Loving BTS is looking ahead to its next 10 yrs

Despite a sensational debut and many awards for the best rookie group in their first year in 2013, BTS didn’t have a smooth rise to the top.

Last month, the Korean pop sensation, BTS, completed 10 years of their journey. In celebration, the band released Take Two, where the silver-voiced Kim Seok-jin asks us to take their hands as they walk into the next chapter of their story. This was an emotional moment shared by millions of BTS fans across the world, including brand newARMYs – as the fans are called – in India that have mushroomed over the last few years in small towns and big cities, and readily adapted to the structure and unity that has been a part of this fandom from the earliest days.

BTS members completed to years since their debut in June 2013.

Despite a sensational debut and many awards for the best rookie group in their first year in 2013, BTS didn’t have a smooth rise to the top. Created by a tiny company called Big Hit, they had neither the resources nor the industry connections required to climb the ladders of success. Every record they broke brought allegations of chart manipulation or plagiarism. It was as if the South Korean music scene was aghast that a small group from a little-known company dared to make their mark. When BTS couldn’t break the deadlock of the South Korean music and broadcast companies, they decided to break with tradition and connect with fans directly. The incredible reach and brand awareness of this group started with short vlogs and clips from their practice sessions posted regularly on YouTube and Twitter at a time when no other K-pop group was doing so. This later expanded to documentaries, reality shows, and travel shows where they gave us a glimpse into their fears, their determination, and their conviction. The still-fledgling ARMYs understood the mission well and created resources for anyone entering fandom for the first time. You could start with one highly stylised music video and find yourself watching their self-produced mix tapes with intense fascination within days, and ARMYs were there to explain every connection and reference to rookie fans.

In 2015, KBS World sent five K-pop artistes to India for a variety show called Exciting India. The young men walked around the streets of India, waiting for someone to recognise them. Deep in my own corner of K-dramas back then, I remember reading about this show and looking up a few episodes. I had no idea how popular EXO’s Su-ho or SHINee’s Min-ho were at the time, but I was mesmerised by the concept. Yet, until 2019, India didn’t appear to be on the radar of any K-pop group tours, let alone BTS. And then, in an interview with Spotify, the Bangtan Boys disclosed that India was on their list of stops for the Map of the Soul tour in 2020.

This year-long tour was cancelled as the world went into lockdown, but it ignited Indian ARMYs, who, by the sheer dint of their numbers, helped BTS maintain its streaming hegemony. And earlier this year, Big Hit figured out how to tap into the Indian market. They released the movie version of BTS’s Busan concert, Yet To Come, in almost every country around the world, including in India. And for the first time, a BTS ARMY in this country could walk into a theatre in any major city and get something close to the concert experience curated just for them.

As the Bangtan Boys wrap up their individual releases in 2023 and join Jin and J-hope in the military one by one, ARMYs new and old, in India and abroad, hold on to the incredible gift of the art they’ve created for us. While we wait for them to finish their duty to their country and come back, we can continue to enjoy their music, laugh at Jin’s ridiculous dad jokes, feel moved by Namjoon’s poetry, and be invigorated by Suga’s rage at the system. Their friendship, their creativity, their immense trust in each other and the fandom that has supported them have created a living legacy anyone would be proud of. And now, we wait for chapter 2.

Paroma Chakravarty is a Korean culture critic based in Kolkata. The views expressed are personal.