“Huh? Ganahan diay ka og BTS?” (Huh? You like BTS?)

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard other people ask me that question when they discover that I’m an Army. I’ve had weird stares and stink eyes directed at me whenever they find out I’m an Army. I’ve asked my closest friends why it was surprising to them that I like BTS, or Kpop in general, and they’ve always said it’s because it was unlikely of me being a lover of indie and new age music. I guess you can say I was a music snob at some point in my youth and found pride when my playlists didn’t have much pop music in them. To a degree, I wasn’t surprised that they were surprised at my ~sudden~ love for BTS.

But the thing is, my love for BTS wasn’t sudden at all. It took me months to succumb to the Bangtan side of the internet. I first watched a BTS performance during their promotion of Map of the Soul: 7 at The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Their performance of “ON” at the Grand Central Station was fascinating. I was just in awe of their musicality, plus the song and performance were so powerful, even a non-fan would certainly feel the BTS power.

After that, I didn’t really dwell on them. The pandemic happened, and the world stopped, and we had to imprison ourselves in our own homes for the safety of everyone. At some point during quarantine, I found myself looking for a distraction, an escape. Then I finally let myself into a YouTube rabbit hole of funny BTS compilation videos. Then I found myself wanting to learn more about them and researched where a certain clip was from. Then I watched their Bon Voyage series and really saw them in a new light. I remember crying at one scene during their Hawaii season when they were snorkeling and just jumping into the ocean. At that point, I was cooped up at home for about 4-5 months already and was hit the pandemic blues, and just watching them have fun and relating to them made it a tiny bit easier to cope.

One thing that BTS is so great at is the way they intricately put their messages into their music. Every other week at that time, I get mind-blown by their lyrics and messages. The first song that gave me goosebumps was “Anpanman“. It’s about this cartoon character called Anpanman who’s literally a red bean breadman. He doesn’t have the coolest powers in the universe and was considered as the world’s weakest hero, but every time he helped the needy, he gave a piece of himself – a piece of anpan. BTS compared themselves to the world’s weakest hero, conveying the message that rather than becoming a hero because you’re strong, you can be a hero even though you’re weak.

There are so many BTS songs that give me chills because of how intricate and beautiful the melodies and messages are, but maybe one of the most notable is the Trivia series in Love Yourself: Answer. The rapline – RM, SUGA, and jhope – each had a solo song in this album that portrayed 3 stages of love: falling in love (“Just Dance“), falling out of love (“Seesaw“), and finally, finding true love in yourself (“Love“). They also talk about a lot of social issues, like in Map of the Soul:7’s “UGH”, where the rapline urges people to use the emotion anger in things that move society instead of using this emotion to rant about less meaningful things. They also have comforting songs that help a lot of Armys heal like “Zero O’Clock”, “Magic Shop”, and “2! 3!”

Of course, every new Army should check out the queen of all BTS songs, “Spring Day“. I don’t know how many times I’ve cried because of that song. I always say it’s my quarantine song because it talks about missing one’s friends.

Ultimately, loving BTS was my escape from the humdrum of life. They’ve never magically made my life better, but loving them and looking at life from their lens made me learn so many things about myself and the life I live. They’ve literally helped me heal. A lot Armys would say that BTS is free therapy and I relate to that – they’ve become my Anpanmans in the time that I’ve let them into my heart and psyche. SUGA once said, “I want to make music that gives people hope,” and I feel like he has achieved that with every piece of music he has put out.

Friends who have been into Kpop for a long time tell me that the fandom can get toxic, which is true to most fandoms. In a large group of people, there’s bound to be conflicts, arguments, differences in beliefs, etc. I guess you just need to surround yourself with like-minded Armys. My first Army group chat was with old friends where we just discovered our mutual love for Bangtan and other Kpop bands like SHINee, TXT, and Enhyphen and we’ve bonded virtually almost every day since. Then I’ve become an “Army mom” at my workplace and slowly grew our in-office Armys by just simply fangirling together [Editor’s Note: Having witnessed these sessions, there is no such thing as ‘simply’ fangirling together’. See: cake].

Then one day, I stumbled upon a Facebook group called Titas of BTS and I just immediately felt comfortable with all these like-minded tita Armys — even though they’re literal strangers to me, they really made me feel seen and heard. 

BTS has brought so much positive energy to the world and I could really feel its ripple effect in my own life. I’m happy I’ve come to know them and that they simply slipped into my life at the right place and time and helped me save myself from my own demons when I couldn’t do it on my own. So the next time someone gets surprised why I’m an Army, I’ll say a resounding YES and borrow a quote from our sunshine himself, Jung Hoseok: “Liking BTS was the best decision ever!”