You and I, Best Moment is Yet to Come: Fandom and/as Meaning
On February 26, 2020, a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video, the latest “Carpool Karaoke” skit that aired on a recent episode of James Corden’s The Late Late Show. The skit featured 7 guests crammed into a three-row SUV alongside Corden, exchanging good-natured banter and singing along to music. The guests in question were the Korean pop group BTS, who had been on my radar for a number of years due to their hugely influential fandom (called ARMY). As a fandom scholar, I know better than to dismiss cultural objects that attract large and loyal fandoms, so BTS was always something that I figured I’d get around to checking out eventually. Perhaps I was also a bit hesitant, knowing that they inspired that much love from their fans and may very well pull me down an all-consuming rabbit hole. So, since 2018, I glanced at them from the periphery, but never engaged head-on. Until I opened that video. And thus began my journey into the Magic Shop.
Fast forward a few years and we arrive at June 14, 2022. After finishing promotions for their 3-disc anthology album Proof, and to close out their 9th anniversary celebration during the 2-week long period known as “Festa,” a video was released, innocuously called “Real Bangtan Company Dinner” (Bangtan, coming from “Bangtan Sonyeondan,” the group’s Korean name). In the video, the members spent an emotional hour reflecting on their 9-year journey and informing ARMY that they were going to go into an “off period” and taking a break from making music and touring as a group. Years as the world’s biggest boy band, with the hopes and expectations of a nation on their shoulders, had taken its toll and they told us how tired and burnt out they felt, how the rigors of their schedule as a group had left little time for personal growth, and how they didn’t know if they had anything left to say as BTS. They asked for ARMY’s support while they rest, recharge, and rediscover their creative spark outside the BTS pressure cooker.
The members assured us that they would not disappear. They had some group activities planned (such as their beloved variety show, Run! BTS), and several members had already announced upcoming solo activities. BTS told us that this was their “Chapter 2,” a new and exciting exploration of their individuality and a hopefully more sustainable path to staying together as BTS for a long time. Only time will tell what this path (and ARMY’s) will look like going forward. But, for a lot of fans, it felt like a devastating ending. And so I, like millions of ARMYs, have found myself looking back at our shared Chapter 1, and wrapping my head (and heart) around what it meant and why its ending feels so painful.
I do not exaggerate when I say that being a fan of BTS has felt life-changing. And I think the reason for that is because it’s been an intense source of meaning.
As both a purple-blooded BTS ARMY and a fan scholar with almost two decades of experience being in, thinking about, and studying fandom, it’s a lot to wrap my head around. There’s something about BTS that has felt more special, more all-encompassing, more important than any other fandom I’ve ever been a part of. I’ve written about how they elevated ARMY to the position of co-creators and how this feeling of being genuine equals inspires immense emotional investment and loyalty. I’ve written about how fandom can feel like falling in love, and how our collective love affair with BTS has felt extraordinary and transformative. I’ve written about the struggles that BTS faced in climbing to the top of the Western music industry, and how the shared sense of purpose united ARMY to be more effective and successful in achieving chart domination than any other fandom. I do not exaggerate when I say that being a fan of BTS has felt life-changing. And I think the reason for that is because it’s been an intense source of meaning.
The quest for meaning is as old as humanity itself. I’m not saying that fandom is the meaning of life — that’s probably an impossible question best left to philosophers. But psychology tells us that the emotional experience of meaning is definable and achievable. We often think the purpose of life is to be happy, but really it’s to connect to things that make our life feel meaningful and worthwhile. Ultimately, meaning (like love) is a form of connection. Specifically, meaning exists in multiple levels of connection: with others, with something larger than us, and, ultimately, with ourselves.
Fandom can serve all these levels of connection. At a fundamental level, fandom is a connection with a person or a story that delights and inspires us. Whether that’s escaping into a fictional world or admiring an artist or celebrity, the simple experience of being a fan is to find joy in that connection. On another level, fandom also fosters connections with others through fan communities. Belonging is a core part of meaning because it makes us feel part of the world, and it is a remedy to the loneliness and isolation of a lot of everyday life. In fandom, we are able to share a part of ourselves that we may feel is not accepted in society at large. Because, even as fans gain economic currency, the cultural stigma of fandom still remains. Sharing and celebrating fan-love with other people who feel the same way can be utterly joyful and life-affirming.
Being a BTS fan hits all these levels of meaning in a way that feels incredibly special. In the Winter 2020 edition of Esquire Magazine, Dave Holmes wrote a beautiful profile of BTS, and there is one particular passage that I often think about when I try to explain to people what being BTS ARMY feels like:
Sometimes there is a whole universe alongside your own, bursting with color you’re too stubborn to see, bouncing with joy you think is for someone else, with a beat you thought you were finished dancing to. BTS are the biggest thing on the planet right now, yet the job of introducing them to someone new, particularly in America, seems like it’s never done. …Whatever the reason, the result is that you might be missing out on a paradigm shift and a historic moment of pop greatness.
When you enter into the BTS universe, it really feels like a paradigm shift. Especially among adult fans, there is a common sentiment that BTS helped us rediscover how to live joyfully in a way that we thought we might have become too grown up for. The tagline of BTS’s company used to be “music and artist for healing,” and that’s what BTS has always done: they have healed their fans through their music, through their sincere love for each other, through their vulnerability, and through the childlike openness when having fun.
I’ve previously written about how BTS construct their authenticity within the K-Pop idol system by taking charge of their own image and making their own journey (growing up, learning to love yourself, and exploring your identity) an ongoing thematic thread in their music. But calling BTS authentic is almost missing the point; it’s the authentic emotional connection they forged with ARMY that’s a key part of the magic. We can analyze the skill with which they constructed the parasocial relationships or the extent to which the K-Pop industry is a fantasy industry, designed to fulfill the needs of its audience. But at their core, BTS make it their mission to bring joy and healing to their fans, and ARMY reflects this love back to them.
At their core, BTS make it their mission to bring joy and healing to their fans, and ARMY reflects this love back to them.
In “Love 2.0: Creating happiness and Health in Moments of Connection,” author Barbara L. Fredrickson argues that love, rather than being only romantic or familial, is really the “supreme emotion that makes us come most fully alive and feel most fully human.” Love exists in abundance in our life if we choose to recognize it, and particularly in “momentary experiences of connection.” Fredrickson, who has spent decades studying the science of emotion, explains that we can enhance our overall health and well-being, both mental and physical, through a process of “positivity resonance,” a sort of “upward spiral” of positive emotions that can help people thrive and feel happier. She writes, “Falling in love within smaller moments and with a greater variety of people gives new hope to the lonely and isolated among us.” The key is leaning into positivity resonance when it happens, as well as the many opportunities for it.
I think that so much of the fan experience — and specifically the BTS fan experience — is about positivity resonance. When people open themselves up to the love and joy that fandom can bring, their mental health improves and they’re able to find more love and joy in their life as a whole. During BTS’s recent series of concerts in Las Vegas, the camera showed a variety of fan-made signs during a short break before the group returned for an encore. When the camera lingered on a sign that read “BTS Saved Me,” the crowd gave one of the loudest cheers of the night. The experience of healing love, joy, and inspiration among BTS fans is almost universal.
One of my favorite BTS songs is “Magic Shop” from their 2018 album Love Yourself: Tear. There is a particular lyric that confused me at first but made perfect sense once I went further into the BTS universe:
You gave me the best of me / so you’ll give you the best of you
“Magic Shop” is about giving thanks that the fans allowed BTS to become the best version of themselves and, in return, giving fans the courage and encouragement to do the same for themselves. Now that BTS is entering a new chapter, I’ve been thinking about “Magic Shop” a lot. They brought us along their journey of growth, not just as artists but as humans. But, ultimately, they gave us the tools to be our own biggest fan. To love ourselves. To boldly write our own chapter 2.
So wherever this road leads, I just want to say, thank you BTS. For inviting me into your Magic Shop, and for letting me experience a colorful universe alongside you. If there’s anything you’ve taught us is that the Magic Shop is always inside ourselves. Your best moment, and ours, is yet to come.
