very young.  She played as Hannah Montana /Miley Stewart in a popular TV show called Hannah Montana. According to Wikipedia,  Hannah Montana first aired in March of 2006 and received 5.4 million viewers (2021).This show was watched by many young people and she quickly gained a fanbase as Hannah Montana. Later, beyond the show, she began to release music as herself, Miley Cyrus. This is when she gained her fanbase called the Smilers. Her fanbase...
Read more