BIGHIT MUSIC has recently announced BTS plans to move forward in their military service. Let's look into how the press interprets the fandom reaction and how this has evolved.
The culmination of my upcoming six-year anniversary as a BTS ARMY and the recent announcement confirming that BTS will start their military service soon to finish by 2025 made me realize something as a researcher. As a fan, I have feelings—it's a given, but as a researcher I look at what's trending on Twitter and see what the fans are saying versus what the news outlets are saying.
As I mentioned, I have been a fan for six years and in that time, I've made some observations on how BTS and BTS ARMY are portrayed by journalists. Journalists are influential figures because everyone relies on the media for reliable information; however, it is not that simple in the age of the internet where misinformation and disinformation can become easily inflated. While entertainment news is seen as soft news and can be sensationalized, BTS news is not to be taken lightly.
What do I mean by this? For starters, BTS has an ARMY that will be more than happy to advocate for the group when the situation calls for it. And there have been numerous occasions where the situation has called for action. Situations that cause fans to speak out include, but are not limited to clout-chasers, xenophobic remarks and actions, false rumors, and on the lighter end of the spectrum are journalists who fail to do their due diligence by understanding the contexts of BTS and BTS ARMY.
I've seen it all and at this very moment, I regret not keeping a running list, but that's what research is for; it's for investigating that hypothesis or thesis that's going to sit there until you're ready. As far as my preliminary observations go, I have noticed that as BTS rises in popularity and more news outlets are forced to take notice, it means they must also take notice of BTS ARMY because BTS and their fans go hand-in-hand.
A celebrity cannot be one without fans and fans cannot be fans without a celebrity, but with BTS, the emotional connection runs deeper. After the BTS military service announcement broke, fans showed their support by trending #foreverwithBTS, #weloveyouBTS, and 'BTS we will wait for you.' More often than not, fans remain loyal to BTS and have known military service would happen eventually.
Despite the incredible fan loyalty, there are some journalists that try to find what they believe is the expected 'fangirl' reaction. But steadily, more journalism has taken BTS ARMY serious, especially in the music world. Billboard and Rolling Stone show the honest fan reaction and include a range of the overwhelming supportive reactions. Early on in my BTS research, I worked to better understand the stigma against fangirls. It's interesting to see journalism taking BTS ARMY a bit more seriously year after year.
There is still a long way to go. Over the summer, a similar instance to the military announcement occurred when BTS announced their hiatus after the release of the group's anthology album "Proof" in June 2022. Once I started my Master's program in July and was presented with a case study assignment to investigate a recent PR crisis, I knew I had to further investigate the reactions to the mistranslation. The misunderstanding was further purported by the western understanding of a band 'hiatus' to mean a band 'break-up'. While early pieces of journalism that wanted to break the story sought fan overreactions, most pieces were on the day after and included the supportive-themed hashtags from fans.
One day, when time allows, I'd like to collect an array of news reports on BTS ARMY and ARMY Twitter hashtag data to see if I could pinpoint if the disconnect between journalism and fandom communications has gradually bridged. Only time will tell and I might have until 2025 to get it together, but knowing BTS ARMY (and myself) there will never be a lull in BTS content.
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