Let’s set the stage: January 10th, 2020. I’m in my high school history class, watching the clock. 9:59 AM hits, and my hand rockets up, asking for the bathroom pass. By the grace of some higher power, I’ve done it: I’ve beat out the other BTS fan in the room for the coveted 10 AM bathroom break slot so that I can watch the release of Suga’s “Interlude: Shadow” music video.
For BTS fans (known affectionately as ARMY), streaming music is an exact art. I remember following Twitter fan accounts that would research, test, and outline different strategies for streaming, then post to thousands of interactions. For YouTube music videos, the routine was to watch immediately upon release (then cry, rewatch once, cry, rewatch twice), then click out of the app, open several devices on multiple accounts, rewatch, like, and comment on all accounts, create a streaming playlist with other videos mixed in, and then loop said playlist. Rinse, repeat. The routine for Spotify was equally as complex. Being a fan of BTS was a full-time job for me and countless other ARMY.
While it’s common knowledge that streaming your favorite artist’s music will help them, ARMY was nearly militaristic. In fact, there was controversy in 2020 when nigh on 83 million views for the “ON” video, YouTube deleted 35 million views. This was seen as a massive blow within the community, and many fans derided the platform for its actions. But why the obsession with statistics?
In the early days of BTS gaining popularity overseas, American stations played strong blocks against them on the radio. The stations argued that no American audience would listen to a radio station if the song wasn’t in English. Some stations would even promise to play BTS once if they gained a certain amount of interaction from ARMY, then wouldn’t follow through. The VMAs saw similar criticism for creating the “Best K-Pop” category in 2019, which was viewed as a way to further segregate Korean artists from winning the larger awards, as pure numbers put many K-pop groups beyond the “regular” nominees.
Although BTS was rocketing to success and breaking records left and right, this was not reflected in radio plays. Though more people are switching to streaming services, radio still represents the music industry at large. Despite BTS’s accomplishments, the American scene wouldn’t budge. Displeased, ARMY took things into their own hands. From their perspective, ARMY would prove that even if stations wouldn’t play them, BTS would still see massive statistical success and render the radio’s opinion irrelevant. Hence the intense mobilization of streaming.
Eventually, BTS released more English music, resulting in radio features. Jungkook released his album “Golden” in English and has been heard on air throughout the year. Compare this to Jhope, whose second album “Jack In the Box” featured him rapping and singing in Korean. He has decidedly not been played on American radio despite headlining Lollapalooza 2022. This is not to pit any members against each other or to criticize them for what language they sing in. This is, however, a critique of America’s xenophobic desire to gatekeep pop culture from anyone who doesn’t adhere to its rules and of how capitalism’s fear of deviation and profit loss leads to a culture that refuses space for non-English speaking artists to flourish.
Anybody is free to dislike a fanbase’s obsession with numbers, but they should consider that the idea was that numbers meant success, and success meant acceptance. Whether this proved true is debatable, but it certainly shows a loyalty and perseverance that so many non-English speaking artists are forced to utilize when trying to break into the American music scene. So much for the great melting pot of American culture.
That’s Fan Behavior is a biweekly series. Come back on Fridays for more!