RM's Arirang Review Live

It would be amazing if you guys reacted to the lives they did after their concerts! There is like 4 of them? If I'm not mistaken. Seeing them after the concert still riding the high is amazing. https://youtu.be/1x8xF8mlKTU?si=5nA1XD_8HeQeCslC Here's one Jimin, Taehyung, Jin and Namjoon did together. Jungkook visited too later on. Their conversation was fun 😄

The funny thing is the older I get, the less angst I want in my books/movies

I'd love for you guys to do a video with just a bunch of compilations of their recent lives/concert moments, since these are things you wouldn't see otherwise and are such a big part of the fandom lore lol. There are YouTube channels like cinnamin, kpoprelated that have recent videos like this.

I don't think you guys would know this, but when Arirang first released, there was a lot of hate online for it. Many toxic fans of other Kpop groups were counting on the military service to disband BTS or at least make them lose their popularity. They were ready to hate anything that BTS released. Plus there was a section of actual fans who were too wrapped up in nostalgia and wanted the "old BTS" sound - which just means the sound of whichever BTS song they first fell in love with. Then there were a section of "fans" who had issues with BTS on political grounds - about them not addressing certain issues publicly during their military service (which they're literally not allowed to do). If you went on TikTok at the time, you'd be convinced that the album is trash. Even my algorithm only showed me hate back then on tiktok. And if you said you liked the album, people would not believe you and accuse you of blindly defending/following celebrities. Off the top of my head, the Arirang criticisms included (in my opinion very unfounded) claims like - they promoted this as a Korean traditional music album but there was no traditional music included (in reality, they never claimed it's traditional music) - the lyrics are all gibberish, there is no meaning behind the songs - it's incoherent noise music/unlistenable - there is no Korean in the album, the lyrics are all in English - they misused AAVE (African American vernacular English)/ appropriated black culture (ignoring that they worked with said black artists, gave them full credit) - the members were not involved in writing/making the album - the members were forced by the company on the album direction/decisions - the songs are too sexual - Swim is trash - too slow/boring - Hooligan is trash - knife sounds, hahaha part - Into the sun is trash - vocoder effect - there is too much autotune - the album is too influenced by Namjoon/Yoongi - too hiphop - Jin was deliberately forced to be excluded from the LA sessions - the album was rushed/ was a cashgrab - BTS has lost their way/are sellouts, old BTS would be ashamed of present day BTS etc. - this related to the nostalgia effect and online political narratives about them Namjoon barely even touched on the hate in this video. It was very severe and worse because it touched on some things they themselves were unsure about. Having said that, there was also insane love from the majority of ARMY, the album absolutely crushed it on all the charts and got a lot of critical acclaim, and they are having the biggest and healthiest tour of their career. 💜

I truly hope BTS never stops telling stories and sharing messages through their music. I totally understand Joon's fear, cause with all the short-form content and rise of AI, nothing has any substance anymore. Nothing has any depth. Labels don't even want artists making songs that reach the 3-minute mark anymore. Attention spans are shortening, and with that, it's kinda like...slowly choking out the ability for true artistry to shine. All art can't be fully expressed in 2 mins. I resonate so much w BTS because of their lrycis, because of their message, because of their vulnerability, because of their authenticity. That kind of intellectual stimulation, on top of the fantastic music, is what made me a fan. I hope they never give in to the pressures of the industry or society and hold on to what makes BTS BTS. Like Steph said, it might not be what audiences or labels want, but its what the people NEED.

By "Black music" Joon means music by Black artists. Like there are particular melodies, cadences, and pronunciations that are unique to Black Americans (and they were likely trying to mimic a Black person from their guide track)

Not necessarily something I think you guys need to react to (although I for one would eat it up lol), but here's a clip of Ryan Tedder, who produced on almost every song on Arirang iirc, discussing BTS's songwriting process. I think you guys would enjoy watching it even if it's off camera: https://youtu.be/1fkvR_MCRbo?si=88b_GE6Xx6Zu-jm_

You guys misunderstood the part about the Hooligan choreo and TikTok challenges haha. So, in K-pop (even well before TikTok challenges became a thing), they tend to make a specific section of the choreo simple and easy so that people can do it themselves, and film themselves doing the dance as a TikTok dance challenge. That's like part of the K-pop promotion cycle now (trying to spark virality, which then becomes promo). What Joon was saying was that they made a part of the Hooligan choreo very simple (the part where they just move their fingers), expecting fans to latch onto that and make that the Hooligan dance challenge. What happened instead was a fan made their OWN dance to Hooligan, and THAT went viral and became the Hooligan dance challenge (I've never typed out "dance challenge" so many times in my life lol). That's typically how it goes with TikTok dances anyway--they're almost always original choreo by a random dancer or fan. But anyways, BTS never incorporated it into the official choreo, but they did shout it out and did it randomly in different videos. So, that's what Joon was saying: you can't force that kinda stuff, it's gotta come organically

Speaking of Joon's lyric-writing process, an ARMY actually interviewed the woman who wrote (basically) all the English lyrics with RM. Her name is A. Chic, and she was featured in the Netflix documentary. It was a FANTASTIC interview. She gave so much insight (about the album, the boys, BTS's process, and how BTS treats staff) and revealed so many lyrics that I never would've guessed she wrote, because they sounded (thematically) so much like the lyrics RM has written in the past. I highly recommend a reaction. Not just for you guys to get even more insight into the creation process of the album, but bc I think more ARMYs should hear the interview as well. I think it went decently viral, but it's really a hidden gem imo. Also, it's just so cool that an ARMY took it upon herself to seek out all these people connected to ARIRIANG and interview them (she also interviewed a few producers on the album AND the director of the Netflix documentary). Here's the link to the interview: https://youtu.be/X9vd2ZrvrQM?si=3MLUuJ-377nkhN-Z

at 35:00, when Namjoon mentions Aliens becoming a "meme" or "mockery", unfortunately there are some fans showing up to the concerts dressed as literal green space aliens, which in my opinion is quite dismissive of the meaning meaning of the song about bts being literal unwelcome foreigners to the west :(

There's alot of new content the normal mv, I dont think you've seen the merry go round mv either but I could be wrong theres behinds for both mvs also but a namjoon did an interview with fashion neurosis that is really great the channel is about fashion and how it connects with identity and while he did that the others members went on a British program But also there's some really good comeback promos that you missed that I think would be great since you guys do well with the introspective content Taehyung went on fairy jaehyungs yt channel its a great interview and also before he went on hobi did also after discharge and that is one of my favorite interviews here's the links https://youtu.be/5SGUwwewsNg?is=dLaYUAi3libIE-GR https://youtu.be/TJWsTCVJxnw?is=cY2GWQpCFKkYxxuN Also namjoon and taehyung went on another yt show called BDNS that was really sweet and I thought it was more on the low key side but I really loved it https://youtu.be/zDMT9ikx4Wk?is=AbMCSSuqzCAqZgA7 Theres so much other fun stuff too lol I dont know how you giya feel about watching concert compilations but thats an option too

The normal mv is out and they also released a Korean version which I think has even better lyrics than the English version, would love to see you guys react!

OH MY GOD YAAAAAS