K-Pop and K-Dramas: Yoongi’s Back!

Hi! It’s Annie!

Yesterday was the BigHit News Year’s Eve Live event on Weverse which, of course, involved BTS. Earlier this week we also learned through Yoongi’s Vlive (Hilariously titled ‘I can’t believe they made me a snowman’) that he would be attending this event and that he wouldn’t be taking part in the performances. Personally, I didn’t care that he wouldn’t be performing, I was just happy that he was going to be there in the first place! I love all of them but I am a Yoongi bias and I have definitely missed him! So watching the performances and the appearance of BTS on the New Year’s Eve live event was beyond amazing. Not only did Yoongi appear, he also performed two songs with everyone. Of course, he’s not completely healed so it was only the music choices that did not involve dancing. They performed both of these songs while sitting down in chairs, which is why Yoongi could perform at all. It was really more than I was expecting and more than I could have hoped for. Listening to them perform ‘Life Goes On’ with the addition of Yoongi sitting there with them made me emotional just because we’ve heard them perform it so many times without him that it felt that much more special to hear him sing his verse. But just because he’s back doesn’t mean he didn’t do anything other than heal while he was away! Let’s look into some of my favorite things Yoongi did while he was off!

Addressing toxic masculinity: In an interview with Esquire not long after he had gotten his surgery, he touched on toxic masculinity by saying that society’s view of masculinity was skewed anyways. He spoke about how many people think that masculinity consists of specific emotions or other elements when none of that makes any sense and questioned what masculinity was supposed to mean in the first place. Yoongi has been known to take opinions like this before. On one of his Vlive streams he was asked why BTS wore so much makeup and then told that he and the other members of BTS looked like girls. He responded very frankly by saying that he didn’t listen to the words of haters and that this issue was more of the commenter’s problem than a BTS problem. BTS even ended up doing an entire photoshoot in skirts. Yoongi has never been shy about questioning societal norms, such as all of the times he has both hilariously and rightly questioned the pressure on children from the school system, and we all love him for it. The fact that he’s talking about toxic masculinity makes me nothing short of happy and incredibly proud.

Addressing mental health stigma: In the same interview with Esquire he noted how mental health and physical health are treated differently by society when they shouldn’t be. When someone is suffering from physical health issues no one would call that person weak, but this often changes when someone is suffering from mental health issues. He ended this by stating that society needed to be more understanding when it comes to mental health issues. This is another topic that Yoongi has never shied away from, and neither has Namjoon who has also talked about his past mental health issues. Yoongi once stated that he wanted people’s view of mental health to be less stigmatized and more like a view of the common cold so that society could more easily accept those who are suffering from issues regarding mental health. Yoongi’s words are more real than ever during this time where more people than ever are grappling with mental health because of the pandemic. He is proof that none of us are ever alone.

Answering questions on Vlive hilariously: On a more lighthearted note, on his most recent livestream on Vlive, Yoongi played a rather weird version of would you rather. It was weird mostly because of questions that the fans asked him. One such question was whether straws had one hole versus two holes to which he responded that he wasn’t sure why it mattered. He eventually noted that if you see it as one then it’s one and if you see it as two then it’s two as long as there’s not three. Even though you couldn’t see him in his current livestream because it was voice only, you could hear the amusement in his voice and that just made everything better.

Fake Yoongi: Though Yoongi may have stayed at home, BTS made sure to take cardboard Yoongi with them wherever they went. A couple times his outfit in the carboard piece was hilariously mismatched to everyone else’s and other times the boys kind of destroyed it (like when they poured wine over it); but it was there! And then of course there was the famous Yoongi snowman, which was both adorable and hilarious. Yoongi certainly seemed to think it was funny and I definitely laughed when I first saw it. Though CGI Yoongi was pretty cool, I definitely think that Snowman Yoongi has my heart here.

Of course, this is just some of the stuff that we’ve seen. Yoongi has also been improving his English on his break as well as, of course, extensive physical therapy. But he seems to be doing well! We’re also talking about the guy who laughed on the way to the hospital because he couldn’t believe he was in so much pain. I look forward to everything that Yoongi can do now but we all should also respect that he should still be healing and resting. We can’t expect him to do everything all at once. But I’m so glad to see him do anything! For those of you who are waiting for the non-BTS posts, I promise my next post will not be about BTS. Though I do love talking about them and could talk about them forever. Happy New Year!

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie