When lockdown protocols officially began last March, everyone thought the shitstorm of protocols would revert back to normal after a few months, which garnered everyone unprepared and expectant of things to be of normalcy again in no time.
This included me, who thought that a short excursion to my parents’ house was only necessary for weeks, leaving behind some clothes at my place in the city proper near the office. And so I went home with only three bags carrying some essentials. Four months later I’ll find myself coming back to my place to carry out the rest of my things, eight bags all in all including some books and pillows and stupid trinkets that I ended up throwing away. I also ended up giving up the place.
Having just quit my job last October, everything seems too bleak and unsure, but I felt rested, at ease and satisfied. It was the rest I very much needed (and deserved) after the mental torture I experienced in my last job. I bought a guitar, studied a little French, wrote a few essays here and there, and took my journaling seriously. On top of that, I was reading four to five books a week.
But between all the mess and the incompetence of the government so blatantly shitting on the country it’s beginning to feel normal, I found myself a safe place I can call my own. Or maybe millions of other fans’ safe place.
Recently I’ve decided to start where I left off back in 2016, just to see how it would make me feel, how their music would push a button in me, or not. It wasn’t really something meaningful per se, but kind of momentous because I have varying interests that grew when the lockdowns began. Apart from reading numerous books, I became passionate about coffee blends, writing on my journal thrice a day, and watching animated adult cartoons on Netflix. (Midnight Gospel is a good one.) I’ve also grown more resentful and angry towards our government if it’s a surprise.
I started off with some “funny moments” videos on YouTube; some I’ve known from the heart since my early college years, some I missed during the four years that passed. It was a rabbit hole from then on; I mindlessly slid down, and a different opinion was already resonating as I rolled off. The feeling was more than just a favorable squeal and excitement; it now resembles a moment of remembrance of a time when everything was falling apart, and yet I am building a new world for myself.
With their recent Grammy nomination, the prizing fondness just grows, the admiration broadens. I am but a small blip in their radar and yet I am a big person within my own universe where their presence is just as domestic as mine as if they are next-door neighbors.
I can list numerous situations where I’ll find myself questioning the daily shit I do—from my job, my hobbies, to my everyday choices, if I should still go on—only to circle back to the Spotify playlist containing their full discography. It grows on you, harshly knocking on the temples of your head, reminding you that you can feel shitty and ugly but still deserving of all the good in the world. They literally taught me how to breathe and accept myself, flaws and misgivings included. This all happened within a month; it was a healing experience.
I refuse to sound deep and high-commanding of the English language anymore, but BTS gives me that feeling of fulfilment every day like I always have something to look forward to, something to get me through the day. Speaking these words at 23 is like going on a time machine: like getting ready for a long yet necessary drive back home to your childhood home after long, draining periods of exams. Packing your stuff after a draining week at the city to come home to home-cooked meals.
Many still question their influence to this day, still finding it absurd that a non-English speaking group from a (relatively) small Asian country headlines the industry with their music. But I come to the discussion as defensive as any fan can be: it’s that they refuse to differ themselves from their fans, those who are below them. It’s because they never release an album without a track criticizing societal maladies. It’s because they never shy away from self-awareness, of the fact that they are also just human, and that being an idol comes second only to inevitable feelings of human dissatisfaction, disappointment, and fear.
I feel closest to this album (next to their HYYH era ones) because it resembles so much of Carl Jung’s theory of the multiple selves, where my 2018 undergraduate thesis mostly revolved in. I chose this understudy because 2018 was the year I really struggled mentally about who I was and what I wanted to build myself. Fast forward to 2020, this record harkens me back to that year when I unpacked so much of myself to fit the mold of a job that doesn't fit me. It comes at a time when everyone is lost, with working and studying conditions drastically changed, leaving everyone confused, tired, and literally broke. The record may serve as a gospel for those re-figuring out themselves in a limited world.
These are just surface-level reasons that endear them to me. I never knew this journey would go beyond finding out their birthdays and where they grew up.
Maybe because I saturated myself with too many posts and videos of them crying onstage over their fanbase, thanking them with such sincerity that one of them even got “ARMY” tattooed on his knuckles. It’s like an ode to how they are always down to throw fists for their fans whom I feel they sincerely care about, with every “ARMY, we did it!” remark every time they win an award. I wasn’t around much with them when they slowly became the biggest group in the world, but I’ll always circle back to when Jungkook and Hoseok hoped that they’ll become the group fans will always be proud of, even when they’re long gone, without any ounce of shame.
Growing up we were taught that young girls loving boy bands and other “girly” quirks and expending time for it is a stupid, childish, even grotesquely obsessive trait to be decent enough to be acceptable to the dominantly male-gazed society. The internet raised us to view this fixation as a “girls’ world,” something untouchable and embarrassing to think of like it’s something taboo to discuss. But when girls like music from rock bands whose members play instruments and don’t dance with cloyingly sweet moves and pomp, bubblegum beats, it’s real, serious and of immaculate taste. What even is having “good taste in music” anymore, anyway?
Whoever decided that two things are under different spectrums? What is so icky about young girls liking these types of things?
There may have been some shame that grew when I refused to dabble in their music mid-college. I was barely 19 and was put under the impression by everyone that I only like The Strokes, Wolf Alice, obscure arthouse films and hard-to-find pulp fiction copies of books from Booksale Cubao. Liking something from “mainstream” artist, let alone from the K-Pop genre, I thought, would somehow stain my indie credibility (I feel gross typing this) and my place in everybody’s expectations. This year I still question this (shallow) identity crisis I had; how can you even measure someone’s love for something when you are just looking from the outside?
Now with more than a month’s worth of time dedicated to extensively bathing myself with their material—Run BTS episodes, V-live streams, live shows, BangtanTV vlogs, and even fan compilations of their funniest moments—I pride myself with the identity as part of the biggest, kindest, even the most chaotic fanbase there could be. I think it's safe to say that I am lucky enough to be alive in the same millenium as BTS are, at such a monumental time for music that taught me so much about community.
While writing this, I am undeniably still haunted by the choices I have been making lately, career-wise and self-wise. But I’ll never fail to remind myself that I’m one and the same with BTS, not far off to where I am and where they are: human, and also experiencing the same human emotions I go through in my 20s. In their Dear Class of 2020 Commencement Speech, I am reminded that it’s okay to slow down, to take a break, and thank yourself for the road you chose to take, despite the uncertainty that’s manifested along the way. 2020 is a very strange and violent and lonely year, but they refused to treat it with full positivity and fake motivation. Instead, they saw it as an opportunity to remind their fans to sit with their heartbreaks, their misgivings, and move along with the difficulty.
I can’t count the times I sat on my table while staring at my workload while listening to 2! 3! and remembering its poignant lyrics telling me that it’s going to be okay. Coincidentally, this song also played when I sent out my resignation notice (second time this year) to my very difficult boss. I know there's a stark difference between me and the boys and how they actualized their dreams, but knowing how Yoongi left his hometown with no money to pursue a career in music without a single ounce of support from his parents grounds me.
As a 23-year-old, it would be presumptious of me to ask for emotional guidance from my parents but I am currently lacking in that department. I long to hear them tell me that they are proud of me, that I am alright. So far all I'm getting is the constant "be grateful" spiels because I am "taken care of" by a company they think I'm still working for (I quit almost two months ago). Nobody here knows that I've resigned twice in a month already. BTS doesn't know that as well but, with each member talking about their struggles, is already comforting. Encouraging, even.
This is the BTS I came to love and know years ago. Apart from them criticizing those who reign on the struggles of the youth and their commodification, they are here to present themselves as companions who share the same frustrations. It's like we're all in the same universe with similar growing pains. Buying their merchandise means I have something to show my future children, to tell them of a time when their mother was going through multiple heartbreaks at once, that then turned to emptiness and then sudden redemption. And as a million times cheesy this will sound, but as powerful yet calming it is, they were successful in teaching so many people to love themselves.
With their recent release titled "BE," the band emphasized its goal to promote "healing" and taking things slow in a time where everything both fast-paced and stuck in one place. No one really knows when this pandemic ends and how we'll get out of this alive (or sane, at least). This is their first record without politically-driven songs, which is perfect because it somehow represents a generation screaming to the void how everyone is so fucking tired. Somehow "Life Goes On" and "Blue & Grey" gives you that extra boost of motivation to get up, send an e-mail, run some errands, finish a sentence.
To say the least, BTS gave me that small push in the back, that hopeful elbow nudge telling me to "hey, you're still yourself." There are so many layers to explain how much I love BTS after years of forgetting about them, but the exact sentiment goes like this: You find BTS when you need them the most.
