Read on Twitter
: what are we supposed to do now?
: just pretend like you understandThis video used to make me chuckle, but now seeing it again after hearing Joon talk about how they feel like aliens in the US industry, I want to make a thread exploring my thoughts on this present day.+ https://twitter.com/EV1YL/status/1304607547320659968
Just from this video, you can see that they don't know what's going on, and that's normally the case for a lot of events they go to in the US. They come here and they're never accommodated for. In 2017, there were barely any translators or interpreters for interviews either.+
Most of the time, they had to be relying on Namjoon and Namjoon alone to translate for them, and then the members themselves had to improve their own English in order to get their messages across. Barely anyone in the US met them halfway.+
People just treated them as a novelty act. Never to be taken seriously. Since they blew up, people expected them to fade into irrelevancy. So when they continued to rise, people got mad and began sending hate to the boys.+
All these posts/articles that blow up disrespecting the boys, deliberately misgendering them, dismissing their music and their message, all because of preconceived notions on what they thought BTS was all about.+
BTS walk around in American award shows and on red carpets and in interviews and nobody has taken the time to understand how they got there and why. Even worse, people don't even think they NEED to understand. Everybody knows them but nobody KNOWS them.+
Even just to see them sitting down like that in the video I quoted, it's like they're in their own bubble as the whole world moves around them. They literally only had each other. No one in that place even bothered to talk to them to explain what was going on.+
This is why whenever they go to award shows, they always look for us. This is why whenever they leave, it's not to go to after parties, it's to talk to us. We're literally their only source of comfort in the US, because we're the only ones who understand them.+
I feel so sorry for the boys knowing how hard they work and how sincere they are. They're outselling, outcharting, and outperforming literally all their Western counterparts with NO help from radio, mediaplay, or bundling, yet they're so ignored.+
They get treated like a mystery, like they just suddenly appeared and no one knows why, despite the fact that they've been charting on BB200 since 2015 and have been steadily charting higher. I can't imagine what that feels like for them.+
If this were a Western act, at this point in their career, people would be bending over backwards to welcome them into the industry with open arms. But BTS never gets that. They do everything right. They take no shortcuts, they play by the rules, and still, they get shut out.+
People who are doing less than half of what BTS are doing get accolades for the bare minimum, meanwhile BTS works hard and puts out quality content every time, but all they get is skepticism. Honestly, just thinking about it infuriates me.+
The way BTS feels in the US industry literally reminds me of their song Whalien 52. They're on a completely different frequency to everyone else and no one speaks their language, so they're the loneliest whale in the ocean. It's just so heartbreaking.+
Forget next year. Next comeback, I am not being as nice to people who refuse to make BTS feel welcome. 2017, we let it go because BTS were new. 2018, we gave them another chance. 2019, we saw a tiny bit of improvement but hoped for better. 2020, I'm not fckin playing.+
I'm sorry if this is all over the place, I just typed out my thoughts exactly how they came. But imma say this once for the US industry and once only.
Treat BTS right. Or you will have an ARMY to deal with.
That is all.
Treat BTS right. Or you will have an ARMY to deal with.
That is all.
