I’m new to BTS. Be Kind.

I first paid attention to BTS in 2019. It was their SNL performance. I remember wondering if they were going to sing in English.  Then I remember being blown away by 1) They mostly sang in Korean, and 2) Nobody fuckin’ cared! 

I watched and listened. In my living room. AMAZED. The audience was singing along.

I’m Asian. Older. My parents were Filipino immigrants who established a home and future in Seattle, WA. I was born here, but there was a heavy mandate to assimilate to survive. 

Speak perfect English with no accent or detection of where you came from (at the risk of not teaching you our heritage language). If you don’t, you’ll have a hard road. People will make fun of you. Don’t make trouble by sticking out. 

But, we stuck out like a sore thumb. At that time, I was the only brown child in my school, and only one of three or four brown families in our suburbs.

So this performance, THIS PERFORMANCE, blew me away. There was no assimilation or catering. BTS was just their unapologetic global selves. My mother passed away some years ago, but I could hear my mother’s voice saying, “Can you imagine?!” Mom, no need to imagine, it’s done. 

I became a fan. 

I am relatively new to the Army world. I am not full-fledged Army because I don’t know all their songs–yet. There are SO MANY songs. I have yet to watch every episode of Run BTS. I can’t even tell the difference between their different shows–there are SO MANY shows. I know there are explanations, so I will read and learn. I definitely can’t do the fan chant as fast as Army. IT’S SO FAST. I’m just getting my footing.

And I didn’t know much about BTS before the SNL performance. I knew they were a Korean Boy Band. I liked their pop sound. After SNL, I listened to MIC Drop and Butter over and over again.

Four years later, I’ve started to dig in deep. To say this is a rabbit hole is a gross understatement.

I’ve entered a portal to another world.