“BTS ARMY: FOREVER WE ARE YOUNG” Celebrates the Power of the Fan
Even if you can’t name any songs by the mega-popular K-pop group BTS, you’ve likely heard of their ARMY. Maybe you remember the time they raised $1 million to match BTS’ 2020 donation to Black Lives Matter. Or maybe you remember the time they ruined a 2020 Trump rally in Oklahoma. ARMY is in a strange position because their notoriety is on par with that of the group they idolize. It’s a phenomenon explored in Grace Lee and Patty Ahn’s BTS ARMY: FOREVER WE ARE YOUNG, which seeks to introduce us to the people who make up ARMY.
courtesy of Trafalgar Releasing
For those unaware, ARMY is an acronym that stands for Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth. Their focus started out as a fan-run group dedicated to BTS’ desire for worldwide fame. The band, comprised of seven members, was seen as an underdog back in 2013. They didn’t come up through the traditional “idol” scene of Seoul and were much more DIY. It’s what brought many original ARMY fans to the band. BTS would film themselves cooking, rehearsing, and doing other daily tasks to show the viewers at home that they were just regular guys. The newly-founded ARMY took it upon themselves to catapult BTS to stardom, and with a dedicatedly organized fanbase that runs more smoothly than most Fortune 500 companies, ARMY did just that.
Fandom, especially when it’s thought to be primarily made up of teenage girls, is looked at as a joke. Think about the Twilight years or One Direction. It wasn’t until the mania ebbed that those outside the fanbase were willing to admit that these groups had merit on their own. Even in these changes of opinion, what people shy away from saying is that the merits are in spite of their dominant fanbase. The way we think about fandom needs recalibration. Is BTS ARMY really any different from Bills Mafia? In fact, that’s not a fair comparison, because when was the last time Bills Mafia was also a force for social change?
courtesy of Trafalgar Releasing
It’s difficult to look at fandom from the outside and not be a little turned off by the fervor. At the end of the day, fans come together because they want to experience connection with other people. Humans do not handle loneliness well, and ARMY is a means of fighting back against that. Sure, observers might find it a little odd to see fans gathering to celebrate a band member’s birthday, but any ritual of any group seems strange when you haven’t bought in. Why do Bills Mafia fans jump over burning tables? Why do West Virginia University fans set fire to couches while they sing “Take Me Home, Country Roads?” Why did a Philadelphia Eagles fan eat horse poop when the team won the 2018 Super Bowl? They did it because there’s nothing humans value more than being part of something larger than themselves. FOREVER WE ARE YOUNG argues that fandom is strange, but that shouldn’t deter people from enjoying the things that bring happiness to their lives.
“It’s a love story for everybody,” says one of the participants in the opening minutes of the documentary. FOREVER WE ARE YOUNG celebrates the band, the fans, and their heavily intertwined, often co-dependent relationship. One doesn’t exist without the other, certainly not on the scale that BTS and ARMY have reached. To those in ARMY, FOREVER WE ARE YOUNG is a love letter to a fandom of immeasurable scale. To those on the outside, it’s an introduction to a world they may know more about than they realize.
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