I promised myself I’d come back to this when I was feeling less overwhelmed, but it’s now 6:00 AM on a Thursday and… I am still overwhelmed. The time has gone by so fast, but I’m committed to keeping track of what I want to remember about this comeback.
I want to remember… the shock of joy that coursed through my veins the first time I saw BTS’ Butter music video. The outfits! The choreography! The beat! Their hair! The elevator dances!!! It’s so good; such a banger. I got very emotional over Suga being able to say his R’s so well during his verse; I remembered old footage where he would mix up his R’s and his L’s (“Lap Monster”) -- he must have practiced so hard to be able to rap “got the right body and the right mind, rolling up to party, got the right vibe” :(((( And then their “ARMY” formation during RM’s verse right after; I screamed. I have never felt this loved by an artist before. In one of the press interviews, they were asked what ARMY means to them, and their answer was: “We’re on the same team. We try to make each other happy and charge each other’s batteries.” <3 The next day they dropped the “Making” behind-the-scenes video; just so much fun. I watch it over and over again.
I want to remember… that this time around, I was more prepared to stream the music video and the song over and over again. We hit the Youtube 24-hour goal mark comfortably; we’re still waiting to hear about the Billboard Hot 100 position (we’ll know by Monday night). There was a dip of energy when news came out about shadiness w/r/t how Spotify filters out streams / accommodates certain artists on playlists / general gatekeeper things -- I will leave you with this excellent, savage Weverse magazine article. (Weverse is a subsidiary of BTS’ parent company, so we know they’re aware there’s shady stuff going on.) “First, the song’s overwhelming performance on YouTube is remarkable enough to make the figures from Spotify or Apple Music almost meaningless.” I’ve been bugging my US friends to buy Butter; still hoping we get #1 on Billboard.
I want to remember… that because ARMYs were so pissed off about the Spotify shenanigans, when there was an impromptu streaming party held by a big account (btschartdata) on a start-up platform called Stationhead, 200,000 people with premium accounts on Spotify dropped everything and partied for hours. I overslept the next day, but it was worth it to stay up and vibe with everyone as if we were at a real concert. At one point I got overwhelmed again, seeing this tweet below. ARMY power!
I want to remember… how exciting it was to see the full choreography for the first time during their performance at the Billboard Music Awards. How sexy it was! It unleashed a whole debate afterwards about whether or not it’s appropriate to be thirsting after them, a topic on which I had a lot of thoughts. (TL;DR: if I see you trying to police women’s right to thirst; I will immediately block you.)
I want to remember… the thrill of seeing the dance practice for the first time. Their new studio is massive and nakakaproud isipin, THEY BUILT THAT. They practiced 18 hours a day to achieve the success they have now, and they’re able to employ so many people and build a massive corporate headquarters and… hay. Proud. Proud. Proud.
I want to remember… that even though I almost slept through their Colbert appearance, I was able to catch their Butter performance. A wedding reception! Nakaka-delulu naman ito hahaha. Their skit was adorable too; amazing how far their English pronunciation has come. And I like that it shows off their goofiness.
I want to remember… a cool lil thing that happened: I cracked a joke that made it onto the Rolling Stone social media account. A few days before, I had been tweeting the writer of the excellent Rolling Stone BTS articles that had dropped the week before Butter. I tagged him in a Yeontan joke (Yeontan is V’s dog); the author retweeted; Rolling Stone retweeted him. The engagement of that one joke was like 200% of an ordinary non-BTS-related social media post, so I hope their social media person got congratulated after. LOL.
I want to remember… that the BTS McDonald’s meal collaboration is so huge. It’s a partnership, not just an endorsement. Their logo is EVERYWHERE. There’s Hangeul on the packaging (! in so many countries!!) and on the crew uniforms. McDonald’s changed their logo to purple on social media (and their social media team is excellent btw). This article on Rolling Stone talks a little bit with the marketing executives behind the campaign. It’s fascinating. And the reason I’m up super early today is to buy McDonald’s x BTS merchandise that was sold on Weverse (!) BTS’ merchandising platform. Hay, ang galing galing nila. I’ve been really really lucky with merch this week; I also got the Butter cardigan I desperately wanted, and merch from the HYBE museum.
I want to remember… that in the middle of all of this, Yeye and I are launching a tingi merch shop for all of our extras. Our philosophy is “buy for ourselves and buy extra for friends” because I have to say, we are good at buying and helping others buy too. HAHAHA. We are excited to sell; hope you can help us destash! Follow us at @pinky.yeye.shop
I want to remember… how much of a blast it was to be on Twitter and in my group chats throughout all of this. Becoming an ARMY is the best thing that ever happened to me hahaha. My chats are always poppin’; we’re so happy and connected all the time. Joy and happiness are within easy reach for me, any time I need them. And I’ve been needing a lot of them lately. Get it, let it roll!