I believe most of you would have, in some ways, heard about “K-pop”. But then, what is K-pop? It actually stands for Korean Pop, although it generally includes Korean music as a whole, regardless of genres. Nevertheless, there are numerous artists in the K-pop industry, and each one has their own fandom. Just so you know, the K-pop fandom is one of the strongest out there, with some serious dedication and devotion involved.

Narrowing down even further, I’ll be talking about one of the biggest and quickest growing fandom in K-pop at the moment. I’m sure those of you K-pop geeks will know which I’m talking about before I even mention them. But anyhow, they are A.R.M.Y.

A.R.M.Y, which stands for “Adorable Representative M.C for Youth”, by the way I searched for this, is the fandom name of the K-pop group that’s breaking charts and records both in South Korea and internationally, you guessed it, BTS a.k.a Bangtan Boys (방탄소년단). They are a 7 member boy band who debuted 4 years ago under Big Hit Entertainment. The group consists of Rap Monster, Jimin, Jungkook, Suga, V, J-Hope and Jin.

Anyhow, getting back to A.R.M.Y, they are definitely passionate in what they do. They are one of the strongest, most supportive and dedicated fandom around. Hence, after doing some research, here are some proves:

1. BTS‘ official account on twitter has a total of 5.6M followers, and 3.4M on Instagram.
2. A.R.M.Ys all around the world have created numerous fan accounts for both the group itself but also for individual members. Most of them reaching a million followers on instagram, some accounts: @7btsofficial, @btsjimin, @bts_v, @bts.jungkook (note that these are fan accounts). You can imagine the effort and commitment needed to maintain these accounts!
3. The WINGS TOUR 2017 sold out all their seats in all the countries they have performed and will perform in. Those includes South Korea, USA, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong and Japan, with Australia‘s tickets available to buy tomorrow, but I’m pretty looking at the ssure we know how it will turn out.
4. Thanks to A.R.M.Ys, BTS are able to break so many records that it’s impossible for me to include them one by one here, so for the list, you can visit the page here.
5. Aside from fan accounts, A.R.M.Ys’ appreciation towards BTS can also be found in various forms, from fanarts, song/dance covers to memes and funny videos. Also, I have to mention their dedicated translations for their shows which is super important for international fans (you’ll understand).
6. and so much more but I’ll stop here.

I was once an A.R.M.Y, but I don’t regard myself as one anymore as I don’t dedicate that much time to BTS as I used to. In any case, as I was once a part of this thriving fandom, I can tell you how it was like from my experience. Well, actually I had been listening to their songs way before I became a fan, but I had been simply enjoying their songs and that’s pretty much it, if you know what I mean. However, it was when BTS released their iconic song, well at least for me, “Blood Sweat and Tears” that I was hooked.

How I actually became a fan was a bit of a story, so I’ll fast-forward to the moment when I realize I had become an A.R.M.Y. It’s true that I have liked other artists before BTS, Adam Levine for example, but it was BTS that actually made me an actual fan. By that, I mean doing research about them, finding everything they do interesting, watching all their live performances and TV shows (overreacting when doing so), promoting them to basically everyone, following their fan accounts on Instagram and of course, listening to their songs a lot.

It was a new experience for me, doing most of the things above, because if you know me, I had never gone to that extent. I wasn’t the type to follow fan accounts, or squeals excitedly while watching something, more over being so open about liking a particular person, or in this case, group. I had never understood why people would go on such extent till I was one. Although it was just for a few months, it felt really nice to be a part of the A.R.M.Y fandom, where everyone share a common interest and are able relate to each other.

However, there are times when fans go overboard. In one of the lectorial slides, M.Hills stated “Fans [are] often stereotyped and pathologised as cultural “Others” – as obsessive, freakish, hysterical, infantile and regressive social subjects. …… with fans’ emotional attachments to media texts and celebrities being viewed as irrational”. That is true when fans are obsessed in an unhealthy way. Known as sasaeng fans in Korea, they do stuffs from stalking artists, invading their privacy, basically doing unthinkable things in order to see or touch them, to the extent of hurting themselves for attention.

Sasaeng fans usually uses the internet to gain attention, one of which was a twitter user that joked around with guns and bloody pictures relating to a member of the group and their tour in California. Fortunately, the account was reported by real A.R.M.Ys out there and since it was a life threat to one of the member, they decided to spread the word. As a result, the officials were notified and they heightened the security. I personally do not think they don’t deserve to be called a “fan” as those people are the ones who made the term negative.

Lastly, I want to make it clear that there is nothing wrong being a fan. It can be a wonderful experience like mine where you get a sense of being a part of a community where everyone just relate to each other and share the same interest in a particular something, in my case BTS. As long as you don’t become too obsessed that it becomes unhealthy, be proud that you’re a fan, because it is a thing to celebrate.

To end, here’s the artwork that got hooked, BTS’ Blood Sweat and Tears, enjoy!