K-Pop and K-Dramas: BTS News

Hey! Hallie here!

There has been quite a bit of BTS news circulating this past week and a lot of it is REALLY important. I’m not just talking about their music here. Some of this is fun and some of this is a bit more serious, so I’ll start out with the heavier stuff and move on to the lighter news. And Because this isn’t exactly BTS related but still includes them, I’ll mention here that Big Hit has changed their name to the HYBE Corporation. So from now on we’ll be using HYBE to refer to the company BTS is under. With that out of the way, and the promise that none of these are April fools jokes, let’s get into this!

Stop Asian Hate:

This is the most important news of today so I’m putting it first. Hate crimes against the Asian community have gone up exponentially since the beginning of COVID-19 and the disgusting comments our last president made. The Stop Asian Hate movement has been growing since then, but the first time it gained proper media coverage was after a mass shooting a few weeks ago. Many people were speaking out, but it took a few more attacks to make the news before BTS spoke out as well. They left a long letter on their twitter, which I recommend you check out after this post. In it, they spoke about the pain of being discriminated against because of their race and they voiced their support for the Asian community. Some ARMYs were angry that this letter wasn’t released sooner. I have two things to say about this. I would first like to point out that there are possible reasons for the delay. Including the fact that HYBE would have had to screen and clear their letter first, or that BTS may have wanted to be extremely careful with writing the letter. Secondly, I am not saying it isn’t understandable that some of those in the Asian community are frustrated. As someone who is not part of the Asian community, it is not my place to tell those who are how to react to the lateness of the letter. In the very least, I’ll leave a page of resources below for those who want to help.

Anti-Asian Violence Resources: https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/

J-Hope and E-News:

We’ve talked many times about how American media likes to disrespect the members of BTS. Apparently E-News has a specific vendetta against J-Hope. They have cropped him out of every BTS picture they have used for several articles now. There isn’t any clear reason for it, but it’s obviously intentional given the fact that they used images that originally had him in it and cut him out. They apologized for the latest incident, but they did so as a reply to a tweet demanding an official apology. Naturally, ARMY still isn’t satisfied and are still demanding an official apology. There’s nothing much I can say here. J-Hope deserves just as much respect as the other members and it sickens me that so many are willing to ignore him. He has especially faced hate over being “less attractive” than the other members. I don’t know why anyone would think J-Hope isn’t attractive, let alone hate on him because of a personal opinion. This might not be the reason that J-Hope was cropped, but either way BTS is seven members. If you’re hating on one member, it’s clear you don’t truly respect BTS. Enough said.

J-Hope April Fools Day Joke:

I said I wouldn’t trick you guys with an April Fools joke but I never said I wouldn’t write about one! J-Hope posted on Weverse a picture of the top of his head with his hair dyed a vibrant red, implying that he had dyed his hair. ARMYs fell for this for all of two seconds before remembering he had dyed his hair red a few years ago and went searching for images. Sure enough, the picture was an old one. ARMYs exposed the joke on Twitter before Hobi could even reveal it was a joke himself. Poor guy. It was funny at least.

“Film Out”:

BTS announced a few weeks back that they would be releasing a new Japanese album. The major draw of this news was the new song “Film Out” along with its dramatic-looking music video. The singular song and the music video were released this morning and they didn’t disappoint. The song was evidently written in collaboration with Iyori Shimizu as the ending theme for a Japanese film. The gorgeous, heart-wrenching melody definitely feels like a piece of a movie soundtrack. The song itself seems to be about the pain of separation and the sadness that comes with memories. The music video centers Jin, which is something we don’t see often enough. In the video we see a house in the sky where all the members of BTS reside. Except Jin is also in an alternate version of the house, separated from the members but able to look at them. The houses also share an hourglass, but when the sand in the hourglass runs out the members fade away and it triggers an explosion on Jin’s side. Jin attempts to escape but, when opening the door, finds himself in the sky amongst a sea of floating doors. Once he closes the door again he’s alone, save for Tae who remains separated from Jin. This is a beautiful song and a beautiful music video, but I’d like to remind the ARMYs currently freaking out that none of it implies that Jin is leaving for military service soon. Not only has HYBE heavily implied they would rather send all the members to military service together, but Jin is allowed to have center time without it meaning that his departure is imminent. Allow him to enjoy his time in the center, please.

And that’s it! I hope this post was, in the very least, informative. Hopefully we’ll get more from BTS soon! Enjoy your April everyone!

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie