[Book review] How a K-pop skeptic journalist became a born-again BTS fan

BTS carry out in Busan’s Asiad Foremost Stadium on June 13, 2026, on their world tour selling “Arirang.” (courtesy creator)

Maybe the final word badge of success as a fan is getting to satisfy your idol by way of your job.

That’s sometimes reserved for film reporters who land an interview with a director they’ve adored since their youth and music reporters who snag front-row seats at a present by the sort of pop star solely a stalker may ever glimpse from up shut.

However dwelling the dream as a tradition journalist isn’t all the time as glamorous because it may appear.

As a reporter, one should preserve objectivity, and typically idols deserve journalistic criticism for conduct a fan would forgive. That’s sufficient to chill the eagerness and preserve it from burning anew.

“Mikrokosmos” (printed by Medici Media) by Kukmin Ilbo journalist and editorial board member Han Seung-ju is a outstanding story of how a reporter was inducted into the BTS fandom.

Han shifts between her alter egos of commentator and connoisseur for this analytical essay assortment exploring the peculiar panorama of idol fandoms.

In her twenty years dedicated to a each day newspaper, Han, at the very least into her late 40s, considered pop idols a lot the identical as another reporter: because the pampered merchandise of a meticulously calculated enterprise mannequin.

“Mikrokosmos” by Han Seung-ju. (courtesy Medici Media)

A contemporary perspective got here, maybe inevitably, from her teenage daughters.

The jaded reporter couldn’t assist questioning what compelled youngsters to face round in lengthy strains and suppress their bodily urges within the chilly hours earlier than daybreak.

Then in November 2018, Han’s sudden give up to idol worship got here when she and her daughter headed to an Incheon stadium for a live performance by Wanna One, who they’d watched and voted for throughout their pre-debut days on the survival program “Produce 101.”

After being struck watching BTS take the stage on the finish of the present, unable to cease herself from evaluating them to each act she’d seen earlier than, she realized that “one thing had modified” inside her as she ran by way of their efficiency time and again in her head. 

That led her down a rabbit gap of trying up and watching BTS’ prior performances, the group’s appearances on TV packages, and even their “Bangtan Log” vlogs from their debut days. 

“For the primary time, I felt that there was a world past the predictable components of Ok-pop that we’ve come to know,” she writes. 

Then Han takes us on her journey with BTS, beginning in 2019 with their performances at Wembley Stadium within the UK and Stade de France in Paris, winding by way of Los Angeles and Busan earlier than their large “Arirang” comeback present in Gwanghwamun and the primary leg of their world tour in Goyang.

This journey takes readers to 2 locations that the majority books about BTS fail to. 

First is the trial-and-error of making an attempt to really get tickets as a fan of BTS and never a member of the press, and the camaraderie of belief and friendship that she kinds with fellow ARMY members world wide as she makes her pilgrimages for her favourite group. 

She tells the story of in search of resellers on-line after failing to get a ticket for BTS’ second day of exhibits in Paris and coming throughout a fan from Russia. 

“At the same time as I used to be hitting ship on PayPal, I used to be full of doubts — possibly I used to be getting scammed; possibly I might get to the doorways and get turned away. What if I couldn’t see them even after flying all the way in which to Paris? [. . .] However, I made a decision to belief this individual. If I couldn’t belief ARMY, who may I belief?” she writes. 

Such sincere accounts of her adventures and misadventures as a BTS fan all through the guide do what peculiar reporting can’t, describing the emotional aspect of issues with such vividness that even these unfamiliar with idol fandom tradition really feel as if they’re on the identical journey. 

The opposite component that distinguishes Han’s work from different BTS texts is her analytical view of the fandom she’s part of as a reporter. Having herself grow to be accustomed to clicking “purchase” like a maniac when new tickets or merch drops (“based mostly not on judgment however on intuition”) and participating in all number of BTS occasions, Han dives deep into the divide between the emotions felt by followers and the information collected by firms. 

“Simply how a lot do the individuals who devour essentially the most on this business need to do with an important of choices?” she asks. “You’re compelled to ask whose views the ‘fandom financial system’ was designed to replicate.”

The “BTS Festa Zone” in beauty model Amore Pacific’s headquarters in Seoul in June 2023, marking 10 years of BTS. (courtesy creator)

As for the key to BTS’ runaway success, Han says it’s not the group’s perfection, however their imperfection. Followers “aren’t ‘shopping for’ BTS; they’re going by way of life with them,” Han writes. What binds followers collectively “isn’t that they suppose the identical issues, however that they’ve felt the identical emotions.”

Cowl to cowl, Han’s guide leaves you desirous to spend sufficient time with somebody to grow to be their greatest fan, whether or not or not that somebody is BTS. 

By Kim Eun-hyoung, senior employees author

Please direct questions or feedback to [english@hani.co.kr]