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class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX dZhWBL bric SplScreenContentHearRubric-cLHEJQ ildzkT"><a class="RubricLk-gRWSOU fgWnkQ briclk" href="/culture/culture-sk"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Culture Dk</span></a></div></div><h1 data-ttid="ContentHearHed" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SplScreenContentHearHed-lcUSuI iUEiRd NbxED dfelga">How BTS Beme One of the Most Popular Bands History</h1><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SplScreenContentHearDek-emptdL iUEiRd wOnsu dJrDEb">In an age of spair and divisn, a boy band om South Korea remixed the l of pop and created a fandom bigger than Beatlemania.</div><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl SplScreenContentHearByle-kvEhqE ejWxsm"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH bwbwth byle bylbyle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn lOLCm bylename"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ 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Tammy Kim</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2022-06-21T06:00:00-04:00" class="SplScreenContentHearPublishDate-bMGEVk gvRvVr">June 21, 2022</time><div class="SocialInsWrapper-hKMEXV ffgPVr social-ins social-ins--standard SplScreenContentHearSocialShare-gSVclr kUKgnn"><ul data-ttid="socialInslist" class="SocialInsList-cHVTIA ivmblD social-inslist"><li class="SocialInsListItem-mbhR hHoUCw social-inslist-em social-inslist-em--facebook social-inslist-em--standard thner"><a aria-label="Share on Facebook" class="external-lk SocialInExternalLk-huuzOU cLGRzS social-inslk social-inslk--facebook" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><div class="SocialInContaer-huXzUC pMzVC social-insin-ntaer"><svg class="SocialInNetworkInComponent-cZaKGz dlOAhZ in in-facebook" focable="false" width="7.2" height="16" viewBox="0 0 7.2 16" xmlns="><tle>Facebook</tle><path d="M1.548 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class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg">I’ve long been hant to wre about BTS. When reportg on South Korea, I risted the expected topics: Korean sk re, plastic surgery, dogmeat, and, y, <a href=">K-pop</a>. I absorbed Wtern criqu of K-pop’s girl and boy bands: that they’re fluffy, manufactured, and exploative of their members—as if the same weren’t te of New Kids on the Block. But, earlier this year, BTS beme pable. The group was everywhere, and everyone seemed to be to them. To ntue ignorg the BTS phenomenon was to risk missg somethg bigger than Beatlemania.</p><p class="paywall">I first glimpsed the swell of <em>hallyu</em>, the Korean wave, a ago. In the wter of 2012, I was wrg a story about Lata day laborers Brooklyn who cleaned Hasidic hom before the Sabbath—when women’s work accumulated to the pot where outsourcg beme necsary. I had heard that many employers paid low wag or didn’t pay at all; some workers reported verbal abe and sexual harassment. Standg among the women on a street rner a black puffy at, I tried to make nversatn my terrible Spanish. One morng, a worker approached me and asked, apropos of nothg, if I was Korean—not “Che or Japane?” This precisn was new. When I said y, she beamed. “My dghter—she lov Korea,” she said. “She lov K-pop.”</p><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn cBtRxy llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><div class="ExternalLkEmbedWrapper-hNDkqw cDXXLC" data-ttid="external-lk-embed--le"><div class="ExternalLkEmbedText-glBTSy gRKpCf"><a aria-label="<strong>Behd the Story</strong>" class="external-lk external-lk-embed__hed-lk button" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ExternalLkEmbedHed-dSIMOS iUEiRd ljLDe gsZLZF"><strong>Behd the Story</strong></span></a><p class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ExternalLkEmbedDek-btrWcN iUEiRd flMnoK jwHNCY"><em><a href=">E. Tammy Kim discs her reportg on BTS</a></em>.</p></div></div></div><p class="paywall">The woman took out her phone and had me speak wh her dghter, Kara, a young mother and li worker New York. Kara wanted to learn Korean so she uld better unrstand the lyrics of boy bands such as Super Junr and SHINee. I agreed to teach her, and, exchange, she agreed to be my terpreter. We tablished a semiweekly route: meet the morng to terview day laborers, then study Hangul at a nearby library. Kara practiced wrg the alphabet, ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ . . ., and pronouncg basic phras. She read Bce Cumgs’s “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Korea’s Place the Sun: A Morn History</a>,” and posed a report that ghed about Kg Sejong and his ventn of the Korean script. “I myself fd to be a betiful language,” she wrote. “When you hear the words beg spoken, sounds as if ’s a melody.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Fans hold cutouts of BTS members' fac and jump outsi Stapl Center." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">BTS toured more than a dozen ci all over the world 2018.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by Chelsea Guglielmo / Getty</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Three years later, a iend on Long Island told me that teen-age tws who she’d met town were obssed wh all thgs Korean. Like Kara, they were the dghters of Lato immigrants and bilgual English and Spanish, but was Korean that they wanted to know. They’d tght themselv the basics, and began textg wh me short bursts of Hangul, wh emojis and exclamatn pots. When I ved them over for a home-oked Korean meal, they brought along a iend, another Lato Koreaphile, and a Korean ke garland ndied us.</p><p class="paywall">A few years after that, my parents and I were on a ferry Greece, durg a trip to celebrate their fortieth weddg anniversary, when a young Greek man shorts me up to , sg broadly. “Are you Korean?” he asked. “I love your culture. K-pop!” He asked to speak Korean, as though he might hale the sounds along wh the salty sea air. Korea was trendy. It had succsfully hawked s cultural war the global marketplace. Still, I knew nothg of s bt-sellg product: BangTanSonyeondan, a.k.a. BTS.</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-unslot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">A iend warned, at the start of my BTS journey, “This is the harst story you’ve ever done.” What he meant was that there was so much material (ne years of mic, dancg, articl, and tweets) and so much potential to get thgs wrong (a staggergly rich subculture and legns of fervent, fact-checkg fans). In April, BTS was performg Las Vegas, as part of a short ternatnal tour—the band’s first live shows sce before the panmic. I bought an overpriced rale ticket and started to cram.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Acquatanc who proudly intify as members of BTS’s <em class="small">ARMY</em>—which stands for “Adorable Reprentative M.C. for Youth” and scrib both dividual fans and s fandom worldwi—lighted makg remendatns. They sent lks to mic vios, ncerts, and the band’s self-produced variety show, “Run BTS,” of which there are more than a hundred and fifty episos. I tried out fan-ma choreography tutorials (embarrassg but fun) and watched mi-lectur to learn the seven members’ nam. I scrolled through Twter fan acunts, read BTS monographs, and listened to a podst lled “BTS AF.” On the last day of May, Asian Amerin herage month, the boys appeared at the Whe Hoe for a reful mix of polics le and P.R., nmng “anti-Asian hate crim” ( Korean) and makg fger hearts wh Print Bin the Oval Office.</p><p class="paywall">Then, on June 14th, jt days after releasg a new album, BTS ma a shockg, if not unexpected, announcement. In a vio to celebrate their nth anniversary, the members sat around a long, lavishly appoted dner table, the style of da Vci’s “The Last Supper.” All was ftive—we and crab legs and lghter—until mute twenty-one. SUGA, one of the band’s rappers, said, “I gus we should expla why we’re an off perd right now.” A sober go-around followed: the members were tired; they wanted to try new thgs, each on his own. They cried. Many <em class="small">ARMY</em>s nclud that BTS was gog on hiat, and some feared a breakup. Hours later, after the stock price of the band’s parent pany fell by nearly thirty per cent, the band member RM issued a statement of reassurance. The members were simply takg a break to pursue solo projects. “This is not the end for ,” he said.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS and Joe Bin oval office." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">The band appeared at the Whe Hoe, May of 2022, to celebrate Asian Amerin herage month.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph om the Whe Hoe</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">Débutg 2013, BTS was the creatn of the producer and songwrer Bang Si-Hy and his K-pop label, Big H Entertament. Bang, who studied athetics at South Korea’s prtig Seoul Natnal Universy, started his reer at J.Y.P. Entertament, one of the “big three” rporatns that built K-pop to a five-billn-dollar dtry, wh genero ernment support. Durg the Asian fancial crisis of the late neti, Print Kim Dae-jung, whose guratn was attend by Michael Jackson, had taken a cue om Hollywood and J-pop (Japan’s popular-mic dtry) to vt heavily culture. The spendg paid off, and K-pop, K-dramas, and Korean genre films beme a source of Korean soft power.</p><p class="paywall">When Bang left J.Y.P. to start Big H, 2005, he set out to make a different kd of K-pop. His recs would still e through dns and unrgo months, even years, of trag song and dance. They would still learn English and Japane (and Korean, if they were g om somewhere else) and cultivate a pale, wy plexn. And they would still be expected to practice total romantic discretn, if not chasty. But, unlike at the Korean big three, Bang would allow his idols to exprs themselv, both by wrg their own mic and by teractg directly wh their fans. This relative eedom would make BTS the most popular band the world and turn Bang to a billnaire.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS performs 2014." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">In early albums, BTS ed hip-hop and rap to explore the prsur of teen-age life South Korea.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by Han Myung-Gu / Getty</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Bang ially envisned BTS as a smaller hip-hop group. He began wh Kim Namjoon, a.k.a. RM (formerly Rap Monster), a preternaturally nfint m.c. and fluent English speaker. Then me M Yoongi, or SUGA, who’d gaed renown for makg beats his provcial home town, and Jung Hoseok, or j-hope, a hip-hop dancer who would lean to his sunny moniker. From this three-member rap le, Bang kept growg the band, addg sgers and visuals, meang lookers. Kim Seokj, or J, the olst member, born 1992, had perfect lips and thpian ambns. Jeon Jung Kook, the youngt, or <em>maknae</em>, had proved his all-around talent on the show “Superstar K.” Kim Taehyung, or V, had a tenr voice and sultry ey, while Park Jim was a petive dancer of implable sweetns.</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">It was unual for a K-pop group to start om a base of rap and hip-hop. It was even more unual for a group to speak and sg openly of the stggl of youth. The members vlogged their adolcent mgs and posted variety-show episos to the vio-streamg service V Live. On the app Weverse, they offered pay-for-play ntent to supplement what was already on YouTube. Every day, there was somethg new to nsume, and watchg the members rehearse trite dance mov, eat takeout, play vio gam, and gently bicker felt like eavdroppg on an endls slumber party. As the ethnomilogist Kim Youngdae has observed, BTS mastered the craft of storytellg across platforms—what ntemporary scholars ll “transmedia” and what Heigger lled the “total work of art,” or <a href=">Gamtkunstwerk</a>. The band’s prolific, nsistent productn relays an imprsn of thenticy. BTS fans experience a ep attachment to the boys and ll them by nicknam—“Oh, Hobi,” “Oh, Tae”—as real their daily liv as iends and fay. When I asked fans, “Why are you so voted to BTS?,” they would rpond, nearly intilly, “Bee they do so much for .” The boys habually extend affirmatns of self-love and gratu to their fans. Jung Kook has “<em class="small">ARMY</em>” and a purple heart tattooed on his right hand.</p><le-embed name="feature-flt" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="image" hasProducts="false" ntentType="llout:feature-flt"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Jungkook wh visible “Army” and purple heart tattoos." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">Jung Kook, the youngt member of BTS, has a hand tattoo that honors the band’s fandom, which is lled ARMY.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by Frazer Harrison/ The Rerdg Amy / Getty </span></div></figure></le-embed><p class="paywall">But BTS has done more than soothe and enterta. Its first three albums, the school trilogy, reflected the ncerns of teen-agers and young adults tryg to survive South Korea’s high-prsure tn system. In the glossy photo book that acpani the third the seri, “Skool Luv Affair,” the baby-faced seven, ey led black, wear toled school uniforms and exhort rebelln. After <a href=">a ferry psized</a> off the southwtern ast of South Korea April of 2014, killg hundreds of teen-agers on a school trip and beg a symbol of state rptn, BTS released what’s thought to be a tribute ballad, “Sprg Day.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="fd5dvi"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall"><em class="small">ARMY</em> culture spread om Korea to the rt of East Asia, the U.S., Southeast Asia, South Ameri, and beyond. A recent cens of BTS’s fandom found <em class="small">ARMY</em>s more than a hundred untri and terrori. Ajla Hrelja Bralić, a fan and mother of two fans Zagreb, Croatia, told me that BTS opened her up to “Korea, Japan, Cha, all those untri we don’t know much about.” In 2014, BTS was billed as one of many acts at <em class="small">KCON</em>, a showse of Korean culture, Los Angel. By the fourth <em class="small">KCON</em>, 2016, BTS was the ma draw. The band ntued to produce high-ncept, multi-album releas, but layered more pop, E.D.M., and world beats onto s rap and R. & B. The youth trilogy, prisg three albums tled “The Most Betiful Moment Life” (or “화양연화”), emphasized the band’s vols. The four-part seri “Love Yourself” allud to a So-Korean storytellg stcture (기승전결: troductn, velopment, turn, ncln) and doubled down on the theme of self-acceptance. More recently, BTS has sharpened s theraptic tack by vokg Jungian psychoanalysis. The albums “Map of the Soul: Persona” and “Map of the Soul: 7” refer to Murray Ste’s 1998 book, “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introductn</a>.” As Ste told the K-pop journalist Tamar Herman, BTS’s mic addrs the gap we all face “between ourselv and the social world around .”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS jump while performg “DNA” onstage durg the 2017 Amerin Mic Awards." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">In 2017, the band performed at the Amerin Mic Awards.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by Chris Polk / Getty </span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS performs “DNA” onstage durg the 2017 Amerin Mic Awards." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">Like many K-pop groups, BTS is known for s novative, high-energy choreography.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by Michael Tran / Getty</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">In 2017, BTS performed s high-energy song “DNA” at the Amerin Mic Awards, the moment many <em class="small">ARMY</em>s the U.S. ce as their troductn to the boys. (The mic vio for “DNA” has 1.5 billn views on YouTube.) The band beme beloved repeat guts of Ellen DeGener, Jam Corn, and Jimmy Fallon, and clocked ws at the A.M.A.s, the MTV Vio Mic Awards, and the Billboard Mic Awards. Their llaborators have clud, among others, Nicki Maj, Halsey, Steve Aoki, and the choreographer Keone Madrid. Meanwhile, dividual members of BTS have produced and posed their own rap mixtap, mic vios, and sgl, cludg for the Korean hip-hop group Epik High and for popular K-dramas such as “Itaewon Class” and “Our Blu.” Next month, j-hope will perform solo at Lollapalooza. The boys have also lent their imprimatur to sell vast numbers of rs, phon, face creams, and even novels: RM, the signated “lerature idol,” has been known to read such varied books as Plato’s <a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Phaeds</a>, Han Kang’s “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Human Acts</a>,” and Carl Sagan’s “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Cosmos</a>.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">But none of the bare facts pletely explas the tense passn of the BTS fandom. BTS is arguably the most popular band ever, wh the most dited followg. As BTS’s <em class="small">ARMY</em> has grown, has veloped creasgly elaborate practic. Fans nfs their “bias” (favore members) and “bias wreckers” (the members who threaten the primacy of those favor), and abi by l of nduct, such as a prohibn agast acstg or intifyg a member who’s on vatn wh his fay. Of their own acrd, <em class="small">ARMY</em>s have anized to maximize BTS’s streamg numbers, raise funds for chary, and agate agast movements perceived to oppose the valu of BTS. In one famo example, om 2020, <em class="small">ARMY</em>s registered en masse for a <a href=">Tmp</a> rally Tulsa, wh no tentn of attendg, g the then Print an embarrassgly low turnout. Earlier this year, fans the Philipp mobilized wily, though unsuccsfully, to prevent Ferdand (Bongbong) Mars, Jr., the son and namake of the untry’s notor dictator, om <a href=">beg elected Print</a>.</p><p class="paywall"><em class="small">ARMY</em>’s votn to textual analysis is astonishg. A Korean lawyer and mother of two Sgapore, who tweets as @BetifulSoulB7, told me that she spends a chunk of every morng translatg BTS articl, vios, and social-media posts om English to Korean. Anea Mahboob, a vio edor California, created the YouTube documentary seri “<a href=">The Rise of Bangtan</a>,” which clus twenty-one half-hour stallments. On V Live, most episos of “Run BTS” n be watched more than a dozen languag, cludg Azerbaijani and Bahasa Indonia, thanks to the ntributns of multilgual fans. None of this work is done for pay.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><div class="GroupCalloutWrapper-bPWknp gdIAQE llout llout--group llout--group-2" data-ttid="GroupCalloutWrapper"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed llout--group-em llout--group-em-1"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS fan pots at tattoo." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">BTS ARMYs, the band’s global fans, display extraordary votn.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by David Becker / Getty </span></div></figure><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed llout--group-em llout--group-em-2"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Three BTS fans at the Love Yourself North Amerin Tour." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">After ncellg a tour at the height of the panmic, the band played sold-out stadium shows Seoul, Los Angel, and Las Vegas.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by Chelsea Guglielmo / Getty </span></div></figure></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Profsor Candace Epps-Robertson, of the Universy of North Carola at Chapel Hill, has scribed BTS fans as an army of librarians. Their methods, she wrote the journal <em>Rhetoric Review</em>, “clu trackg and documentg Twter hashtags, participatory archiv of materials related to rearch and teachg, blogs to archive translatns of songs, and an emergg archive of fans narratg their personal experienc of survival and growth.” Epps-Robertson has her own growth narrative: In 2019, she began takg re of her mother, who was dyg of A.L.S. “I started to play BTS on my way home bee I uldn’t stand to be silence wh the many emotns I felt,” she wrote a blog post. She is pecially attached to “Mikrokosmos” (no relatn to the Bartók), a synth-y, up-tempo track that affirms the “starlight” every soul.</p><p class="paywall">In July, Epps-Robertson, whose Twter name clus a superscript “7” tribute to the band, will fly to Seoul to attend the third nveng of BTS: A Global Interdisciplary Conference. (One of the keynote speakers is the New Age novelist <a href=">Plo Coelho</a>.) Her teen-age dghter, Phoenix, the origal <em class="small">ARMY</em> of the fay, will acpany her. Before BTS, neher mother nor dghter had much tert Asia. Now, Epps-Robertson told me, Phoenix attends a Korean-language school one night a week, pl two hours of private tutorg. “I was so awe of her gettg up early to watch Korean news, to rearch Korean history,” she said. “I was, like, how n I pture that my own class—that excement, that sire to learn more?”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">The ncert I attend Vegas, April, was the fale of the band’s “Permissn to Dance” tour. After two years of the panmic, fans were sperate for a chance to see the group live, and ntued uncertaty over if and when the olr members would have to perform pulsory <a href=">eighteen-month stts</a> the South Korean ary add to the enzy. Still, none of imaged that the tour might be BTS’s last, at least for a while. An <em class="small">ARMY</em> om New York, who’d flown to Los Angel for one of the shows, advised me to “drs to the n.” At the ncert L.A., she said, many fans wore cloth molled after the members’ slick, genr-bendg outfs mic vios and had their hair dyed homage to BTS’s multilored ifs. The fan, whose own hair is shad a pleasg soft pk, giggled at the memory of one ncertgoer who me drsed as a tangere, a reference to SUGA’s love of the u.</p><p class="paywall">Before Las Vegas, I did not know that BTS had a favore lor. But perhaps V—who ed the phrase “Borahae,” a pose of “purple” and “I love you” Korean—was sg upon me. I happened to pack purple sunglass, a purplish-pk fanny pack, a vlet handkerchief, and a silver slip drs whose lavenr sheen I would disver unr the sert sun. When I land at the Las Vegas airport, <em class="small">ARMY</em>s revealed themselv by way of BTS keychas, luggage tags, and T-shirts that read “TAEHYUNG” or “JIMIN.”</p><p class="paywall">That morng, my hotel lobby, I met a young woman named MK Jourda, who was rryg an armful of BTS merch and looked out of breath. A Haian Amerin who wore her hair braid pigtails and a headband ornamented wh two plh SHOOKY bbl, she had flown om Florida, where she attends llege and works at a bank. (SHOOKY is the rtoon character that reprents her bias, SUGA, the universe of BT21, a BTS merchandise le.) She’d joed a que outsi Allegiant Stadium at five-thirty that morng, hopg to have her pick of BTS souvenirs. But, by the time she reached the ont of the le, the Permissn to Dance blankets and T-shirts were sold out. She did manage, however, to snag some photo rds and a plastic fan rated wh the members’ fac. Jourda had been drawn to K-pop after gettg to Japane anime, whose fandom overlaps wh BTS’s <em class="small">ARMY</em> and shar siar ctoms of language-learng and translatn. Jourda was studyg Korean, and explaed that what drew her to BTS, asi om SUGA’s “cute, adorable” rappg and dancg, were the valu that the group projected. “I feel more of the Korean and the Haian culture. It’s very together. There’s a lot of warmth,” she said. In the U.S., by ntrast, “It’s, like, O.K., I’m jt by myself. No one’s really gonna re.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="ph8ged"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Later, standg le for the BTS “Immersive Journey,” a seri of photo-ready rooms that blared recent songs such as “Butter,” I met a bubbly Indian woman a bright-yellow shirt. Akshata was a recent, work-om-home nvert to BTS who’d e om Bangalore, on vatn om her job as an vtment banker. She told me that her hband was workg Salt Lake Cy, and that the band’s msage of self-love had helped her bee more pennt while he was away. When I gave her my bs rd, which clus my name wrten Hangul, she read the Korean aloud. She’d been learng the language part by bgeg on Korean drama seri on Netflix. (She sent me a list of fifty-three and untg.) A few hours after we talked, she got a tattoo of the flower le drawg om the ver of BTS’s first “Love Yourself” album.</p><p class="paywall">BTS as self-re was a theme I heard om many fans. Christa Johnson (bias: RM) me to Las Vegas om Hoton, where she works part-time at Kohl’s and homchools four of her five children. She told me that she was a fan of ’NSync the past, but the gloom of the early panmic, when she was furloughed for several months and stuck at home, she found refuge BTS. She ma a Spotify playlist of nearly two hundred BTS songs and rated her sk at home wh BTS portras. She hung a floatg shelf to display her CDs and ltle figur of each of the members, a kd of secular altar. Johnson grew up foster re; her mother, who is half Japane, was adopted. She said that BTS had spired her to look to her Japane herage and had given her a stronger sense of beg Asian Amerin. When she needs a break om work or om the kids, she puts on her headphon and listens to “Magic Shop” or the “Love Yourself” albums. The band was like “mental-health unsellg,” she told me. (When BTS later announced s break, Johnson said an e-mail that she was havg “a b of a sob ft.” She acknowledged that “they serve time to themselv, to stretch their wgs,” but felt sad bee they “have been a fort to so many for so long.”)</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">That eveng, at Allegiant Stadium, the mood was blissful. The gleamg, two-billn-dollar venue is the new home of the Las Vegas Rairs, but I saw none of the alholic rowds of a football game or the “Yeah, but have you heard X” petivens of a rock or jazz show. Nor was the dience domated by hysteril teen-age girls. In le outsi the stadium, a group of Black men purple outfs lghed and danced. A young Asian woman, yellg “eebi,” gave me a handma BTS bookmark and a felted lavenr heart. A Lato dad wearg a hat that read “땡” (a rap track by RM, SUGA, and j-hope) was acpanied by his wife and teen-age dghters. He told people nearby that their tickets had st forty-eight hundred dollars. Insi the stadium, I took a photo for two <em class="small">ARMY</em>s om Spa. One had ma a sign that read “Bang PD marry me!,” a reference to the producer who started all. From my seat the nosebleeds, I watched the two girls next to me scroll BTS ntent on Instagram and take pouty duck-face selfi. In the row ahead of , a uple who spoke only Japane nibbled on a okie stamped wh BTS’s logo. Nearly all of the stadium’s sixty-five thoand seats were filled, and addnal chairs had been set up on the ground. The Jumbotrons played an anti-plastics (but pro-Samsung) environmental P.S.A. starrg BTS and an assortment of the band’s mic vios to prime the crowd. When the boys fally appeared on stage, unveiled by the liftg of a giant mechanized box, the screamg began. Thoands of <em class="small">ARMY</em>s waved Bluetooth lightsticks (st: fifty-ne dollars) that synched to undulatg fields of lor. The dience lled out the members’ nam routized “fan chants.” It was as massive a spectacle as the Super Bowl or World Cup, except that all the fans were cheerg for the same team.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS fan tak a selfie wh rdboard cutouts of band members along the Las Vegas Strip." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">The Las Vegas strip was l up wh purple, the unofficial lor of BTS, over two weekends of ncerts there April.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by David Becker / Getty</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS fans le to buy merchandise at Allegiant Stadium Las Vegas." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">At the Las Vegas ncert, at Allegiant Stadium, fans waed long l to buy merchandise.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by DeeCee Carter/ Alamy</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">Before I knew BTS’s mic, I knew of the members as envoys of well-beg. In 2017—the same year that Kim Jonghyun, a sger the K-pop group SHINee, died by suici—BTS lnched a mpaign wh <em class="small">UNICEF</em> to bat vlence agast children and teens. The followg year, RM reprented the band a speech about self-acceptance at the Uned Natns, and last year all seven members offered enuragement to young people durg the panmic the meetg hall of the U.N.’s General Assembly. A mic vio the boys shot there—sgg one of their hs mure black sus, startg at the green marble rostm rerved for world lears, then skippg through the ma chamber and onto the grassy edge of the East River—has been viewed some sixty-eight ln tim.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS speak at the Uned Natns Headquarters." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">Sce 2017, the members of BTS have spread their msage of self-love as UNICEF ambassadors.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by John Angelillo / Getty</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Fans love the members for exprsg empathy for mory groups and talkg ndidly about their own securi, stggl, and mistak. This may expla how BTS has outlasted the “seven-year curse” of most K-pop bands. Early on, after facg cricism for the misogynistic tenor of the song “War of Hormone” (“Imma give to you girl right now,” “Perfect om the ont, perfect om the back,” etc.), RM reportedly mted to a femist readg list. RM and Suga have said terviews that queer people should be able to love whomever they want—no mor gture South Korea, where ’s still difficult to be out. An <em class="small">ARMY</em> named Wang Chengdu, Cha, who intifi as gay, though not publicly, told me, “There’s a big queer ponent of BTS. The fandom feels really welg.” (Contrast this wh the K-pop group Big Bang, whose sgers have been nvicted of sex traffickg, gamblg, and dg crim.) At the same time, BTS has reaed om wadg to public policy. No member has mented on the suatn of queer people South Korea, let alone backed the anti-discrimatn bill that L.G.B.T.Q. activists there have been pursug for more than a .</p><p class="paywall">The band’s ut approach to polics has so far saved om major ntroversy. But there have been kerfuffl. Members have had n-s wh Japane and Che fans, based on symbolic quarrels over East Asian history. And, 2019, j-hope was taken to task for stylg his hair to dreadlock-like “gel twists” the mic vio for “Chicken Noodle Soup,” a remake of the song by DJ Webstar and Young B. Some <em class="small">ARMY</em>s circulated a post English and Korean that cricized this choice as cultural appropriatn; others nmned the crics. More recently, an tra-<em class="small">ARMY</em> clash broke out after BTS teased the tracklist for “Proof,” a new three-CD pilatn album that featur a song wrten part by Jung Bobby, a K-pop poser who has plead guilty to sexual asslt. Though Jung’s nduct did not e to light until after the song was first released, some <em class="small">ARMY</em>s asked why the band would reissue the track at all. When Juwon Park, a journalist wh the Associated Prs Seoul and a oime dancer for K-pop sger PSY, raised the qutn on Twter, global <em class="small">ARMY</em>s bombard her wh vilent rpons. I ran to a siar, if ls hostile, fensivens durg my terviews wh BTS fans. Many <em class="small">ARMY</em>s feel that the band, and K-pop general, have been disrpected by the mastream media, pecially the Wt. I tried to reassure my sourc that I was not wrg a h piece. “I wouldn’t want to say anythg that would hurt the boys,” more than one person told me.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS fan ont of Seoul Olympic Stadium." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">BTS’s prolific, nsistent creatn of mic, vlogs, and variety-show ntent keep fans engaged to an unprecented gree.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by Lee Jae-Won / Alamy</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">At the ncert, om my vertigo perch, I watched seven dots leap balletilly on the stage. I uld see their creamy fac and kohl-limned ey only on the giant screens. They sang and danced for nearly two hours, stoppg only for stume chang. I regnized most of the songs, cludg two of my favor—“Black Swan” and “<em class="small">IDOL</em>”—but didn’t know many of the lyrics. Everyone else, seemed, uld sg along to every word. If I were the pre-teen protagonist of an Asian Amerin g-of-age movie, this is when I would cry: hearg my parents’ language, once a source of embarrassment my whe-bread Amerin home town, now beg sung joyful unison by all the peopl of the earth. The ncert closed wh “Permissn to Dance,” the tle track of the tour. It’s an irristible, high-pched song E major, as sweet and flossy as tton ndy. The lyrics, English, put the panmic at a wishful remove: “I wanna dance, the mic’s got me gog / A’t nothg that n stop how we move.” After BTS fad out, a swirl of nfetti, a date flashed on the Jumbotrons that broke major news: “Proof” would drop on June 10th.</p><p class="paywall">Exg to the parkg lot, toward the floodl artifice of the strip, I tried to reta the ecstatic mood that had filled the stadium. But earlier that day, not far om where we were, I had seen a man a ragged shirt and jeans lumberg alongsi peppy sightseers, rryg an extra pair of sho—wh duct tape place of s sole. I thought of a le om Milan Kunra’s “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Unbearable Lightns of Beg</a>,” another novel that RM endorsed to fans. In a brief tangent on totalarian athetics, Kunra scrib ksch as “the absolute nial of sh.” Was this what we’d felt the stadium: a happy but empty nialism? At the start of my BTS journey, I might have said y. I might have dismissed the band’s mic and acpanyg œuvre as a sentimental tour om our mabre shared realy. But I have found that BTS <em class="small">ARMY</em>s do not live a fantasy. They live where everyone else do: a world of prsn, mass ath, and elogil . Over the past ne years, <em class="small">ARMY</em>s have not looked to the seven for pe. They have looked to them for joy.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="A girl walks past a mural showg an image of RM Goyang" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">Many BTS ARMYs have been spired to study the Korean language and vis South Korea.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Source photograph by Jung Yeon-Je / AFP / Getty </span></div></figure></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS jyGBoi"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body bodyle-barrier articlebody articlebody--grid-margs"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv jfHKjr"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body bodyntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG bGJnrW ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy fzwwkW article-bodyfooter"><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="LkStackWrapper-NFLYw kgtXXB lkstack" data-ttid="LkStack"><div class="SectnTleRoot-dBGvdq kjAxEG LkStackHear-lKjbE hejl lk-stack--headg" data-ttid="SectnTle"><h2 class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SectnTleHed-dKqZet dxqEAa dqtvfu jttyjJ">New Yorker Favor</h2></div><div class="LkStackContent-jyKicS gPhyME"><ul 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class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">son of the Cowardly Ln</a>.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Amelia Earhart’s <a href="/unfed" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">last flight</a>.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Fictn by Milan Kunra: “<a href="/unfed" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">The Unbearable Lightns of Beg</a>.”</p></div></li></ul><div class="LkStackFooter-KfRyO ebnmps lk-stack--footer"><div><p><a href=">Sign up</a> for our daily newsletter to receive the bt stori om <em>The New Yorker</em>.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt 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Tammy Kim talks about how BTS beme arguably the most popular band history, and the thrill of seeg them live before they announced a break.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-embyle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-embyle"><div class="summary-embylentent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle bylbyle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU bylename"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss bylepreamble">By </span>The New Yorker</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right 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siz="100vw"/><img alt="Briefly Noted" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-emntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-embric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Books</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackghed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-emhed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Briefly Noted</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Briefly Noted" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-emk">“The Parrot and the Igloo,” “The Migrant Chef,” “The Centre,” and “Hope.”</div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left 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summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm dqlGhv" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="How Bryan Adams Shot the Queen (and His Other Celeb Pals)" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-emntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-embric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">London Postrd</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackghed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-emhed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">How Bryan Adams Shot the Queen (and His Other Celeb Pals)</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="How Bryan Adams Shot the Queen (and His Other Celeb Pals)" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-emk">The sger spects a gallery show of his portras of Kate Moss, Mick Jagger, Amy Wehoe, and Her Royal Highns, who may or may not have listened to his mic.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-embyle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-embyle"><div class="summary-embylentent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle bylbyle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU bylename"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss bylepreamble">By </span>M. 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who is gay in bts army

2 Dec 2024

ARE THE BTS GROUP MEMBERS GAY? HERE ARE THE DETAILS

The seven boys are very personable and enurage have qutned whether some group members are gay.

BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM WHO IS GAY IN BTS ARMY

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this story</span></button></div><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kAEsuD viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU cjjxgx bookmark mobile"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div></div></div><div class="LightboxWrapper-dxsWBV hhylRt"><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP imbgVA"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG lmuXQm"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg">I’ve long been hant to wre about BTS. When reportg on South Korea, I risted the expected topics: Korean sk re, plastic surgery, dogmeat, and, y, <a href=">K-pop</a>. I absorbed Wtern criqu of K-pop’s girl and boy bands: that they’re fluffy, manufactured, and exploative of their members—as if the same weren’t te of New Kids on the Block. But, earlier this year, BTS beme pable. The group was everywhere, and everyone seemed to be to them. To ntue ignorg the BTS phenomenon was to risk missg somethg bigger than Beatlemania.</p><p class="paywall">I first glimpsed the swell of <em>hallyu</em>, the Korean wave, a ago. In the wter of 2012, I was wrg a story about Lata day laborers Brooklyn who cleaned Hasidic hom before the Sabbath—when women’s work accumulated to the pot where outsourcg beme necsary. I had heard that many employers paid low wag or didn’t pay at all; some workers reported verbal abe and sexual harassment. Standg among the women on a street rner a black puffy at, I tried to make nversatn my terrible Spanish. One morng, a worker approached me and asked, apropos of nothg, if I was Korean—not “Che or Japane?” This precisn was new. When I said y, she beamed. “My dghter—she lov Korea,” she said. “She lov K-pop.”</p><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn cBtRxy llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><div class="ExternalLkEmbedWrapper-hNDkqw cDXXLC" data-ttid="external-lk-embed--le"><div class="ExternalLkEmbedText-glBTSy gRKpCf"><a aria-label="<strong>Behd the Story</strong>" class="external-lk external-lk-embed__hed-lk button" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ExternalLkEmbedHed-dSIMOS iUEiRd ljLDe gsZLZF"><strong>Behd the Story</strong></span></a><p class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ExternalLkEmbedDek-btrWcN iUEiRd flMnoK jwHNCY"><em><a href=">E. Tammy Kim discs her reportg on BTS</a></em>.</p></div></div></div><p class="paywall">The woman took out her phone and had me speak wh her dghter, Kara, a young mother and li worker New York. Kara wanted to learn Korean so she uld better unrstand the lyrics of boy bands such as Super Junr and SHINee. I agreed to teach her, and, exchange, she agreed to be my terpreter. We tablished a semiweekly route: meet the morng to terview day laborers, then study Hangul at a nearby library. Kara practiced wrg the alphabet, ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ . . ., and pronouncg basic phras. She read Bce Cumgs’s “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Korea’s Place the Sun: A Morn History</a>,” and posed a report that ghed about Kg Sejong and his ventn of the Korean script. “I myself fd to be a betiful language,” she wrote. “When you hear the words beg spoken, sounds as if ’s a melody.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Fans hold cutouts of BTS members' fac and jump outsi Stapl Center." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">BTS toured more than a dozen ci all over the world 2018.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by Chelsea Guglielmo / Getty</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Three years later, a iend on Long Island told me that teen-age tws who she’d met town were obssed wh all thgs Korean. Like Kara, they were the dghters of Lato immigrants and bilgual English and Spanish, but was Korean that they wanted to know. They’d tght themselv the basics, and began textg wh me short bursts of Hangul, wh emojis and exclamatn pots. When I ved them over for a home-oked Korean meal, they brought along a iend, another Lato Koreaphile, and a Korean ke garland ndied us.</p><p class="paywall">A few years after that, my parents and I were on a ferry Greece, durg a trip to celebrate their fortieth weddg anniversary, when a young Greek man shorts me up to , sg broadly. “Are you Korean?” he asked. “I love your culture. K-pop!” He asked to speak Korean, as though he might hale the sounds along wh the salty sea air. Korea was trendy. It had succsfully hawked s cultural war the global marketplace. Still, I knew nothg of s bt-sellg product: BangTanSonyeondan, a.k.a. BTS.</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">A iend warned, at the start of my BTS journey, “This is the harst story you’ve ever done.” What he meant was that there was so much material (ne years of mic, dancg, articl, and tweets) and so much potential to get thgs wrong (a staggergly rich subculture and legns of fervent, fact-checkg fans). In April, BTS was performg Las Vegas, as part of a short ternatnal tour—the band’s first live shows sce before the panmic. I bought an overpriced rale ticket and started to cram.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Acquatanc who proudly intify as members of BTS’s <em class="small">ARMY</em>—which stands for “Adorable Reprentative M.C. for Youth” and scrib both dividual fans and s fandom worldwi—lighted makg remendatns. They sent lks to mic vios, ncerts, and the band’s self-produced variety show, “Run BTS,” of which there are more than a hundred and fifty episos. I tried out fan-ma choreography tutorials (embarrassg but fun) and watched mi-lectur to learn the seven members’ nam. I scrolled through Twter fan acunts, read BTS monographs, and listened to a podst lled “BTS AF.” On the last day of May, Asian Amerin herage month, the boys appeared at the Whe Hoe for a reful mix of polics le and P.R., nmng “anti-Asian hate crim” ( Korean) and makg fger hearts wh Print Bin the Oval Office.</p><p class="paywall">Then, on June 14th, jt days after releasg a new album, BTS ma a shockg, if not unexpected, announcement. In a vio to celebrate their nth anniversary, the members sat around a long, lavishly appoted dner table, the style of da Vci’s “The Last Supper.” All was ftive—we and crab legs and lghter—until mute twenty-one. SUGA, one of the band’s rappers, said, “I gus we should expla why we’re an off perd right now.” A sober go-around followed: the members were tired; they wanted to try new thgs, each on his own. They cried. Many <em class="small">ARMY</em>s nclud that BTS was gog on hiat, and some feared a breakup. Hours later, after the stock price of the band’s parent pany fell by nearly thirty per cent, the band member RM issued a statement of reassurance. The members were simply takg a break to pursue solo projects. “This is not the end for ,” he said.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS and Joe Bin oval office." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">The band appeared at the Whe Hoe, May of 2022, to celebrate Asian Amerin herage month.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph om the Whe Hoe</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Débutg 2013, BTS was the creatn of the producer and songwrer Bang Si-Hy and his K-pop label, Big H Entertament. Bang, who studied athetics at South Korea’s prtig Seoul Natnal Universy, started his reer at J.Y.P. Entertament, one of the “big three” rporatns that built K-pop to a five-billn-dollar dtry, wh genero ernment support. Durg the Asian fancial crisis of the late neti, Print Kim Dae-jung, whose guratn was attend by Michael Jackson, had taken a cue om Hollywood and J-pop (Japan’s popular-mic dtry) to vt heavily culture. The spendg paid off, and K-pop, K-dramas, and Korean genre films beme a source of Korean soft power.</p><p class="paywall">When Bang left J.Y.P. to start Big H, 2005, he set out to make a different kd of K-pop. His recs would still e through dns and unrgo months, even years, of trag song and dance. They would still learn English and Japane (and Korean, if they were g om somewhere else) and cultivate a pale, wy plexn. And they would still be expected to practice total romantic discretn, if not chasty. But, unlike at the Korean big three, Bang would allow his idols to exprs themselv, both by wrg their own mic and by teractg directly wh their fans. This relative eedom would make BTS the most popular band the world and turn Bang to a billnaire.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS performs 2014." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">In early albums, BTS ed hip-hop and rap to explore the prsur of teen-age life South Korea.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by Han Myung-Gu / Getty</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Bang ially envisned BTS as a smaller hip-hop group. He began wh Kim Namjoon, a.k.a. RM (formerly Rap Monster), a preternaturally nfint m.c. and fluent English speaker. Then me M Yoongi, or SUGA, who’d gaed renown for makg beats his provcial home town, and Jung Hoseok, or j-hope, a hip-hop dancer who would lean to his sunny moniker. From this three-member rap le, Bang kept growg the band, addg sgers and visuals, meang lookers. Kim Seokj, or J, the olst member, born 1992, had perfect lips and thpian ambns. Jeon Jung Kook, the youngt, or <em>maknae</em>, had proved his all-around talent on the show “Superstar K.” Kim Taehyung, or V, had a tenr voice and sultry ey, while Park Jim was a petive dancer of implable sweetns.</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">It was unual for a K-pop group to start om a base of rap and hip-hop. It was even more unual for a group to speak and sg openly of the stggl of youth. The members vlogged their adolcent mgs and posted variety-show episos to the vio-streamg service V Live. On the app Weverse, they offered pay-for-play ntent to supplement what was already on YouTube. Every day, there was somethg new to nsume, and watchg the members rehearse trite dance mov, eat takeout, play vio gam, and gently bicker felt like eavdroppg on an endls slumber party. As the ethnomilogist Kim Youngdae has observed, BTS mastered the craft of storytellg across platforms—what ntemporary scholars ll “transmedia” and what Heigger lled the “total work of art,” or <a href=">Gamtkunstwerk</a>. The band’s prolific, nsistent productn relays an imprsn of thenticy. BTS fans experience a ep attachment to the boys and ll them by nicknam—“Oh, Hobi,” “Oh, Tae”—as real their daily liv as iends and fay. When I asked fans, “Why are you so voted to BTS?,” they would rpond, nearly intilly, “Bee they do so much for .” The boys habually extend affirmatns of self-love and gratu to their fans. Jung Kook has “<em class="small">ARMY</em>” and a purple heart tattooed on his right hand.</p><le-embed name="feature-flt" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="image" hasProducts="false" ntentType="llout:feature-flt"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Jungkook wh visible “Army” and purple heart tattoos." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Jung Kook, the youngt member of BTS, has a hand tattoo that honors the band’s fandom, which is lled ARMY.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by Frazer Harrison/ The Rerdg Amy / Getty </span></div></figure></le-embed><p class="paywall">But BTS has done more than soothe and enterta. Its first three albums, the school trilogy, reflected the ncerns of teen-agers and young adults tryg to survive South Korea’s high-prsure tn system. In the glossy photo book that acpani the third the seri, “Skool Luv Affair,” the baby-faced seven, ey led black, wear toled school uniforms and exhort rebelln. After <a href=">a ferry psized</a> off the southwtern ast of South Korea April of 2014, killg hundreds of teen-agers on a school trip and beg a symbol of state rptn, BTS released what’s thought to be a tribute ballad, “Sprg Day.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="fd5dvi"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall"><em class="small">ARMY</em> culture spread om Korea to the rt of East Asia, the U.S., Southeast Asia, South Ameri, and beyond. A recent cens of BTS’s fandom found <em class="small">ARMY</em>s more than a hundred untri and terrori. Ajla Hrelja Bralić, a fan and mother of two fans Zagreb, Croatia, told me that BTS opened her up to “Korea, Japan, Cha, all those untri we don’t know much about.” In 2014, BTS was billed as one of many acts at <em class="small">KCON</em>, a showse of Korean culture, Los Angel. By the fourth <em class="small">KCON</em>, 2016, BTS was the ma draw. The band ntued to produce high-ncept, multi-album releas, but layered more pop, E.D.M., and world beats onto s rap and R. & B. The youth trilogy, prisg three albums tled “The Most Betiful Moment Life” (or “화양연화”), emphasized the band’s vols. The four-part seri “Love Yourself” allud to a So-Korean storytellg stcture (기승전결: troductn, velopment, turn, ncln) and doubled down on the theme of self-acceptance. More recently, BTS has sharpened s theraptic tack by vokg Jungian psychoanalysis. The albums “Map of the Soul: Persona” and “Map of the Soul: 7” refer to Murray Ste’s 1998 book, “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introductn</a>.” As Ste told the K-pop journalist Tamar Herman, BTS’s mic addrs the gap we all face “between ourselv and the social world around .”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS jump while performg “DNA” onstage durg the 2017 Amerin Mic Awards." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">In 2017, the band performed at the Amerin Mic Awards.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by Chris Polk / Getty </span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS performs “DNA” onstage durg the 2017 Amerin Mic Awards." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Like many K-pop groups, BTS is known for s novative, high-energy choreography.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by Michael Tran / Getty</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">In 2017, BTS performed s high-energy song “DNA” at the Amerin Mic Awards, the moment many <em class="small">ARMY</em>s the U.S. ce as their troductn to the boys. (The mic vio for “DNA” has 1.5 billn views on YouTube.) The band beme beloved repeat guts of Ellen DeGener, Jam Corn, and Jimmy Fallon, and clocked ws at the A.M.A.s, the MTV Vio Mic Awards, and the Billboard Mic Awards. Their llaborators have clud, among others, Nicki Maj, Halsey, Steve Aoki, and the choreographer Keone Madrid. Meanwhile, dividual members of BTS have produced and posed their own rap mixtap, mic vios, and sgl, cludg for the Korean hip-hop group Epik High and for popular K-dramas such as “Itaewon Class” and “Our Blu.” Next month, j-hope will perform solo at Lollapalooza. The boys have also lent their imprimatur to sell vast numbers of rs, phon, face creams, and even novels: RM, the signated “lerature idol,” has been known to read such varied books as Plato’s <a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Phaeds</a>, Han Kang’s “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Human Acts</a>,” and Carl Sagan’s “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Cosmos</a>.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">But none of the bare facts pletely explas the tense passn of the BTS fandom. BTS is arguably the most popular band ever, wh the most dited followg. As BTS’s <em class="small">ARMY</em> has grown, has veloped creasgly elaborate practic. Fans nfs their “bias” (favore members) and “bias wreckers” (the members who threaten the primacy of those favor), and abi by l of nduct, such as a prohibn agast acstg or intifyg a member who’s on vatn wh his fay. Of their own acrd, <em class="small">ARMY</em>s have anized to maximize BTS’s streamg numbers, raise funds for chary, and agate agast movements perceived to oppose the valu of BTS. In one famo example, om 2020, <em class="small">ARMY</em>s registered en masse for a <a href=">Tmp</a> rally Tulsa, wh no tentn of attendg, g the then Print an embarrassgly low turnout. Earlier this year, fans the Philipp mobilized wily, though unsuccsfully, to prevent Ferdand (Bongbong) Mars, Jr., the son and namake of the untry’s notor dictator, om <a href=">beg elected Print</a>.</p><p class="paywall"><em class="small">ARMY</em>’s votn to textual analysis is astonishg. A Korean lawyer and mother of two Sgapore, who tweets as @BetifulSoulB7, told me that she spends a chunk of every morng translatg BTS articl, vios, and social-media posts om English to Korean. Anea Mahboob, a vio edor California, created the YouTube documentary seri “<a href=">The Rise of Bangtan</a>,” which clus twenty-one half-hour stallments. On V Live, most episos of “Run BTS” n be watched more than a dozen languag, cludg Azerbaijani and Bahasa Indonia, thanks to the ntributns of multilgual fans. None of this work is done for pay.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><div class="GroupCalloutWrapper-bPWknp gdIAQE llout llout--group llout--group-2" data-ttid="GroupCalloutWrapper"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed llout--group-em llout--group-em-1"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS fan pots at tattoo." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">BTS ARMYs, the band’s global fans, display extraordary votn.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by David Becker / Getty </span></div></figure><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed llout--group-em llout--group-em-2"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Three BTS fans at the Love Yourself North Amerin Tour." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">After ncellg a tour at the height of the panmic, the band played sold-out stadium shows Seoul, Los Angel, and Las Vegas.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by Chelsea Guglielmo / Getty </span></div></figure></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Profsor Candace Epps-Robertson, of the Universy of North Carola at Chapel Hill, has scribed BTS fans as an army of librarians. Their methods, she wrote the journal <em>Rhetoric Review</em>, “clu trackg and documentg Twter hashtags, participatory archiv of materials related to rearch and teachg, blogs to archive translatns of songs, and an emergg archive of fans narratg their personal experienc of survival and growth.” Epps-Robertson has her own growth narrative: In 2019, she began takg re of her mother, who was dyg of A.L.S. “I started to play BTS on my way home bee I uldn’t stand to be silence wh the many emotns I felt,” she wrote a blog post. She is pecially attached to “Mikrokosmos” (no relatn to the Bartók), a synth-y, up-tempo track that affirms the “starlight” every soul.</p><p class="paywall">In July, Epps-Robertson, whose Twter name clus a superscript “7” tribute to the band, will fly to Seoul to attend the third nveng of BTS: A Global Interdisciplary Conference. (One of the keynote speakers is the New Age novelist <a href=">Plo Coelho</a>.) Her teen-age dghter, Phoenix, the origal <em class="small">ARMY</em> of the fay, will acpany her. Before BTS, neher mother nor dghter had much tert Asia. Now, Epps-Robertson told me, Phoenix attends a Korean-language school one night a week, pl two hours of private tutorg. “I was so awe of her gettg up early to watch Korean news, to rearch Korean history,” she said. “I was, like, how n I pture that my own class—that excement, that sire to learn more?”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">The ncert I attend Vegas, April, was the fale of the band’s “Permissn to Dance” tour. After two years of the panmic, fans were sperate for a chance to see the group live, and ntued uncertaty over if and when the olr members would have to perform pulsory <a href=">eighteen-month stts</a> the South Korean ary add to the enzy. Still, none of imaged that the tour might be BTS’s last, at least for a while. An <em class="small">ARMY</em> om New York, who’d flown to Los Angel for one of the shows, advised me to “drs to the n.” At the ncert L.A., she said, many fans wore cloth molled after the members’ slick, genr-bendg outfs mic vios and had their hair dyed homage to BTS’s multilored ifs. The fan, whose own hair is shad a pleasg soft pk, giggled at the memory of one ncertgoer who me drsed as a tangere, a reference to SUGA’s love of the u.</p><p class="paywall">Before Las Vegas, I did not know that BTS had a favore lor. But perhaps V—who ed the phrase “Borahae,” a pose of “purple” and “I love you” Korean—was sg upon me. I happened to pack purple sunglass, a purplish-pk fanny pack, a vlet handkerchief, and a silver slip drs whose lavenr sheen I would disver unr the sert sun. When I land at the Las Vegas airport, <em class="small">ARMY</em>s revealed themselv by way of BTS keychas, luggage tags, and T-shirts that read “TAEHYUNG” or “JIMIN.”</p><p class="paywall">That morng, my hotel lobby, I met a young woman named MK Jourda, who was rryg an armful of BTS merch and looked out of breath. A Haian Amerin who wore her hair braid pigtails and a headband ornamented wh two plh SHOOKY bbl, she had flown om Florida, where she attends llege and works at a bank. (SHOOKY is the rtoon character that reprents her bias, SUGA, the universe of BT21, a BTS merchandise le.) She’d joed a que outsi Allegiant Stadium at five-thirty that morng, hopg to have her pick of BTS souvenirs. But, by the time she reached the ont of the le, the Permissn to Dance blankets and T-shirts were sold out. She did manage, however, to snag some photo rds and a plastic fan rated wh the members’ fac. Jourda had been drawn to K-pop after gettg to Japane anime, whose fandom overlaps wh BTS’s <em class="small">ARMY</em> and shar siar ctoms of language-learng and translatn. Jourda was studyg Korean, and explaed that what drew her to BTS, asi om SUGA’s “cute, adorable” rappg and dancg, were the valu that the group projected. “I feel more of the Korean and the Haian culture. It’s very together. There’s a lot of warmth,” she said. In the U.S., by ntrast, “It’s, like, O.K., I’m jt by myself. No one’s really gonna re.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="ph8ged"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Later, standg le for the BTS “Immersive Journey,” a seri of photo-ready rooms that blared recent songs such as “Butter,” I met a bubbly Indian woman a bright-yellow shirt. Akshata was a recent, work-om-home nvert to BTS who’d e om Bangalore, on vatn om her job as an vtment banker. She told me that her hband was workg Salt Lake Cy, and that the band’s msage of self-love had helped her bee more pennt while he was away. When I gave her my bs rd, which clus my name wrten Hangul, she read the Korean aloud. She’d been learng the language part by bgeg on Korean drama seri on Netflix. (She sent me a list of fifty-three and untg.) A few hours after we talked, she got a tattoo of the flower le drawg om the ver of BTS’s first “Love Yourself” album.</p><p class="paywall">BTS as self-re was a theme I heard om many fans. Christa Johnson (bias: RM) me to Las Vegas om Hoton, where she works part-time at Kohl’s and homchools four of her five children. She told me that she was a fan of ’NSync the past, but the gloom of the early panmic, when she was furloughed for several months and stuck at home, she found refuge BTS. She ma a Spotify playlist of nearly two hundred BTS songs and rated her sk at home wh BTS portras. She hung a floatg shelf to display her CDs and ltle figur of each of the members, a kd of secular altar. Johnson grew up foster re; her mother, who is half Japane, was adopted. She said that BTS had spired her to look to her Japane herage and had given her a stronger sense of beg Asian Amerin. When she needs a break om work or om the kids, she puts on her headphon and listens to “Magic Shop” or the “Love Yourself” albums. The band was like “mental-health unsellg,” she told me. (When BTS later announced s break, Johnson said an e-mail that she was havg “a b of a sob ft.” She acknowledged that “they serve time to themselv, to stretch their wgs,” but felt sad bee they “have been a fort to so many for so long.”)</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">That eveng, at Allegiant Stadium, the mood was blissful. The gleamg, two-billn-dollar venue is the new home of the Las Vegas Rairs, but I saw none of the alholic rowds of a football game or the “Yeah, but have you heard X” petivens of a rock or jazz show. Nor was the dience domated by hysteril teen-age girls. In le outsi the stadium, a group of Black men purple outfs lghed and danced. A young Asian woman, yellg “eebi,” gave me a handma BTS bookmark and a felted lavenr heart. A Lato dad wearg a hat that read “땡” (a rap track by RM, SUGA, and j-hope) was acpanied by his wife and teen-age dghters. He told people nearby that their tickets had st forty-eight hundred dollars. Insi the stadium, I took a photo for two <em class="small">ARMY</em>s om Spa. One had ma a sign that read “Bang PD marry me!,” a reference to the producer who started all. From my seat the nosebleeds, I watched the two girls next to me scroll BTS ntent on Instagram and take pouty duck-face selfi. In the row ahead of , a uple who spoke only Japane nibbled on a okie stamped wh BTS’s logo. Nearly all of the stadium’s sixty-five thoand seats were filled, and addnal chairs had been set up on the ground. The Jumbotrons played an anti-plastics (but pro-Samsung) environmental P.S.A. starrg BTS and an assortment of the band’s mic vios to prime the crowd. When the boys fally appeared on stage, unveiled by the liftg of a giant mechanized box, the screamg began. Thoands of <em class="small">ARMY</em>s waved Bluetooth lightsticks (st: fifty-ne dollars) that synched to undulatg fields of lor. The dience lled out the members’ nam routized “fan chants.” It was as massive a spectacle as the Super Bowl or World Cup, except that all the fans were cheerg for the same team.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS fan tak a selfie wh rdboard cutouts of band members along the Las Vegas Strip." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">The Las Vegas strip was l up wh purple, the unofficial lor of BTS, over two weekends of ncerts there April.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by David Becker / Getty</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS fans le to buy merchandise at Allegiant Stadium Las Vegas." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">At the Las Vegas ncert, at Allegiant Stadium, fans waed long l to buy merchandise.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by DeeCee Carter/ Alamy</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Before I knew BTS’s mic, I knew of the members as envoys of well-beg. In 2017—the same year that Kim Jonghyun, a sger the K-pop group SHINee, died by suici—BTS lnched a mpaign wh <em class="small">UNICEF</em> to bat vlence agast children and teens. The followg year, RM reprented the band a speech about self-acceptance at the Uned Natns, and last year all seven members offered enuragement to young people durg the panmic the meetg hall of the U.N.’s General Assembly. A mic vio the boys shot there—sgg one of their hs mure black sus, startg at the green marble rostm rerved for world lears, then skippg through the ma chamber and onto the grassy edge of the East River—has been viewed some sixty-eight ln tim.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS speak at the Uned Natns Headquarters." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Sce 2017, the members of BTS have spread their msage of self-love as UNICEF ambassadors.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by John Angelillo / Getty</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Fans love the members for exprsg empathy for mory groups and talkg ndidly about their own securi, stggl, and mistak. This may expla how BTS has outlasted the “seven-year curse” of most K-pop bands. Early on, after facg cricism for the misogynistic tenor of the song “War of Hormone” (“Imma give to you girl right now,” “Perfect om the ont, perfect om the back,” etc.), RM reportedly mted to a femist readg list. RM and Suga have said terviews that queer people should be able to love whomever they want—no mor gture South Korea, where ’s still difficult to be out. An <em class="small">ARMY</em> named Wang Chengdu, Cha, who intifi as gay, though not publicly, told me, “There’s a big queer ponent of BTS. The fandom feels really welg.” (Contrast this wh the K-pop group Big Bang, whose sgers have been nvicted of sex traffickg, gamblg, and dg crim.) At the same time, BTS has reaed om wadg to public policy. No member has mented on the suatn of queer people South Korea, let alone backed the anti-discrimatn bill that L.G.B.T.Q. activists there have been pursug for more than a .</p><p class="paywall">The band’s ut approach to polics has so far saved om major ntroversy. But there have been kerfuffl. Members have had n-s wh Japane and Che fans, based on symbolic quarrels over East Asian history. And, 2019, j-hope was taken to task for stylg his hair to dreadlock-like “gel twists” the mic vio for “Chicken Noodle Soup,” a remake of the song by DJ Webstar and Young B. Some <em class="small">ARMY</em>s circulated a post English and Korean that cricized this choice as cultural appropriatn; others nmned the crics. More recently, an tra-<em class="small">ARMY</em> clash broke out after BTS teased the tracklist for “Proof,” a new three-CD pilatn album that featur a song wrten part by Jung Bobby, a K-pop poser who has plead guilty to sexual asslt. Though Jung’s nduct did not e to light until after the song was first released, some <em class="small">ARMY</em>s asked why the band would reissue the track at all. When Juwon Park, a journalist wh the Associated Prs Seoul and a oime dancer for K-pop sger PSY, raised the qutn on Twter, global <em class="small">ARMY</em>s bombard her wh vilent rpons. I ran to a siar, if ls hostile, fensivens durg my terviews wh BTS fans. Many <em class="small">ARMY</em>s feel that the band, and K-pop general, have been disrpected by the mastream media, pecially the Wt. I tried to reassure my sourc that I was not wrg a h piece. “I wouldn’t want to say anythg that would hurt the boys,” more than one person told me.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="BTS fan ont of Seoul Olympic Stadium." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">BTS’s prolific, nsistent creatn of mic, vlogs, and variety-show ntent keep fans engaged to an unprecented gree.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by Lee Jae-Won / Alamy</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">At the ncert, om my vertigo perch, I watched seven dots leap balletilly on the stage. I uld see their creamy fac and kohl-limned ey only on the giant screens. They sang and danced for nearly two hours, stoppg only for stume chang. I regnized most of the songs, cludg two of my favor—“Black Swan” and “<em class="small">IDOL</em>”—but didn’t know many of the lyrics. Everyone else, seemed, uld sg along to every word. If I were the pre-teen protagonist of an Asian Amerin g-of-age movie, this is when I would cry: hearg my parents’ language, once a source of embarrassment my whe-bread Amerin home town, now beg sung joyful unison by all the peopl of the earth. The ncert closed wh “Permissn to Dance,” the tle track of the tour. It’s an irristible, high-pched song E major, as sweet and flossy as tton ndy. The lyrics, English, put the panmic at a wishful remove: “I wanna dance, the mic’s got me gog / A’t nothg that n stop how we move.” After BTS fad out, a swirl of nfetti, a date flashed on the Jumbotrons that broke major news: “Proof” would drop on June 10th.</p><p class="paywall">Exg to the parkg lot, toward the floodl artifice of the strip, I tried to reta the ecstatic mood that had filled the stadium. But earlier that day, not far om where we were, I had seen a man a ragged shirt and jeans lumberg alongsi peppy sightseers, rryg an extra pair of sho—wh duct tape place of s sole. I thought of a le om Milan Kunra’s “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Unbearable Lightns of Beg</a>,” another novel that RM endorsed to fans. In a brief tangent on totalarian athetics, Kunra scrib ksch as “the absolute nial of sh.” Was this what we’d felt the stadium: a happy but empty nialism? At the start of my BTS journey, I might have said y. I might have dismissed the band’s mic and acpanyg œuvre as a sentimental tour om our mabre shared realy. But I have found that BTS <em class="small">ARMY</em>s do not live a fantasy. They live where everyone else do: a world of prsn, mass ath, and elogil . Over the past ne years, <em class="small">ARMY</em>s have not looked to the seven for pe. They have looked to them for joy.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div data-ttid="feature-large-llout" class="CalloutFeatureLargeWrapper-cGjDsT gldPvP"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="A girl walks past a mural showg an image of RM Goyang" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Many BTS ARMYs have been spired to study the Korean language and vis South Korea.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Source photograph by Jung Yeon-Je / AFP / Getty </span></div></figure></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS jyGBoi"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body article__body--grid-margs"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div 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the <a href="/unfed" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">son of the Cowardly Ln</a>.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Amelia Earhart’s <a href="/unfed" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">last flight</a>.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Fictn by Milan Kunra: “<a href="/unfed" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">The Unbearable Lightns of Beg</a>.”</p></div></li></ul><div class="LkStackFooter-KfRyO ebnmps lk-stack--footer"><div><p><a href=">Sign up</a> for our daily newsletter to receive the bt stori om <em>The New Yorker</em>.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div 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Tammy Kim</a> is a ntributg wrer at The New Yorker.</div><div class="ContributorBFooter-brqDlv ezUmSv"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div data-ttid="TagCloudWrapper" class="TagCloudWrapper-gGgndx ctyZyK ContentFooterTagCloud-krQmRG ZLGh"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudSectnHear-cOforY iUEiRd bPyAoD kQQRmu">More:</span><a href="/tag/pop-mic" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Pop Mic</span></a><a href="/tag/south-korea" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">South Korea</span></a><a href="/tag/boy-band" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Boy Band</span></a><a href="/tag/fandom" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Fandom</span></a><a href="/tag/k-pop" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">K-Pop</span></a></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="ContentFooterBottom" class="ContentFooterBottom-jwWZfC kcbyiW"><div class="ContentFooterNewsletterContentWrapper-bmjtna kixtae"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormWrapper-fCqqkN jKSBhE newsletter-subscribe-form ContentFooterNewsletterForm-hKeYwa liPqcf"><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormHedDekWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormHedDekWrapper-fpMElW eglIBL"><h3 class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDangeroHed-kRwWjt kbxOa-D newsletter-subscribe-form__hed ContentFooterNewsletterForm-hKeYwa liPqcf">Gogs On</h3><div class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDek-kXonvc cKOhTM newsletter-subscribe-form__k">What we’re watchg, listeng to, and dog this week, onle, N.Y.C., and beyond. 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Tammy Kim talks about how BTS beme arguably the most popular band history, and the thrill of seeg them live before they announced a break.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>The New Yorker</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm dqlGhv" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Briefly Noted" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Books</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Briefly Noted</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Briefly Noted" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">“The Parrot and the Igloo,” “The Migrant Chef,” “The Centre,” and “Hope.”</div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm dqlGhv" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Briefly Noted" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Books</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Briefly Noted</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Briefly Noted" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">“Rhythm Man,” “Last Call at Coogan’s,” “Dykette,” and “Retrospective.”</div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm dqlGhv" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="How Bryan Adams Shot the Queen (and His Other Celeb Pals)" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">London Postrd</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">How Bryan Adams Shot the Queen (and His Other Celeb Pals)</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="How Bryan Adams Shot the Queen (and His Other Celeb Pals)" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">The sger spects a gallery show of his portras of Kate Moss, Mick Jagger, Amy Wehoe, and Her Royal Highns, who may or may not have listened to his mic.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>M. 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