I'm 22 and still listen to...

I'm 22, and I listen to BTS. While that sentence may sound like it's straight from My Strange Addiction, or it may seem like some cheesy admission, I’ve found that the stage of life in which I am makes this an oddly hard confession. As I look back on life, I realize I've spent a great portion of it hiding this very specific interest from most people. 

When I worked in the school system and had my own classroom, I never turned my music on out loud, even if I was alone, because I was scared someone would hear. At college, I’ve never confessed this interest to even some of my closest friends. I never have music playing out loud in my dorm because the walls are thin. I never let my music be too loud in my headphones in case it bleeds out of the carefully crafted playlist playing in my ears. I am careful about having discreet wallpapers on my phone or naming my playlist with incredibly vague names in case someone is looking. I have a playlist dedicated to “mainstream” music that I use if I'm in the car with other people. I talk about them like maybe they're some niche topic I heard about distantly if someone brings BTS up, but truthfully, most people would be shocked to learn I collected albums and still have memorabilia hung around the walls and shelves of my childhood bedroom. 

And while all of this may seem extreme and dramatic, the truth is there is a stigma surrounding not just BTS but the K-pop genre. And while I don’t plan on diving into the K-pop industry as a whole, there tend to be some derogatory ideas and perceptions surrounding K-pop and its listeners, which obviously and ultimately are also attached to BTS. And again, I do listen to other groups more casually, but I want to focus very specifically on BTS as they take up about 90% of my listening headspace (I would say the other 10% is Noah Kahan, but that's a story for another day). 

When I first created this blog, I started with the intention of being able to unapologetically share my opinions and thoughts. Album/song reviews and analysis fell in that category, but soon I realized that a lot of what I wanted to talk about revolved or in some way connected back to BTS. I felt embarrassed because I all the sudden felt like I couldn't appeal to anyone beyond fellow ARMY. (Not that appealing to ARMY is a bad thing.) Yet, what I wanted the most was to share everything I’ve learned, not only about music, but also about life and the human social condition from this group. Sadly, I've conditioned myself to hide so much that now that I'm trying to put it all on paper, I find myself struggling to verbalize it all. I figured that the only way to move forward would be to explain (in the least cheesy way possible) why, at the age of 15, I became so passionately devoted to a group from a country that is almost 7,000 miles away from where I live. 

First and foremost, let's give a brief introduction as to who BTS is. BTS is a 7-member boy group from South Korea. The group debuted in 2013 with the Korean name “방탄소년단” (Bangtan Sonyeondan) but has adopted the English name “Beyond the Scene.” BTS comes from an incredibly poor entertainment company that took a huge risk in putting this group together. They come from essentially nothing, and the multi-million-dollar entertainment company that now stands as HYBE was fundamentally built from the ground up by the members of BTS.

Though yes, they sing predominantly in their native language (Korean), this has never deterred listeners from engaging in their music. Personally, music in other languages has never been something that turns me away from listening. I come from a family of immigrants, so learning to adapt to multiculturalism is something relatively natural to me. There's also such a special level of artistry in being able to perform difficult choreographies, all while singing live. BTS brings such a fresh air of artistry that is becoming more and more scarce in this industry. 

So why them? Why the boy band that everybody associates with teenage girls, or diehard fans that people are terrified of? And why still? The truth is, if I were to answer every single question in detail, I believe this post would become much longer than anyone is actually willing to read. However, I do think it's necessary to give my perspective even if it's relatively concise. 

When I was 14, I struggled heavily with my mental health. I attended a STEM Academy that was not only difficult but was filled with staff members who I felt held little to no interest in my well-being and vision for the future. They didn't believe in me or my ideas. My parents at the time pushed me to pursue a career I had no interest in, and the burnout came quickly. By the end of 2018 and my first semester of freshman year, I gave up. I stopped caring about my grades and did the bare minimum to get by. Truthfully, I was reaching a point of no return. Not caring for my education turned into not caring for my health or my personal life. Having been raised heavily conservative, it was around this time that all the religious guilt was starting to set in as well. I felt miserable. I had nothing I passionately cared about or anything I wanted to pursue. I didn't think I would make it that long anyway. 

One day, in the car on the way to Sunday morning church, my brother told me to listen to a song called “Airplane pt. 2” by a group called BTS. I listened, I thought it was cool, and I added it to my playlist.  I listened to it a few times after that, and having already had an affinity for music in Japanese, the switch to Korean felt different and yet natural all at once. I don’t remember any dates or specific time after that when I can say I immediately fell in love with this group. It was gradual. Over the course of maybe 7-8 months, I started listening to more music. I fell for the classic “I just want to learn their names” trope, and all of a sudden, they were there. I could not explain how it all came together. 

But as I started diving deeper into their music and actually reading translations and analysis from native Korean speakers, I realized that their music was so much more than the surface-level stuff we have come to expect from the genre. For starters, BTS was formed as a hip-hop group, so a lot of their earlier albums are filled with incredibly complex trap, house, hip-hop, and rap-heavy songs. These songs weren’t “traditional hip-hop” either. They spoke about their issues with capitalism, struggles with mental health, and (most appropriately for my situation), they spoke about their issues with the education system and its preparation towards a capitalist society that seeks nothing but its own gain. Bingo! That was it. Finally, I was hearing someone verbalize what I had been feeling and had no idea how to say. 

Then, in about 2016-2017, their albums transform into something a bit more mellow. They focus more on mental health and dealing with depression and anxiety. Two things I never got diagnosed with because I grew up in the church, and I had to pray it all away. But even despite no real diagnosis, I knew something felt weird or different inside my brain that I couldn't quite verbalize without feeling an intense amount of religious guilt (“16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. This was the verse I was recited when I told my parents I thought I might have depression.) 

 Everything I heard from these songs, all the sudden resonated. They made sense, and they helped. And while of course it wasn’t some sort of cure-all that took it all away, knowing I wasn't experiencing this alone made it easier to, at the very least, believe that I would make it to the following day. Every song, every lyric, every melody seemed to resonate with a certain part of myself I had never felt like I was allowed to feel. And since I was 16, right about every horrible memory or emotion I can recall was followed by a song that helped me push through it. While sitting in my car and getting yelled at for not putting in enough effort, I listened to "Life Goes On". When the burnout felt like too much and I felt like it consumed me, "Black Swan" perfectly encapsulated every emotion. In the midst of the worst depressive episodes, "Blue and Grey" comforted me. During late-night study/crash-out sessions, "Zero O’clock" reminded me that a new day was coming. And I could keep going. I could list almost every single BTS song and attach moments of my life to them. 

I’ve always considered myself a rather solitary person, but that has also led to me being incredibly lonely. And yet listening to BTS made me feel like I was part of something. Like I mattered. Like somebody out there understood what I was going through. But okay, at 16, that all makes sense, but why now? I mean, I'm 22. Am I not too old to be relying on a boy band of all things for emotional support? Shouldn't I be old enough now to be able to seek comfort in real human interaction? And if I could answer these questions in detail, I would. But truthfully, I don't even really have an answer. 

Here's what I do have. Up until now, I've seen many ups and downs. I've gone through some of the worst losses of my life, while also getting to have experiences I could have only dreamed of. But everything I am now, everything I was, and everything I hope to become, I owe (at the very least) a great majority of it to BTS. Had I stayed in the same mentality I was in back at 15, I would not be here. And not in a metaphorical sense, I mean literally would not be on this planet. That means something. For something to have had such a radical change in your life, it sticks with you.

 And I know that maybe this isn't the greatest explanation. And maybe you don't get it still. Yes, the music and the artistry are a huge part of why I stuck around. But mostly, it's an homage to the people I credit with my life not ending when I was 16 years old. As I prep to see them in concert in May, I think back to everything I've been through. Every late-night walk with “Lonely” playing in my ears. Every lonely night with “Magic Shop” to bring comfort. And every happy moment with “So What” playing as loud as possible in my ear buds. Every single moment. Every single memory is tinged with them. And it may seem cringy, it may seem childish, it may seem absurd. And that's okay. I don't expect it to make sense to everyone. But ultimately, they were there. And so, in May, when I get to them in person and live for the first time, it won't be 22-year-old me there. It will be 16-year-old me paying her respects to the people who kept her alive.