190924 Yoongi’s Tweet
태형의 시선
Going to interrupt my regularly scheduled programming to talk about some things that are honestly getting under my skin. But first.
This song, "Tonight," the one that Kim Seokjin worked his ass off to produce, his own first self-produced song, the one he wrote thinking about the pets he has lost which he is still very upset about,
this song hasn't received half the support from this fandom that the two previous solo songs received.
No one likes to hear that the hyung line gets recognized less often and most likely, very likely, quite probably has fewer fans than the maknae line individually or combined. No one likes to hear anyone mention the discrepancies with the numbers for "Tonight" versus "Promise," or "Scenery." All anyone wants to say is, 'those songs have been out longer, duh, that's why they have more streams, Jin will get there'. That's very astute. Very wise observation. Incredible intelligence. The intelligence is very good. (- my best Trump impression.)
Real talk?
How about instead we consider the fact that "Tonight" from the very first week was less streamed. The first day it broke some record, Jimin's I think, for 24 hour streams, and I watched as it peaked at 8 million streams and then slowly crept to where it is now at not even 15 million streams after being out for one month.
Just look at where "Tonight is at one month versus the others at 6 months and < 6 mo. Divide those streams by the # of months each solo has been out and you'll get a very rough estimate of how many times the song has been streamed per month.
You'll see it's a hell of a lot more than 14 million.
It genuinely frustrates me when I see fans pushing to increase those numbers and still creating streaming parties for songs that have been out for months, songs that were just released for our enjoyment, they were a gift. And people are still streaming them like it's war.
And what's worse is that I'm seeing some of you guys say that these songs weren't streamed that hard in the beginning because they were unexpected or because we didn't know there was a record to break, and I'm sorry but I have to call bullshit on that. I have to call bullshit because I was one of the countless people streaming all day long and not even listening at times because we wanted to show support. You're absolutely goddamn right it wasn't about beating Drake's unknown record. We just wanted to show support. So yes, countless among us streamed it all day long, listened to it until we had the words memorized because we were just so surprised and happy and how else are we supposed to show the artist what the gift meant if we don't stream their song. The ridiculous battle mentality started when the other song was released and the intention from many people was to beat the previous record. It became malicious. It's unnecessary to pit artists within the same group and their songs against each other and that's what some people tried to do. And when that happened some of us streamed harder too. So to say the numbers for the previous solo songs are not a reflection of aggressive support, aggressive support which Seokjin probably will not receive any time soon if "Tonight" is an indicator, is just absolute bullshit. We all watched that happen. I'm still seeing it happen. But some people trust that public memory is forgetful. They're right.
The takeaway?
Seokjin deserves more from this fandom.
And I don't care who this post offends. I'm proud of them all and I stream all of their songs. But for fucks sake. This is basically shameful he put that much into this song and this is the result.
And I don't see anyone-not any damn one of you-raving about how the members aren't hyping him up on social media and about how we haven't heard barely anything about the song since it was released minus Namjoon mentioning he helped with it. And we all know how some of you like to rant and rave about OT7 and a lack of support from bangtan when certain members put out solo projects.
Only certain members. The silence is deafening for Seokjin.
It's times like these when I get disgusted with the transparency of this fandom and why I will absolutely no longer even pretend to have a bias, even for fun. I hate the entire everything about bias culture. When I got into them and found out this was a chunk of what kpop was about, this culture of picking sides, it was the most immature bunch of nonsense I've ever seen. I've never understood it and I've always seen it as a gateway to toxicity. Anytime I talk to an ARMY privately as friends they want to know who my bias is before they know anything else, as if that would tell them all they needed to know. There was a time when I almost wouldn't talk to this one ARMY because she had taekook in her @ (can you imagine the stupidity of that philosophy) when come to find out she was very sweet and actually wasn't even a shipper. There was a member who introduced me to the group and he has a special place as my recruitment fairy, but do you guys even know what the meaning of the word bias means?
Here, I'll just:
You know, the word bias gets thrown around pretty easily and it's really not that positive.
.
I love bangtan. I like them as people, their music, and they came into my life when I needed a life preserver. I don't know what I would be doing right now if I didn't have bangtan content. But what comes with stanning them is a lot of bullshit. And that sucks.
The whole bias culture, the culture of calling people solo stans the minute the speak up about a member, antis when they bring up hate a different member faces and that no, it's not all skewed to one person in bangtan, this culture of clapping back with fancams on Twitter to be 'sassy' and to look cool 'win', this culture of posting a solo song and saying "stream x for clear skin and good grades" to 'win' or provoke someone else: I wonder if any fandom is better than that, I doubt it.
02/09/19 Jungkook’s Tweet
저는 오늘 이렇게 먹었습니당!ㅎㅎ
[TRANS]
I ate like this today! Hehe
It’s crazy how 6 years have passed since BTS debuted as a small group with big hearts and big dreams.
I hope that BTS won’t always have to adhere to their public image, as a “member of BTS”, and be able to be their own people. To seek out their own individual passions and really shape themselves however they want to, for only themselves and no one else.
I hope that they continue to be happy and pursue their personal passions as well as the goals they’ve set as a team. But along with those goals, I wish for them to stay healthy.
I hope that ARMY will continue to support and love them. And if we possibly don’t agree with whatever they decide to do, I hope that we will still respect them as artists and as people.
I want to say thank you, for always putting a smile on my face, especially when I needed it the most. Thank you for making such inspirational and amazing music for us to listen and connect with. And most of all, thank you for your hard work and never-ending love!
So fucking proud!
A man with many charms. Happy birthday Namjoon! 🐨💙©
Seoul Town Road? WHAT? JOON REALLY JUST— 😂