How did this story even come about? It all started with a 50something ARMY (Adorable Representative MC for Youth, aka BTS super fan) whom I interviewed for a book last August.
She is a multi-millionaire investment banker from Hong Kong whose clients are multi-millionaires/billionaires. Her Zoom background was a colourful poster of seven Korean boys. I didn’t know much about them then, but I did know that BTS was huge, presumably among teen girls and young single women. How wrong I was.
Curious, I asked her about BTS. In an instant she went from being reserved banker talking about how COVID created new market opportunities to bright-eyed super fan regaling me with stories of how BTS kept her sane throughout the most terrible year. Within five minutes, I learned that Jungkook’s smile had magical powers, BTS had an ongoing show that was the highlight of her week, and that BTS fans were called “ARMY”.
“I love BTS! They make me happy!” she explained simply.
Two months later, in the midst of a particularly stressful period, I recalled my interview and decided to check out this “happy pill” for myself. I searched “BTS” on Spotify and played the first track on the list. It was “Dynamite”.
Five seconds in, I was gobsmacked. There was no way a Korean boyband sang this song. I listened to it again. And again. Then I Googled the song, and watched the music video. I was transfixed. Who were these candy-haired boys—RM, Jin, V, J-Hope, Suga, Jungkook, Jimin—and how could they sound so good?
In that moment, I could understand how BTS appeals even to Gen Xers like Ms Millionaire Investment Banker and myself. There must be more like us, so I set out to hunt them down.
THE PURPLE RABBIT HOLE
As I researched this story, I realised that every ARMY (a name bestowed upon fans by BTS, ARMY is both singular and collective and has its own back story) has a story about how they became a hopeless BTS fan.
They’re not kidding about the proverbial “rabbit hole”—the slippery slope down which one falls at breakneck speed before becoming firmly entrenched in the BTS fandom. Watching one MV will lead you to another 10. Clicking on one BTS interview will lead you to another 20. There are probably more videos on YouTube by and about BTS than any other artist globally—I tried to do a search but it was like trying to fit the ocean into an NTUC plastic bag. To give you an idea, people in Japan alone watched BTS videos 148 million times in one year (Feb 2020-Feb 2021). That’s not counting the other 194 countries in the world. Or the innumerable fan-made videos, memes, TikToks…
BTS did not win Billboard’s Top Social Artist award four years in a row for nothing. They are incredibly accessible online—they connect with ARMY frequently on Weverse (owned by their parent company HYBE) and V Live (live streaming), Tweet their gratitude, share funny clips of their day-to-day lives on various platforms. This has the effect of drawing ARMY to social media daily (in fact, many times a day) to check out what they are doing. There is fresh content every two days or so, some of it directly from the seven.
Having ARMY online so often—majority of them girls and women—leads to communities forming. BTS fan groups? There are too many to count. BTS Twitter threads—how much time do you have in a day? Some have even taken to meeting in real life—ARMY from two ends of the globe getting together at a BTS concert in a city in between!
That ARMY run the gamut from 10-year-old girls to 80-year-old grandmothers is not a new thing—almost any boy band can boast of that. But ARMY is different in that every one has a unique, yet universal, relationship with BTS and their music. This is why when ARMY mothers get to meet BTS, they rub their daughters’ noses in it!
In her hilarious and helpful blog post “Your Guide To Being A Middle-Aged BTS Fan”, Asian American writer and podcaster Virginia Duan offers useful tips to mature fans on how to overcome the initial embarrassment of becoming ARMY.
What’s BTS’ draw? I ask her. “It’s been said that BTS is lightning in a bottle and I agree,” says the mother of four who has a podcast called Noona Army where she talks about all things BTS. “There’s no one particular magical factor. It’s a combination of their vulnerability, their hard work, their talent, their performance, and their music and lyrics — but all these things and more, other groups possess to some degree or more, just perhaps in different ratios. BTS is magic because they are BTS. Often imitated, never duplicated.”
“THE RIDICULE IS REAL”
It’s not easy being a Gen X fan of BTS. You risk being ridiculed, even more so if you’re a married woman in your 40s or 50s, say some ARMY.
Jessie (not her real name) has been a BTS fan since September 2018. Married with two adult children, she shares that there’s a stigma attached to being ARMY at this age. “People are shy to admit it,” she points out. “The usual sort of ridicule I hear are ‘They’re like girls’, ‘They’re gay’, ‘They wear makeup’. It’s rife in Asia—we’re still very backwards. Even the media is so toxic when they report on them.”
Jessie “stans” Jimin—she teaches me that “stan” means to be a fan of someone. “For the first year I was stanning, I was so immersed that I wasn’t interested in any of my real life friends anymore—they bored me. I used to be on Facebook discussing politics and education, but suddenly those things became trivial. All that consumed me was BTS and Jimin,” she describes, adding that the feeling was like a teenage crush—she glowed, she lost her appetite. That period lasted six months. “Thank God my real life friends didn’t give up on me.”
Her children tease her about her BTS obsession but they also proudly tell their friends about their cool mom. Jessie’s devotion has seen her fly cross the globe to watch the boys’ Love Yourself world tour. “Before BTS’ concert at the National Stadium in January 2019, the last concert I went to was Michael Jackson in 1993!” she says. “I flew to Hong Kong to watch them that March. Then I watched them at Wembley in London in June that year.”
Educator Jasmine Ng, 42, is married with two teenage children. She is the only BTS fan in the family. “I think in Singapore people tend to think fandoms are for young people, so they wonder why am I a fan of BTS,” she says.
Despite this, Jasmine is a steadfast ARMY who loves BTS for their personalities and value system. “Growing up in Singapore can be tough,” she notes. “Many of our kids are influenced by American culture, so you don’t see [good Asian] values in practice much. So I use BTS as a teaching point, to encourage my students to be humble and resilient. For BTS to have worked so hard for seven years to reach this level of popularity took a lot of resilience. It’s not easy—I think many of us would have given up halfway.”
Ernie H, also an educator, admits, “Yes, it’s embarrassing sometimes when people find out I’m a BTS fan. I get an ‘eek!’ response from some friends. Frankly, in the beginning, I was also slapping myself hard! I used to question the value of Auto-Tune, and also the makeup on the boys. I used to think, only Boy George did this! When BTS came to Singapore, I wanted to watch them live, but I was in a denial of my identity,” she adds, laughing. “Very paiseh.”
For most of the Gen Xers interviewed for this story, their journey to coming out as ARMY has been anything but overnight. Some, like Laura (not her real name) remain firmly closeted, adoring Suga privately. Her reason: “they’re too young lah!” Others—husbands—will dance along to BTS videos and sing along to Jungkook but never admit they’re a fan.
But for the ARMY in this story, their appreciation for BTS and their songs has grown too loud to hide. They share five key reasons (out of many, many) why they love BTS.
1. BTS SONGS HAVE HEALING POWERS
“I’ve been waiting for this chance to let people know that we’re not screaming teenagers,” says Anna Abdollah, 40, who is married with a 4-year-old girl.
To say that Anna lives and breathes BTS would not be too much of an exaggeration. The clinic manager, wife and mother is listening to or watching BTS daily. Her work station at the clinic resembles a BTS pop-up store. She even has tattoos of BTS iconography, the latest being “Truth” and “Untold” (after the BTS song “The Truth Untold”) inked on the backs of her arms. (Another new one is the “Love Yourself” line drawing of a heart.)
It’s easy to diss mature BTS fans, or to mistake them for overgrown teens reliving their youth. But talk to a Bangtan noona (older female fan of BTS) and you’ll soon realise her love is real and rooted in something deeper than cute faces and slick dance moves.
Anna discovered BTS in 2018 after the death of her brother. “I always found comfort in songs; I needed a distraction, I needed music—at that point I wasn’t speaking to anyone for a few days. Not even my husband. As I went through my YouTube playlist, BTS came up under the ‘recommended for you’ list. As I was feeling sad, I listened to anything that suited my mood. Before I knew it, my most-played list jumped from Radiohead to ‘BTS Songs To Listen To When You Feel Sad’.”
Anna had little idea who BTS was—it was the peace that their songs brought her that captivated her. “One song led to another and somehow, I felt like I could relate. It was only when I Googled them that I discovered who they really were.”
It was “The Truth Untold” that cemented her connection to the band. Although she didn’t understand what they were singing at first, a fan-made video of the song performed at a concert led her to search for the translation of the song. “When I read the lyrics, I was a mess, to be honest,” she recalls. “’The Truth Untold’ is a haunting and sad song about not being able to say what you want to someone. I call it Iyen’s Song, after my late brother, because there were so many things I wish I had said to him before he left us. But I didn’t. The song holds a lot of meaning for me.”
It was also the song that “turned me into a full-fledged out-and-proud ARMY,” says Anna, adding that she watched so many BTS YouTube videos that within a week “I knew their names, I knew their stories, I knew their hardships…”
Anna is not the only one to have become an ARMY through the emotional connection of BTS’ music. Jasmine was going through a particularly difficult season in her life in 2020, when she found relief and comfort in the septet’s songs. “Somehow their music and lyrics help me to forget my problems,” she says. “Like in ‘The Magic Shop’, they are telling people to use them as a role model and to love themselves.”
In the sage words of Norlin, 46, “BTS ‘finds’ you when you need them.” It is strange but true that many ARMY, including those in this story, discover the group at a low point in their lives, and find BTS songs making them smile again.
2. BTS POSSESSES GEN X VALUES
I have a theory that BTS attracts fans among normal folks and celebrities alike because of their charmingly old-fashioned Asian values. Whether or not it’s a marketing ploy, the point is good values are communicated and have the power to influence young people around the world who look up to them.
“Humility” and “sincerity” are words you’ll hear over and over again talking to Gen X ARMY. While being humble is expected of Asian idols, fans can tell if someone’s just acting humble. The Bangtan boys are, however, consistently modest—at concerts, behind the scenes, on their weekly shows, on social media. When Jin calls himself “Worldwide Handsome” it is a running gag—a Dad joke—without a trace of conceit.
What stands out during their Korean interviews is BTS’ gratitude and love for their parents, an unusual thing in an industry where stars and their parents are more likely to make the news for fighting over control and money. Most of the parents of the seven members are Gen Xers themselves—that could explain the maternal (even paternal) love this demographic has for BTS.
In today’s hypersexualized global music industry, BTS are contrarian. Their music is largely PG, if not G. They espouse respect and love for self and for others. They live up to their name “Bulletproof Boy Scouts”. Maybe Gen Xers are getting old, but it’s refreshing to see an act with all their clothes on these days.
Rob Collins, 46, a singer from the UK based in Singapore, first became a BTS fan after hearing them speak at the United Nations’ General Assembly in 2018. BTS leader Kim Nam Joon (RM) delivered a powerful statement on behalf of the band, denouncing violence against and neglect of children and declaring the power of standing up for and loving oneself.
In 2017, BTS had worked with UNICEF Korea to launch the Love Myself campaign against violence. The band and their label Big Hit Entertainment donated 500 million won (about S$595,800) and pledged 3 per cent of their income from sales of the Love Yourself album to the End Violence Against Children campaign. ARMY joined forces and brought that donation amount over US$1 million. Last year, during the pandemic, BTS delivered a second speech, a video message of encouragement at the UN General Assembly. Just last month, BTS recommitted to UNICEF and pledged another US$1 million toward the cause.
“In a world of violence, and with so many bands that inspire in the wrong way, I believe it’s very powerful that BTS would want to speak at the UN and show that they want to do good and use their name in a positive way,” Rob says. “I believe the boys also often donate their money to their old schools and to charity. In a world of so much selfishness, I find this amazing from such young lads,” says Rob, who first discovered BTS watching them perform “Idol” on The Graham Norton Show in 2018.
Rob Collins at the BTS pop up store His Jungkook car key charm
The members of BTS have been consistently dignified. Because BTS is so accessible (through social media, you can get into their bedrooms and kitchen, watch them bicker, observe in terror as they cook), there’s little pretense witnessed in their words and deeds. So it’s notable that they wisely stay away from controversial issues, skillfully and politely, for example, declining to read thirst Tweets that Buzzfeed asks them to; and gently joshing Halsey during their various performances of “Boy With Luv” but never overstepping their mark or being inappropriate.
They’ve been compared to the Beatles for the kind of hysteria they inspire throughout the globe. But it’s not just the dancing, singing and cute looks that they have in common, BTS also composes deep songs as the Beatles did. Although they sing and write in mostly Korean, the influences that shape their lyrics reflect the breadth of interests and knowledge they have: “Magic Shop”, written by Jungkook, was inspired by neurosurgeon James Doty’s 2016 best-selling book and “Black Swan”, cowritten by RM, is a song about the fear an artist has of coming to the end of his career, based on a quote from legendary dancer Martha Graham: “A dancer dies twice—once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful.”
3. BTS GIVES GEN XERS PERMISSION TO LOVE THEMSELVES
Possibly BTS’ most vocal male Gen X celebrity fan is 16-time World Wresting Federation legend John Cena. The 43-year-old, who speaks Mandarin and is impressively familiar with Asian culture, became a fan of BTS in 2018 (his bias is J Hope), and most recently, appeared on The Ellen Show and thanked BTS and ARMY for making it acceptable for him to be vulnerable during a low point in his life.
Cena’s two motivational books— Do Your Best Every Day To Do Your Best Every Day and Be A Work In Progress: And Other Things I’d Like To Tell My Younger Self—are the result of his personal journey discovering how to love himself. Do Your Best is a compilation of his #LoveYourself tweets that he began writing in August 2018.
“So I put out all these messages about self-love and I’m thinking, ‘This is not going to be a good idea because this big, larger-than-life, 16-time WWE champion is now talking about vulnerability and the fact that you are enough and you shouldn’t be ashamed of who you are, but it caught fire because of the BTS Army’,” he said on Ellen.
Gen X being the demographic that was labelled “slackers” and being largely neglected by Boomer parents, such a message inspires as much as it invites contempt. Gen X is too cool for self-love, yet it’s Gen Xers that need to know it’s okay to love themselves.
To Virginia Duan, BTS show by example what it means to love yourself. She tells Gen X Singapore: “They went after what they wanted and pursued their desires with their whole beings. Their music reflected that passion and hard work and in conjunction with a lot of other factors in my life, were a huge part of the reason that I could also want and pursue the desires of my heart.”
Encountering BTS was life-changing for Singaporean Pris Lim. “Their Love Yourself message spoke deeply to me,” she says. “I was struggling with depression in 2017 and discovering BTS and their LY message couldn’t have come at a better time. They are very open about their own struggles to love themselves and that resonated with me. Their lyrics, music and lives are truly inspiring and have motivated me in many ways.”
4. BTS INSPIRES AN UNUSUAL CAMARADERIE AMONG ARMY
Becoming ARMY at 40 or 50 can be a lonely thing, particularly if your friends can’t understand why “a grown woman/man likes a teenybopper boy band”. Many ARMY fly under the radar for fear of being judged, but when they find another ARMY like them, fast friendships are formed.
In some cases, old friends reconnect through the BTS fandom. Fazi J, 49, quite literally stumbled upon K-pop and BTS. She had never watched a Korean drama until Singapore went into lockdown in 2020, and she found herself with time on her hands. The popular Crash Landing On You was her introduction into K drama, which led to others, such as Itaewon Class. “I was so obsessed with ‘Sweet Night’,” she says of the song by V that was featured on the series soundtrack, “and I found out that Park Seo Joon of Itaewon Class is best friends with V and Choi Woo Shik of Parasite. So I wanted to know more about V, and that led to BTS.”
Fazi’s immersion into BTS culture led her to fan Facebook groups, where her ex-secondary school friends who were ARMY discovered her. “One fine day, two of them messaged me separately and asked if I was ARMY. I said, ‘Heck, yeah!’ And they added me to their BTS group chat!” There are four Tanjong Katong Girls’ School alumni in this “ARMY Moms” group chat, and they communicate nearly daily on all things BTS.
“It’s kind of amazing that our love for BTS has brought us together again,” muses Norlin, the fourth classmate in the group, noting that they have known each other since they were 12.
Norlin, a global customer operations support manager for a mobile satellite communications company who was introduced to BTS by her 11-year-old daughter, says that apart from this ARMY Mums chat group, she also made friends with other Singapore ARMY through Twitter. These ARMY would organise BTS-themed events before the pandemic: “[Once] we booked a karaoke room and sang and danced to BTS songs. And they all brought little fan packs for everyone. It was fun!”
Because of BTS, Ernie experience her first “reunion” with the Bangtan Babes that were her secondary school friends. “I hadn’t met Fazi for a long time; Norlin, about once a year. That meetup made me feel normal,” she laughs.
There’s a “secret code” that ARMY share—little clues that give them away. Anna has a BT21 Cooky bunny EZ-Link charm attached to her watch. A cousin who was ARMY spotted it and said to her “Hello, Army!” and the two connected on a brand new level. Another time, she was shooting a TikTok video of a dance to “Dynamite” when another ARMY spotted her and gave her tips. “And I gave her some BTS biscuits and we became acquainted!” says Anna, adding that whenever ARMY meet, “we give each other gifts—it’s ARMY culture!”
ARMY culture is also getting together with strangers who share a love for BTS. Wife and mother-of-two Pris Lim, who is in her 40s, explains, “There is a Facebook group called BTSArmyMom International. It’s only for moms. As such, there’s already a common thread that binds us. Of course, added with the common love for an amazing group of seven talented artists, that binds us even stronger together. The camaraderie among us is strong because we go against the general view of moms being fans of a boy group.”
Friendship is birthed through private messaging. “When one mom reaches out to another in the group through private messages—usually because we feel a certain connection with the other due to a common bias, view or nationality—we bond easily. We usually end up being very open with each other and that leads to a good friendship being formed.”
Pris says that if a new friend from the Facebook group is local, they would arrange to meet up. If they live overseas, they would arrange to meet in that country if possible. “Before the pandemic, I had planned to fly to US for a concert and would have met up with some US BTSArmyMom friends there. Hopefully, when the pandemic is over, my plan can resume.”
When BTS came to Singapore on their Love Yourself tour, Pris went with a Malaysian fan she had befriended through the group. The Malaysian fan is in her 50s and she didn’t come alone. She had her friends and family with her, and more friendships were formed at that concert.
“ARMY will always meet when the opportunity arises—it’s just natural to us,” says Pris.
5. BTS DRAWS PARENTS AND KIDS TOGETHER
Many ARMY moms become BTS fans because of children—theirs and otherwise. Ernie’s introduction to BTS came from her class.
“I was curious about the hype in 2017 when they arrived (for the Music Bank tour with other K-pop acts). In class, whenever I said, ‘Did you see this or that?’, one of my students would echo ‘Did you see my bag?’ which is a line from ‘Mic Drop’, and they would start singing. I had no idea what they were talking about but it was so funny!”
Ernie’s curiosity brought her to the Internet where she started listening to their music on YouTube. But it was only in 2018 when two of her four children, then 12 and 8, became fans, that she found herself also becoming a “closet BTS fan”.
“We danced to BTS songs. We watched the BTS movie together with my husband—he was the only guy in the cinema and when the ARMY Singapore rep wanted to take a photo, he hid his face!” she laughs. “That same year we made a memorable trip to Japan, and the only downloaded songs on my phone were BTS songs, so it was BTS music all throughout our trip.”
Norlin credits BTS for bringing her closer to her pre-teen daughter. “She was at that age when her interests had changed and I found it difficult to connect with and to communicate with her. We no longer had any common interests so finding things to do with her to have that quality time became challenging.”
Her daughter was ARMY. “She was always asking me to sit and watch K-pop music videos with her. So many different groups and songs so initially it didn’t register. Then one fine day, she let me watch ‘Mic Drop’. I loved the beat and started to watch more BTS music videos. I finally fell in love with the group when I watched ‘Blood Sweat and Tears’.”
Is Norlin or her daughter the bigger BTS fan? Watch their BTS showdown!
“When I became ARMY, that really helped my daughter and I to share and enjoy something together. We spent hours streaming their videos and talking about them. On my birthday last year, we watched Bang Bang Con: The Live (a live online concert in April 2020) together—that was really fun!”
Norlin’s daughter has now moved on to liking other K-pop acts, but “having been open to BTS helped me get more exposed to other K-pop groups so I know which groups she’s talking about and her biases, etc,” Norlin explains.
“BTS helped me bridge that gap with my girl.”
As you can imagine, this story barely scratches the surface of the wide, wild, wonderful fandom of BTS. If you’re already ARMY (or undercover ARMY), share your BTS story with us on our social media!
