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BTS Arirang Extravaganza: The History of Arirang and Controversy Thoughts · I Was Thinking…

• 0:10
  Hello everybody, welcome back to I was thinking I'm your lovely
• 0:15
  host Simone and as of this recording it's just me host
• 0:21
  wise, but thankfully I am not alone.
• 0:24
  I have a special guest that I was teasing about on Part 1 of
• 0:29
  the BTS Adirang Extravaganza. Please welcome my lovely cult
• 0:35
  leader, Shay. You didn't have to announce it
• 0:37
  like that, but it's fine. We're here.
• 0:39
  So this is now attempt #3 on this podcast episode.
• 0:45
  So we're going to push through and then and then then charge
• 0:49
  more. But hello everyone, I'm I'm
• 0:51
  back, probably for the last time.
• 0:54
  Oh, so you're you're just not going to come back anymore?
• 0:56
  Since we've tried to do this so many times, I understand.
• 0:59
  That's OK, I'll come back as much as you need me to.
• 1:02
  I. Appreciate that if y'all can't
• 1:04
  hear the frustration in my voice, I'm just like, I'm
• 1:08
  breaking the 4th wall. I'm like over it.
• 1:10
  Because like Shay said, we've tried to record this like at
• 1:13
  least three times. This is the third attempt.
• 1:15
  I don't know what is going on. I don't know what is happening
• 1:19
  in the universe. Is it my star sign is?
• 1:22
  I don't know. Is it retrograde still, whatever
• 1:25
  that means? Mercury's in the microwave and
• 1:27
  stuff like that. It's got to be.
• 1:29
  But yes, I have the lovely Shay here.
• 1:32
  If you listen to when she was on two years ago, I've.
• 1:35
  Been two years. I think so.
• 1:37
  Damn, you don't like me like that?
• 1:38
  I guess it's been a while, I mean.
• 1:41
  Anyway, yeah, she was on here about two years ago.
• 1:44
  We did the album review for Nam June's solo Right Plays Wrong
• 1:48
  Person. So I just thought to be fitting
• 1:50
  to bring her back for OT 7, give us a little in depth of like the
• 1:54
  producers they worked with, the lyrics, songwriters.
• 1:58
  So it's going to be a good time. But besides our third attempt of
• 2:01
  trying to record this, how have you been, Shay?
• 2:03
  Just in general? You know I am doing well.
• 2:07
  I am still out here pushing the pavement over the road and not
• 2:13
  much has really changed in that aspect.
• 2:15
  I do not do social media anymore.
• 2:18
  Just felt very just didn't feel like the need.
• 2:21
  I mean, we have a, as I'm sure we've, you know, I'm sure that
• 2:24
  it has been talked about because you told me that it was talked
• 2:27
  about. We have a community in a Discord
• 2:29
  server that we have been cultivating, no pun intended,
• 2:34
  for a little about two years now.
• 2:37
  And I feel that I get just as much like my endorphins are just
• 2:42
  as just as good as that. Then being on like social media
• 2:45
  and talking about BTS and everything related to it.
• 2:48
  So that has given me the avenue to still get that need met, but
• 2:53
  not in a public eye. So, but I'm around, you know,
• 2:58
  still, obviously, you know, still out here kicking, still I
• 3:03
  I'm anticipating the tour. We know we're probably we're
• 3:07
  going to talk this later, but we'll be seeing them really
• 3:10
  soon. I mean, it's like what, 6656
• 3:13
  weeks you you're seeing them. I'm seeing them like 2 weeks, I
• 3:16
  think. 2 weeks, yeah. Damn.
• 3:19
  Yeah, it's in about two weeks. Damn.
• 3:23
  Yeah. By the time this comes out, I
• 3:24
  don't know if it'll be the week. I actually am in Tampa to see
• 3:28
  them. I'll see with, like, editing and
• 3:30
  then I know I told the audience I'm in the process of moving.
• 3:34
  And then me being me, I wanted to be creative.
• 3:36
  And I'm painting 2 jackets. If you're on our social media, I
• 3:40
  painted a jacket for J Hope and I decided to do 2 this time.
• 3:44
  So yeah, I'm just very busy. But yeah, I wasn't always like
• 3:51
  this. But anyway, not to be on that
• 3:53
  for too long. And I understand that too,
• 3:55
  because I'm not on social media either.
• 3:56
  I actually got rid of my TikTok during the first shutdown
• 4:01
  because I was, I just couldn't get in it for some reason.
• 4:03
  But I just decided, you know what?
• 4:05
  It's not fun anymore for me. So I'm just like, I don't really
• 4:08
  need this. So the only social media
• 4:09
  presence I have is this podcast. So I get you.
• 4:12
  Yeah. I think it was me and the, the,
• 4:15
  the, the, the more dramatic shutdown and we did a live and
• 4:20
  literally like watch the clock countdown and we all like
• 4:24
  glitched out in America. It was real dramatic just for
• 4:26
  them to bring us back like 19 hours later.
• 4:28
  It was really kind of stupid, but.
• 4:29
  Was really I just like a lot of things.
• 4:33
  I forgot about that. No, I didn't forget about it.
• 4:34
  I just tried to block it out. Like many things, but, you know,
• 4:37
  trauma. Trauma, man.
• 4:39
  So I'm still, I mean, I'll still be out here scrolling.
• 4:41
  I got some burner accounts. I'm just kind of, you know,
• 4:43
  lurking and stuff, so I might be around, you know, I ain't never
• 4:47
  gone. I ain't never gone too far.
• 4:48
  No, you're always here somewhere in the shadows.
• 4:50
  So but yes, so we are continuing our extravaganza, like I just
• 4:56
  said. So let's get into it before we
• 4:58
  actually talk about the actual album.
• 5:00
  So on January 4th, the official Weavers platform announced that
• 5:05
  BTS for releasing the 5th studio album, it would be going on a
• 5:09
  world tour. The direct quote from that post
• 5:12
  was the new album holds significant as it the first
• 5:16
  album released by the group in three years and nine months.
• 5:19
  I'd like to round it to four years, but yes, three years,
• 5:22
  nine months at this time, while also indicating the direction
• 5:26
  the group will take going forward.
• 5:28
  The members were deeply involved in the creation of the songs,
• 5:30
  infusing their own thoughts and colors into them while musically
• 5:33
  expressing the emotions and struggles they've experienced
• 5:36
  along their journey. Featuring 14 tracks, the album
• 5:39
  is packed with honest stories that BTS wanted to share with
• 5:42
  ARMY, who have been waiting for their PM comeback.
• 5:45
  As a whole group, the many attempts we've tried for this
• 5:49
  recording, I asked what PM meant and I think Shay was the one who
• 5:53
  told me must have meant post military.
• 5:56
  So that makes a lot of sense. Filled with the music that's
• 6:00
  most true to BTS, the album is their heartfelt way of saying
• 6:03
  thank you to ARMY, who have been there this whole time.
• 6:06
  And then later on June, not June, January 27th and 28th, we
• 6:12
  got, you know, the tour sale. And that's when we also found
• 6:17
  out around the time the album was named Adi Dong.
• 6:20
  And yes, the shows in Korea have already happened.
• 6:23
  We'll talk about like the actual concert later.
• 6:26
  I know Shea hasn't been watching the ones in Korea just so she
• 6:29
  can be surprised when she actually goes see them in Vegas,
• 6:32
  especially since they'll be there on her birthday.
• 6:35
  Lucky her, you know at least one of us will get to experience BTS
• 6:40
  on their actual birthday and it didn't get cancelled because the
• 6:42
  global pandemic when they were supposed to come to your home
• 6:45
  state for the first time. It's fine.
• 6:47
  I'm still not bitter about that. Like a personal story, you know,
• 6:49
  I'm saying sounds like very, very near and true to your
• 6:52
  heart. You know it's fine, it's been 6
• 6:56
  years now. 6 or let that hurt go over there.
• 7:00
  They at least they coming back to Florida before you leave.
• 7:03
  I know at least they are actually coming to Florida
• 7:05
  before I leave the states so. That's all I care about, right?
• 7:08
  We'll, we'll going away. Well, going away gift instead of
• 7:12
  the birthday gift, you know, same thing.
• 7:15
  Exactly, and it's close to my birthday anyway, so it's fine,
• 7:18
  right? Just a few weeks before.
• 7:21
  But yes, we are also so very excited about this happening.
• 7:27
  Very much so, yeah. Man, it's been a, it's been
• 7:30
  like, I'll be transparent when it comes to any, all of the
• 7:34
  things that came out. I was in the process of
• 7:37
  transitioning from one job to another and I missed a lot of
• 7:41
  things when they first came out. But I do recall being harassed
• 7:45
  by BTS for like weeks with certain for a certain catch
• 7:50
  phrase for this album, like, and being questioned every other
• 7:54
  couple of days about what my love song was.
• 7:57
  And I still kind of wake up in a cold sweat every now and again
• 8:00
  just thinking about it, you know?
• 8:01
  So. I mean, you think the harassment
• 8:03
  was that bad? Was man, listen, look, I don't
• 8:06
  have the answer. Nam June.
• 8:08
  OK, I don't know. I'm like, you're just want to be
• 8:10
  a romantic so bad and I don't have an answer.
• 8:12
  OK, All of us don't have whimsical love lives and can,
• 8:16
  you know, string that to the tune of a of a favorite love
• 8:19
  song, you know? So it's fine.
• 8:21
  Just more trauma I have to deal with.
• 8:23
  They were just trying to get to know Army a little bit better.
• 8:26
  But Shay, do you know why they were harassing you with?
• 8:29
  What is your love song? I'm going to act like I don't
• 8:32
  know, even though we've done this three times.
• 8:34
  So why don't you tell us, Simone?
• 8:36
  Well, thank you for asking Shay. Like we didn't just go over this
• 8:40
  about three times at this point, 4 times if I want to be serious.
• 8:45
  So during the whole promotion, yes, we were in Shay's word,
• 8:50
  harassed by what is your love song.
• 8:52
  The promotion also included other things like, you know,
• 8:55
  hidden codes and quizzes on Spotify and Google.
• 8:58
  We have a whole subsection of army that I like to call theory
• 9:02
  armies. So you know, they like to do
• 9:04
  that, like get a theory, try to guess, like what the theming may
• 9:07
  be, what it might be about, etcetera, etcetera, as well as
• 9:10
  millions of posters and billboards.
• 9:13
  And I know when it came to actual what is your love song?
• 9:16
  The biggest event was during Valentine's Day and I believe
• 9:19
  Seoul, London and New York. Let me know if I'm missing any
• 9:22
  other cities. But they had like this huge rose
• 9:25
  wall where armies were able to go and pick a rose from the
• 9:28
  wall. And once they picked all the
• 9:30
  rows that were like no loose and being able to pick off the wall
• 9:33
  ended up spelling what is your love song?
• 9:36
  So it actually goes into the title of the album Adidang.
• 9:41
  Obviously, if you're Korean, you already know this.
• 9:44
  But for all my non Koreans listening to this, welcome to
• 9:48
  Simone's History Corner. Thank you.
• 9:52
  So Adidang is a traditional Korean folk song that is closely
• 9:57
  associated with the Korean culture identity of the Korean
• 10:00
  Peninsula. So it includes North and South.
• 10:02
  You know, despite the political division that we see today, it
• 10:06
  was actually during the 19th century that Adidang, a vault
• 10:10
  from a regional folk song into a widely recognized symbol of
• 10:13
  Korean identity. During the Japanese occupation
• 10:16
  of Korea during 1910 to 1945, when the Korean language and
• 10:20
  culture were systematically suppressed, adidan came to
• 10:24
  function as a symbol of cultural resistance and an expression of
• 10:27
  Korean identity. It's also associated with the
• 10:30
  concept of Han, a culturally specific term referring to a
• 10:33
  deep sense of sorrow and endurance shaped by Korea's 20th
• 10:36
  century experiences, a colonial rule and conflict.
• 10:40
  So there's actually not like a modern word in Korean for adi
• 10:45
  Dong, and the original term is actually unknown.
• 10:48
  It may have like had a meaning or like derived from an archaic
• 10:53
  Korean word. That meaning has been lost.
• 10:56
  But one of the theories that some scholars have suggested is
• 10:59
  that adi may have once meant beautiful and wrong.
• 11:02
  Beloved 1 so also like thousands of regional variants of the song
• 11:07
  that existed. Most are song like closely
• 11:10
  related melodies, especially for the version that is most known
• 11:14
  today. The lyrics commonly expresses
• 11:17
  themes of separation, longing, endurance and love.
• 11:20
  And although there's not like an actual single version of Adi
• 11:23
  Wrong that's authoritative, A widely recognized version known
• 11:27
  as Bonjour Adi Wrong or Standard Ida Dong associated with soul
• 11:32
  was popularized through the 1926 film Ida Dong.
• 11:35
  It is frequently cited as a representative example of the
• 11:38
  song, which I'm also assuming this is the version that is used
• 11:42
  in the song Body to Body on BT S S album.
• 11:47
  It's definitely reminiscent of the past few years without them.
• 11:51
  I think it was a really good choice.
• 11:54
  Now we at this point, now we have had documentary which
• 11:58
  further goes into the depths of creation of Adi Dong and them
• 12:03
  being like told the story above it and which we'll get into in a
• 12:07
  minute. But I think overall choosing Adi
• 12:10
  Dong as a comeback album after being gone for military service
• 12:15
  and then like again transitioning in and out with
• 12:18
  members. It feels almost like a full
• 12:20
  circle moment, I think. And I think once again, after we
• 12:23
  had gotten we had gotten the documentary, I think even prior
• 12:27
  to that, knowing all of this, it was like, OK, like you guys are
• 12:31
  back in this bag of, you know, having all these unlike other
• 12:34
  meanings and these connections, not only with like your heritage
• 12:40
  and your culture, but also with your fan base.
• 12:43
  And I think it's very well, I think it was a very wise choice.
• 12:45
  I think I don't think there could have been a better title
• 12:47
  or a better way to come back after being on hiatus for really
• 12:51
  wasn't a hiatus because we never again.
• 12:53
  We were harassed our entire military, you know, enlistment.
• 12:56
  So I just you know, you know, but I mean for, you know, as a
• 12:59
  whole, you know, it's I think it was a good choice.
• 13:03
  I'm actually, you know, after we have done this now multiple
• 13:06
  times and talked about this at length and other places.
• 13:09
  I think as the longer we sit with this, the longer we talk
• 13:12
  about it, everything just feels very like faded in a way.
• 13:16
  So I think it would have been, and I think we also covered this
• 13:19
  last time about how their performance was like what you
• 13:23
  said 2016, like legit. And we said, I think there's
• 13:26
  like this, this thing going around on social media where
• 13:28
  it's like 2026 is the new 2016. So it's like they're just ahead
• 13:31
  of the curve when it comes to trends.
• 13:34
  I mean, that's true. Yeah.
• 13:35
  I didn't think about that. You're right.
• 13:37
  You know, so we're really bringing back 2016 and they were
• 13:40
  like us, you know, us first. And I, I don't know, I think
• 13:42
  it's, I think looking back over like I said, it's couldn't have
• 13:45
  been, I don't think could have been a better choice and what
• 13:48
  they chose to do with this album.
• 13:49
  Yeah, especially when you learn, like, the themes expressed,
• 13:52
  like, separation and like, longing.
• 13:54
  I mean, we all joked when they were in service, we were
• 13:57
  military wise, waiting for our husbands to come home.
• 13:59
  So, I mean, you know, they're just giving us that love song
• 14:03
  and love letter basically of their return.
• 14:06
  So it's like you don't have to wait anymore.
• 14:09
  These are our feelings when we were in there, we were missing
• 14:12
  you guys and we're back so. We're back to harass you more
• 14:16
  than we ever have, and it's been great.
• 14:19
  Yes, but instead of harassing individually, it's harassing all
• 14:23
  7. The collective right, It's
• 14:25
  collective harassment. Yes, it's.
• 14:27
  Been great. It has been and very
• 14:29
  overwhelming. And Speaking of overwhelming,
• 14:31
  you know, promotions are always overwhelming.
• 14:33
  They come out with a tons of things.
• 14:35
  So there was also one thing that came out with the Adi Wrong
• 14:39
  promotions before the actual album drop, which was this
• 14:42
  little animation trying to compare when Adi Wrong was first
• 14:47
  recorded and, you know, making parallels of where BTS are
• 14:51
  today. Because another theme of this
• 14:53
  that they always talked about it like promoted before the album
• 14:57
  drop was like this was a way of for BTS, like kind of go back to
• 15:01
  their roots and probably also show their old side and their
• 15:05
  new side to not only army, but probably just like a newer
• 15:07
  audience as well. So basically we were discussing
• 15:11
  ID Dong before and how there's a standard version, which is most
• 15:14
  well known today from that film in 1926 is actually an earlier,
• 15:18
  earlier version that was recorded all the way back in the
• 15:21
  1800s. So like we talked about if you
• 15:24
  watch the documentary on BTS, the Return on Netflix or listen
• 15:29
  to Part 1 of the extravaganza when I recorded with Gina and
• 15:32
  Shannon, BK had introduced the theme of Adi Dong to BTS when
• 15:36
  they were stuck on coming up with the concept for this album.
• 15:39
  They told them the story of the seven Korean men who went to
• 15:42
  America for an education in 1896 and recorded Adi Dong, making it
• 15:47
  the first time the folk song was actually captured in a physical
• 15:50
  form. And then this LED them to
• 15:52
  choosing the title Adi Dong and inspiration for the album as
• 15:56
  well. And like I said earlier,
• 15:57
  discussing the story and going back to the roots and
• 16:01
  unfortunately this animation came with, you know, a little
• 16:05
  bit of controversy. It was trying to compare, not
• 16:09
  compare, but like show parallels of BTS, his story and the seven
• 16:13
  Korean men. The Korean men were singing two
• 16:16
  students at Howard University because they were also students
• 16:19
  at Howard where they show the Korean students recording idong
• 16:23
  and performing in front of the other students that were going
• 16:26
  to this university. And then it also like switched
• 16:29
  to BTS performing in front of armies and recording their own
• 16:32
  version of Adi Dog. As we've done this again
• 16:38
  multiple times and we're just going to keep.
• 16:40
  Telling you guys we've done this so many.
• 16:42
  Times. I'm so sorry if I'm still.
• 16:43
  There like it's. Just this has been such a
• 16:45
  process, but I, I can't honestly say enough.
• 16:48
  Like I, I, I told Simone the the last two day first we recorded
• 16:53
  this and it was on like what Sunday?
• 16:56
  I think it was like a week ago like.
• 16:57
  Last. Week.
• 16:58
  Yeah, and it was. It stopped recording and it went
• 17:02
  like away. Like we hit record again and the
• 17:04
  whole thing went away. And then we tried last night
• 17:07
  just for your part of the audio not to have been picked up by
• 17:11
  Adobe. So fuck Adobe, right?
• 17:13
  Anyway. You know, I still have to pay
• 17:14
  them because I use their editing system.
• 17:16
  But I mean, at the same time, yeah.
• 17:18
  Yeah, we're trying to find a different one too.
• 17:20
  But anyway, and now we're doing this now.
• 17:21
  But I think I think there's probably I do, but I am a person
• 17:24
  that believes everything happens for a reason, even if it's
• 17:26
  frustrating with that reason. And I think I joked and said
• 17:30
  that the powers that be are trying to keep us from having
• 17:34
  this conversation about this controversy for whatever reason.
• 17:37
  Who knows who's going to listen to this?
• 17:39
  This may be putting it out there, you know, manifesting
• 17:42
  now. It might be the biggest hit, you
• 17:43
  know, on the page, on the podcast.
• 17:45
  And I don't know, I think if we didn't talk about it, we'll be
• 17:49
  kind of doing a disservice not only to like what happened, but
• 17:52
  also to ourselves as like K pop stands by a biracial K pop stand
• 17:57
  myself. And I want to like preference
• 17:59
  this before we can get into this because it might be a little
• 18:02
  uncomfortable hearing people talk about things that aren't
• 18:05
  necessarily in the most positive light.
• 18:06
  But having concerns and criticism doesn't make you any
• 18:11
  less of a fan, doesn't make you any less of a person who enjoys
• 18:16
  a group or loves members or the whole group.
• 18:20
  I mean, it's much like in my opinion, having a child, which I
• 18:23
  have one, sometimes my child does things that disappoint me,
• 18:28
  but I don't stop loving my child just because they do things that
• 18:31
  disappoint me. We just learn from it and we
• 18:33
  grow and we move forward and we hope that these things don't
• 18:37
  continuously happen because that's pattern and that's not a
• 18:40
  mistake. It's more or less like unchecked
• 18:42
  behavior. And I'm, I'm completely of the
• 18:46
  sound mind to think that, to know that more than likely BTS
• 18:50
  will probably never listen to this, but knock on wood or
• 18:52
  whatever if but but I my long term goal for all of this or
• 18:59
  long term wish for BTS. And really, I guess you can even
• 19:03
  say K pop as a whole, because this is something that affects K
• 19:05
  pop. I think in general is that we
• 19:07
  become more open to the criticism if you're going to do
• 19:14
  you have representation of things and events that affect
• 19:18
  people that invest in you. So dialing you back to the
• 19:22
  situation with, you know, the Howard animation, did you
• 19:25
  actually like read about that or are we just going straight into
• 19:28
  it? Read about like the articles.
• 19:30
  I'm yeah, I mean, I was just going to go over my same notes
• 19:33
  of the article breakdown. Yeah, but I will say too, I
• 19:36
  mean, I think this is also relevant 'cause he brought up
• 19:38
  the whole K pop industry. I mean it.
• 19:41
  This also applies if they're still going to continue with
• 19:44
  pushing in the West so hard and if they're trying to gain more
• 19:48
  fans and you know how kpop is. I do feel like they got the
• 19:51
  formula down, whether it's ethical or not because I
• 19:54
  sometimes I still got my own problems with that of like
• 19:57
  keeping a fan base and like loyal people to these idols.
• 20:01
  It's not really going to work in the West like it does when
• 20:04
  you're. Primarily promoting and like
• 20:06
  Korea or like other East Asian parts of the world and you have
• 20:11
  the West that is more not only one diverse, but two-part of the
• 20:15
  culture that you are taking from.
• 20:18
  Like if trying to promote and advertise to that culture
• 20:21
  specifically, kind of have to earn our respect.
• 20:24
  But we'll also get into that a little bit more too, because I
• 20:26
  know you have more words about that or yeah, we.
• 20:29
  Repeat this word 1 to kind of get the technical stuff out the
• 20:32
  way before we get into the opinions, you know what I mean?
• 20:34
  Yes, I understand. But yes, let me go back into
• 20:39
  what did I call it earlier? I forgot at this point.
• 20:41
  Small, was it Simone's history corner?
• 20:43
  Small's History class. Let's.
• 20:46
  Get into, yes, let's get into talking about like the actual
• 20:52
  history of Adirang when it comes to the Seven Korea Men and that
• 20:56
  recording. I actually came across an
• 20:58
  article that was called The Real Story of the Recording of
• 21:01
  Adirang by Boundary Stones articles.
• 21:04
  Also LinkedIn the description below written by Carice Lee.
• 21:07
  It actually was originally written back in 2020.
• 21:11
  I do think because they mentioned BTS at the beginning
• 21:13
  to like when they were first having another, you know,
• 21:17
  resurgence of becoming like talked about in America
• 21:20
  especially I think around this time, Map of the Soul had just
• 21:23
  dropped. I don't remember if ticket sales
• 21:25
  were going on at this time because this is before we all
• 21:28
  went to lockdown. But yes, Map of the Soul was
• 21:30
  blowing up again and then they updated actually in March of
• 21:34
  this year. So I also do want a preference
• 21:37
  because I had brought up the Korean men in Part 1 because one
• 21:42
  of the photos I kept like seeing one of the men in the
• 21:46
  background, like, you know, they dressed differently back then.
• 21:48
  So I think the hat was throwing me off because it looked like
• 21:50
  one of those hats women mainly wear.
• 21:53
  But it is been confirmed with all my research, it is actually
• 21:56
  seven men. So they were all men.
• 21:58
  Just wanted to correct myself on that.
• 22:00
  Yes. So we know the names of six of
• 22:03
  the Korean men. That's actually documented and
• 22:06
  one is actually unnamed. But their journey to North
• 22:08
  America isn't really, you know, the story we were sold.
• 22:12
  And that was told to the guys either about like, coming to
• 22:15
  America for an education, looking for a better life, that
• 22:18
  they like to always say when you're coming to America, all
• 22:21
  these things. It was actually due to them
• 22:24
  stealing money from a Korean bank in the spring of 1896.
• 22:28
  And they ended up flying, fleeing to Vancouver.
• 22:33
  They were stuck because they spent all their money traveling
• 22:36
  and couldn't speak or understand English, obviously, especially
• 22:40
  since we didn't have the technology back then for
• 22:41
  translation. They ended up visiting the
• 22:43
  Japanese console and asking them the Telegraph Sioux Quan Baum,
• 22:48
  who was the Korean envoy and ministry.
• 22:51
  I don't. I don't remember how to say this
• 22:53
  word, and we've done this three times already.
• 22:56
  I don't have my my thing either so it's was it.
• 22:59
  Plan Plano pateri. We're going to say it is.
• 23:03
  It was something like that Plano Pateri to the US who had empathy
• 23:08
  for the runaways and help them since he could relate to fling
• 23:12
  to the US out of necessity. There was also a Washington Post
• 23:16
  article published back in 1896 that covered the arrival of the
• 23:20
  seven Korean students, and the article is emphasized that they
• 23:24
  were sons of noble families but don't understand a word of
• 23:27
  English. The article also called the
• 23:29
  story of the runaway, somewhat wild and romantic bones of noble
• 23:35
  families and had established at a school in Japan, but instead
• 23:38
  of remaining there, they took it to their heads to acquire the
• 23:42
  education in the United States. And obviously the article did
• 23:46
  not mention their theft at all. And two, with the animation that
• 23:49
  came out for the promotion of Adi wrong, there was actually a
• 23:52
  disclaimer like before it even started say saying this video
• 23:56
  was inspired by the story of seven young Koreans as
• 23:59
  documented in the Washington Post of May 8th, 18967 Koreans
• 24:04
  at Howard. Now that same article also
• 24:07
  discussed how certain professors at Howard were interested in
• 24:11
  their case and how the students would be distributed among the
• 24:15
  professors families during like summer vacation and the host
• 24:19
  would make it their business to coach them in the English
• 24:22
  language. It wasn't really discussed how
• 24:24
  like the students adjusted to Howard, but many stories
• 24:27
  suggested they were known for the musical abilities.
• 24:30
  They were considered solemn, sedate and observing and
• 24:34
  surrounded by a dozen persuasive.
• 24:37
  What we called back then damsels who begged them to sing.
• 24:41
  It was also stated that it seemed like they're singing was
• 24:44
  more at the request of the damsels rather than the men like
• 24:47
  actually wanting to perform. But again, we're not really sure
• 24:50
  if that changed once they got like a custard a custom and
• 24:53
  comfortable at Howard and the dog.
• 24:55
  And in the article it also mentioned Alice Fletcher, who
• 24:58
  was one a white woman. She was a white woman and
• 25:01
  professor at Howard University and she was also an ethologist
• 25:07
  who is a scientist who compares and analyzes different human
• 25:12
  cultures and societies to understand their origins,
• 25:14
  behaviors and relationships. She actually mainly focused and
• 25:18
  studied as well as like documented like Native American
• 25:20
  culture. But for reasons unknown, because
• 25:23
  even in the articles stated, like we still don't really know
• 25:26
  why she invited the Korean students, but she invited three
• 25:29
  out of the seven to come out to her house and they ended up
• 25:32
  recording Adi Dong. And also to part of why we got
• 25:35
  like the marketing of, you know, love song.
• 25:38
  She had actually marked certain parts of the recording of like
• 25:42
  what would be more considered a general love song and had called
• 25:46
  the recording Love Song Adi Dong.
• 25:48
  So why am I bringing all this up?
• 25:50
  Like what is the actual controversy and this animation?
• 25:53
  Well, the controversy is because if you're not familiar with
• 25:58
  America, because I know we have some international listeners,
• 26:01
  Howard University is an HBCU, which though that stands for
• 26:05
  historical Black college slash university.
• 26:08
  A lot of these schools were known as colleges at first, but
• 26:11
  I know throughout the years they like upgraded to university.
• 26:14
  So that's why it's still HBCU. So in that case, historically
• 26:19
  black, it means a majority of black people went to these
• 26:23
  colleges for history. We will talk about when we give
• 26:26
  our opinions. But when the animation dropped
• 26:28
  and showed the pass of the seven Korean men singing at Howard
• 26:32
  front of what is known as Founders Library that's on the
• 26:35
  campus, when they panned over to the students, stopping to listen
• 26:39
  to them again. I said historical black college.
• 26:43
  We had three maybe black people animated and like 70 white
• 26:49
  people animated. No matter if it was a second
• 26:52
  long 5 seconds 10, it was still a very inaccurate depiction of
• 26:58
  Howard back then, especially in 1896.
• 27:02
  I believe that was what, 12 years if my memory is correct
• 27:07
  when I will search this up. After slavery was officially
• 27:11
  abolished and you know, again America, some states still
• 27:15
  didn't even abolish slavery. To, like, abolish, Yeah.
• 27:18
  Yeah, quote UN quote because, yeah.
• 27:20
  But anyway, so yes, that was the biggest, you know, thing that
• 27:23
  happened. Well, yeah, I must say I think
• 27:25
  it, I think it was abolished in the 1860s.
• 27:29
  I'm right. So it's about, yeah, let's say
• 27:31
  1520 years. We'll just.
• 27:33
  Around it, But it was before Jim Crow though.
• 27:35
  So, yeah, it was in that era between after slavery, but like
• 27:39
  kind of leading into Jim Crow. So there's a lot of segregations
• 27:42
  between not only black people and white people there, you
• 27:44
  know, people of color who were starting to migrate into America
• 27:49
  at that time. Oh, yeah, you know, I mean, the
• 27:52
  long and short of it is it was when so when I first saw this
• 27:57
  animation, it was about maybe four or five days after it
• 28:02
  originally got released because again, I was in transition from
• 28:05
  my last job into the job I'm currently.
• 28:08
  And so I didn't get the initial blowback along with the response
• 28:12
  of social media fans and non fans alike.
• 28:16
  And when I first watched it, you know, I did again, I, my, my
• 28:21
  knowledge of this story was very limited until BTS brought it,
• 28:27
  you know, up to light, which, you know, is kind of how this
• 28:30
  whole thing rolls. But knowing that the history of
• 28:35
  Howard University, my and my initial reaction was, well, this
• 28:39
  is like the metrics are way off when it comes to what's being
• 28:43
  represented here around this time.
• 28:46
  Again, I'm not a alumni from Howard.
• 28:48
  I don't know anybody who went to Howard.
• 28:51
  But one thing that I think a lot of people were trying to, again,
• 28:56
  I call them the, the Wikipedia warriors.
• 28:59
  They all of a sudden have a master's in being able to Google
• 29:03
  and see who was responsible for such a school and, and why and
• 29:08
  all these things and trying to use that as a way to combat or
• 29:10
  try to defend BTS and the actions that took place with all
• 29:15
  of this. My thing is this, you know, I
• 29:18
  get there was a disclaimer. I mean, we talked about it.
• 29:20
  We've talked about this in length.
• 29:22
  It's funny to me that this is the portion of the promotions
• 29:27
  that were quote UN quote fictionalized.
• 29:28
  However, to me, that doesn't really matter because this
• 29:33
  animation, for the majority of people who watched it, who did
• 29:36
  not see a problem, that looked at this animation as like a
• 29:41
  faded Destiny type of situation. So the fact that these 7 Koreans
• 29:46
  came over to America, that parallels very nicely with BTS
• 29:50
  coming over here in the earlier years to study and learn and
• 29:57
  under black people, ironically, right?
• 30:00
  American Hustle life that y'all don't like to watch?
• 30:02
  Yeah, the parallels are there and when so much of it looks
• 30:06
  similar, it kind of doesn't matter, in my opinion, how many
• 30:11
  caught like cops you plea to like cover your ass because so
• 30:17
  much of this seems as like a faded Destiny type of situation.
• 30:22
  There were seven men, BTS 7 men. They came to America and under a
• 30:28
  historically black space. BTS came over here under some
• 30:33
  very historically black spaces, recorded music over here.
• 30:36
  They've recorded music over here.
• 30:38
  Then it fast forwards or, you know, flashes into the the
• 30:41
  future, which Simone has an issue with for other reasons of
• 30:45
  them being on stage also doing again, this faded destiny kind
• 30:50
  of parallel where it's like these are the seven men who came
• 30:54
  over to bring music to America or bring music to damsels.
• 30:59
  Like. Fangirls, right?
• 31:01
  And so when you, when you have that much parallel, that's, that
• 31:05
  is so close to the truth that it really it doesn't matter in my
• 31:09
  opinion that you put a disclaimer in the front that
• 31:11
  says some of this isn't fictional.
• 31:13
  Some of this is fictional because that's not how people
• 31:16
  received it. That's not how the fans are
• 31:17
  going to receive that. Now again, the duality of being
• 31:21
  a black stand in general is that you first have to be a black
• 31:24
  person and then you can be a fan of a music group, whatever,
• 31:27
  right? Your blackness in general.
• 31:29
  And I think like, even for me as a biracial person, I, I tend to
• 31:33
  be very defensive over things that are misrepresented,
• 31:37
  misrepresented, misrepresented when it comes to black culture.
• 31:41
  Because in my opinion, as again, somebody who is biracial and but
• 31:45
  who has and, and for lack of better words, grown up around
• 31:51
  this culture my entire life, it's it's always been odd to me
• 31:54
  this and this is beyond BTS, but it's always been odd to me how
• 31:58
  other cultures just take and take and take from our culture
• 32:01
  with little to no regard of how it's being represented once they
• 32:06
  take it, You know what I mean? So with this Howard thing, like
• 32:09
  people were so hung up on the fact that like, well, it just
• 32:12
  because it was a historical black colleges, I mean, it was
• 32:14
  for like only black people who went there.
• 32:16
  No, Correct. Historically black colleges
• 32:19
  doesn't necessarily mean predominantly black colleges.
• 32:22
  It just means that the history of this university and the
• 32:26
  reason why the university exists in the 1st place is because of
• 32:31
  the history that Black people have in this country.
• 32:33
  Without the history and without the slavery and without the need
• 32:38
  to have this space because we were not allowed in spaces,
• 32:42
  there would be no historical Black colleges, Black
• 32:45
  universities. It would be, it wouldn't be
• 32:47
  necessary to have those things. And so when you take away or
• 32:51
  when you whitewash that for the sake of pandering to the West,
• 32:55
  we'll just put it plainly, it really kind of just feels like a
• 32:59
  slap in the face a lot of the time.
• 33:01
  It feels like once again, we are, we are back in this space
• 33:04
  where it's like, OK, let's see. We haven't really learned a
• 33:07
  lesson. And it sucks to say that.
• 33:09
  It sucks to feel like sometimes your faves or whatever the case
• 33:12
  may be just like it does. It doesn't feel like, I feel
• 33:14
  like we're living like the same cycle over and over, but just
• 33:16
  with a different situation. Unfortunately.
• 33:19
  I think, and I'm always, obviously, I feel like I'm
• 33:22
  saying the same thing over and over because again, we've done
• 33:24
  this three times. It's fine, we know we've done
• 33:25
  this three times, but hopefully this will actually capture.
• 33:28
  Just no, no matter what, we, we've done this three times.
• 33:31
  And so I'm trying to recall everything that I said earlier,
• 33:35
  but I want people, if anybody's really listening to what we're
• 33:38
  saying and not like immediately being offended, understand.
• 33:40
  And that what I'm critiquing or what anybody really is
• 33:43
  critiquing is BTS the brand, not BTS the artist, because they are
• 33:47
  two different entities. The artist is the people that
• 33:49
  you see in the music that they put out and the craft that they
• 33:54
  spend time in. The brand is everything that
• 33:56
  helps them get their reach. And it's the marketing, it's the
• 33:59
  PR, it's the interviews, it's all of those things.
• 34:02
  And yes, there's some overlap, but just because I have
• 34:07
  critiques and I have I'm, I'm disappointed in the, the
• 34:10
  marketing of this doesn't mean that I was disappointed in the
• 34:12
  project. And I don't think that I think
• 34:15
  there's space for both of these things to exist.
• 34:17
  And I think that's OK. I think if you're the type of
• 34:19
  fan that only has praises for your favorite, you're really not
• 34:24
  doing them. You're doing them a disservice
• 34:26
  by keeping them stagnant, keeping them comfortable.
• 34:28
  I mean, we'll get into this later, but like BTS entire story
• 34:32
  is about being uncomfortable. Like from their early days until
• 34:36
  now, like there hasn't been a moment, I think that BCS hasn't
• 34:39
  been under some kind of scrutiny.
• 34:40
  So they're not they're not like naive to controversy or naive
• 34:45
  said stepping over a certain bound and, you know, having to
• 34:47
  apologize in the stat in the third.
• 34:49
  But drawing this back to the Howard situation, the reason why
• 34:51
  it was so disappointing, I think for a lot of and again, I'm not
• 34:56
  speaking for all black people because we're not a monolith and
• 34:59
  we all don't think the same. And there has been a lot of back
• 35:02
  and forth on this. Every social media platform has
• 35:04
  had a group of black people or a group of, you know, insert
• 35:08
  ethnicity who have their own opinions and it isn't being
• 35:12
  curated by anything but their own experiences.
• 35:14
  If you've never been to a black university or you've never
• 35:17
  experienced like an HBCU for any reason at all, you may not feel
• 35:20
  the connection for that. And that's OK.
• 35:22
  It's your experience. But that does not necessarily
• 35:25
  negate the fact that something that is not sacred for the sake
• 35:29
  of like anything. But just again, the history
• 35:32
  behind these HBC us and what and what that actually did for the
• 35:38
  men who attended Howard. Because to dial it back to the
• 35:41
  reason why I think a lot of people felt some kind of way,
• 35:43
  especially people who have attended these colleges or who
• 35:47
  know all the history or whatever the case, those seven Korean men
• 35:50
  that came over here would not have been able to do what they
• 35:53
  did had it not been for the fact that they were accepted to an
• 35:55
  HBCU. Because at that time, if you
• 35:58
  weren't a you know, to use modern terms, sis, white, male.
• 36:04
  Even if you were a white woman, then if you notice, we talked
• 36:07
  about what's her name? Ari Fletcher.
• 36:08
  That's not her name. No.
• 36:10
  Isn't that a singer? Ari Fletcher is not her name.
• 36:13
  Alice. Alice was a white woman.
• 36:16
  Yeah. Girl, just.
• 36:17
  Yeah, whatever. It's fine.
• 36:19
  Alice. Alice was a white woman.
• 36:21
  Now Alice was a white woman teaching at a historically black
• 36:25
  college. Why is that?
• 36:26
  Because if you're not a CIS pet white male back in those days,
• 36:30
  you're really second class citizen.
• 36:32
  And if it wasn't for the the need for black people to have a
• 36:36
  space to get educated, no one else other than that, that
• 36:40
  specific group of people would have been able to be educated in
• 36:44
  that way. So it feels again, like there's
• 36:47
  so much to unpack with it because you can't just like
• 36:50
  brush over that history because it is important.
• 36:53
  Those things are important to this entire story.
• 36:57
  Our culture's blend a lot of the time.
• 36:59
  There's so much. And I think more than anything,
• 37:02
  it was just a missed opportunity, I think to really
• 37:05
  highlight the influence, but also the like juxtaposition of
• 37:10
  black culture and Korean culture by way or Asian culture in
• 37:14
  general. Like, again, I'm just like,
• 37:17
  just, I grew up just personal story.
• 37:19
  I grew up around lots of like black and Asian relationships
• 37:22
  and like lots of that dynamic. And when I say we have so much
• 37:25
  in common, like it's not like me just like placating just to be
• 37:28
  like, you know, we, we, you know, what if for whatever
• 37:31
  reason, it's just like we do, we a lot of like look at the the
• 37:34
  hype around the sinners movie, even like that whole we see more
• 37:39
  of that as well. But that's actually there's some
• 37:41
  real history there in Mississippi with Chinese and
• 37:43
  black people back then. So that's not just like a one
• 37:47
  off thing. We, a lot of the people of
• 37:50
  people of color have a lot of similarities.
• 37:52
  And yet for whatever reason, the anti blackness that happens,
• 37:56
  whether it is on purpose or by accident, it just tends to seep
• 38:00
  in everything. And I think this is just one of
• 38:04
  those situations. And when looking at it in
• 38:07
  hindsight, I think what was disappointing about it for me,
• 38:11
  just my own personal opinion, is once again, just the ability to
• 38:16
  be able to take something that could have been like that moment
• 38:20
  of this unity. And I guess we're not owed that
• 38:23
  or anybody's really owed that. But like, it would have been a
• 38:26
  really good moment, I think to just really highlight that
• 38:29
  aspect because no matter what, BTS, the brand has the ability
• 38:34
  to spark interest in whatever they put their hands on.
• 38:37
  So the foot traffic to this story was going to get there
• 38:43
  regardless because of who BTS is as a brand.
• 38:45
  But now you have this this kind of stain on it because for
• 38:50
  whatever reason, y'all chose the brand, chose to take the
• 38:52
  liberties to undermine the significance of why.
• 38:59
  And for for for whatever reason, again, I wasn't in the room when
• 39:03
  they decided why they needed to cut these things or not
• 39:06
  highlight these things. But without that piece of the
• 39:08
  puzzle, this story doesn't exist.
• 39:11
  That's just really the long short of it.
• 39:14
  So I'll stop there for now and let you give your thoughts and
• 39:17
  stuff. Yeah, I mean and +2 like Shay
• 39:20
  had mentioned, not every black person is a monolith.
• 39:23
  Personally for me, I live in a town where I am in Florida where
• 39:27
  there is an HBCU. But my HBCU was founded and
• 39:31
  created by a black woman. So I guess, you know, not really
• 39:35
  being told anything different. I always assumed all of them
• 39:38
  were founded by black people and like was predominantly black
• 39:42
  people as well. I didn't go to that HBCU.
• 39:44
  As far as like for my college education, I did go to a
• 39:47
  predominantly white institute, institute or what we call them a
• 39:51
  PWI. And when I was younger, I
• 39:53
  actually did fun fact, I used to be like a cheerleader when I was
• 39:56
  like tiny, tiny. So I actually used to cheerlead
• 39:59
  for them. But anyway.
• 40:01
  That was just my own. I thought it was all like that
• 40:04
  until this whole thing happened, realized it wasn't.
• 40:06
  And I knew like later in the years, obviously they're
• 40:09
  accepting for everyone. I just didn't realize that early
• 40:11
  on, since the beginning they were like that.
• 40:14
  Because Shea is right, like other, you know, races and
• 40:18
  ethnicities, if you weren't black, we're able to go to these
• 40:22
  places because they weren't accepted and these predominantly
• 40:25
  white places, you know you they were considered colored back
• 40:29
  then. You'll see that word everywhere.
• 40:30
  If you look at like history, it's just also disappointing
• 40:34
  because it's like, I understand this was supposed to be about
• 40:37
  BTS. Obviously it's about their album
• 40:40
  release coming back. But it's like if you're going to
• 40:43
  talk about, and I we'll get into this later too, because people
• 40:46
  had issues with the title of Adi wrong.
• 40:49
  But if you're also going to talk about like what led to the
• 40:53
  inspiration of titling that like keep the history somewhat
• 40:57
  accurate, like I don't understand what was the point of
• 41:00
  saying this history? Is it inaccurate?
• 41:02
  Because like Shay had mentioned, I didn't just have a problem
• 41:04
  with the way Howard was represented.
• 41:07
  I had a problem with the way like BTS was represented in that
• 41:11
  too, because when it switched to them performing in a stadium,
• 41:14
  the year says 2013 and they're performing wings.
• 41:17
  Like we all know, especially if you're an Army, whether you're
• 41:20
  like newer or you've been here for a while, we all know how
• 41:24
  broke big hit at the time before they became high, which again,
• 41:27
  they became high because of BTS and their success.
• 41:31
  They were pretty much on the brink of bankruptcy for a lot of
• 41:35
  early BT s s career. They have talked about that.
• 41:38
  They especially talked about why they had to pivot from such
• 41:41
  heavy hip hop concepts when Dark and Wild came out because the
• 41:45
  sales weren't good and to the more like why I technically
• 41:49
  considered the most beautiful moment in life for like HYYH
• 41:53
  like more R&B, but it was leading into like the pop sound
• 41:57
  that they were having for a while before they enlisted.
• 41:59
  But that also doesn't really show their true roots.
• 42:03
  If this is them going back to the roots, you're not showing
• 42:06
  that they started off like as a hip hop group.
• 42:09
  You know, the struggle that they went to to get to where they
• 42:13
  are. Like even if the animation was a
• 42:14
  little bit longer, I would rather have seen that and been
• 42:18
  more prideful, not only with like the more accurate
• 42:21
  representation of Howard, but like the accurate representation
• 42:25
  of BTS because they didn't start as popular coming out the gate.
• 42:30
  And that's another thing too, why people love them so much,
• 42:32
  because it was also sometimes I feel like does a disservice to
• 42:35
  them because of that underdog story that they had starting
• 42:39
  out. And literally, as we like to
• 42:41
  say, like pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and working
• 42:44
  their way to the brink where we've almost had disbandment a
• 42:49
  couple times that they've opened up to us later on to where they
• 42:53
  are now. And wanting to continue not only
• 42:55
  as musical group or musical artists, but like as BTS as the
• 42:59
  whole 7. So it's just really
• 43:01
  disappointing in that. And then like Shay had
• 43:03
  mentioned, because I always bring up American Hustle life, I
• 43:06
  did ended up watching that show a little bit later and I watched
• 43:09
  it in full. I know people have their
• 43:11
  problems with it. I know it's a little bit cringy,
• 43:13
  but I do think it really does show like there are some
• 43:16
  segments where like Coolio and like Warren G where they're
• 43:19
  literally teaching BTS black history, not only just like the
• 43:23
  music and hip hop. They actually there was a part
• 43:25
  in one of the episodes where asks them like, what does the,
• 43:29
  you know, the fist mean? And like, where did that come
• 43:32
  from with the Olympics and why? And they had to answer questions
• 43:35
  on that and groups like they actually learned some black
• 43:38
  history on that. So just to take all of that
• 43:41
  away, it's like, so are we really highlighting BTS's roots
• 43:46
  if we're talking about the roots as a musical group?
• 43:49
  And then I've mentioned this before too, probably on other
• 43:53
  episodes on this podcast and the many renditions we've done of
• 43:56
  this recording. I've also noticed the shift as
• 43:59
  far as BTS, the brand, when it comes to as they've been pushing
• 44:02
  more into the West. I don't know.
• 44:05
  And again, this could come into like, colonialism and like white
• 44:08
  supremacy that's spread throughout the world.
• 44:10
  So if you have like, the white man's approval, then like,
• 44:12
  you've made it. Because I've noticed the shift
• 44:15
  with when Idolhead came out around the time I started
• 44:18
  becoming a fan and the remix with the Person Who Shall not be
• 44:21
  named for many reasons. At the end of that music video,
• 44:24
  they show a lot of fan clips. They got online of them of like
• 44:29
  armies doing the idol challenge. And I was so impressed by like,
• 44:33
  the diversity I saw in that. I joked to Macy when I saw them
• 44:38
  in MetLife back in 2019 and how she was the minority for the
• 44:41
  first time and how I felt so comfortable with seeing so many
• 44:45
  Black people there, so many like Asian people and other like
• 44:49
  Hispanics and just like so many people of color compared to as
• 44:53
  we've gotten forward to like after the pin.
• 44:56
  Well, kind of during the pandemic and a little bit after
• 44:59
  where they like release one of the English trios permission to
• 45:02
  dance. And when they did do like a fan
• 45:05
  segment of people doing the dance, just noticing the
• 45:08
  complete opposite and lack of diversity of the fan videos,
• 45:11
  they chose to show people doing the permission to dance.
• 45:14
  And just even with interviews too, like when they go to
• 45:16
  certain places and they show the audience in the crowd, I noticed
• 45:20
  they show mainly white people and like, maybe I can spot out a
• 45:24
  black person or two, but when they aren't in Korea, that's
• 45:27
  just very interesting the type of fans they choose to try to
• 45:30
  show that are into BTS. So it's just another part of the
• 45:35
  like the erasure that we already have to deal with.
• 45:37
  I'm going to, and another thing I mentioned too in the other
• 45:40
  recordings, like obviously we have a history of like basically
• 45:44
  being erased. You know, we weren't originally
• 45:47
  from well, no one except for Native Americans are originally
• 45:50
  from America. We were stolen literally off our
• 45:52
  land from different parts of the continent, Africa put together,
• 45:56
  had to learn how to talk to each other because people are from
• 45:59
  many different tribes, had many different languages, which
• 46:02
  again, where a Ave. comes from. That's how we had to learn how
• 46:06
  to talk to each other and just kind of, you know, I guess
• 46:09
  knowing that we felt that way and that's where our history is,
• 46:13
  that's still embedded in us. We are very welcoming as a
• 46:17
  people. We try to be sometimes.
• 46:20
  Again, we're not all a monolith. Because like when Shea was
• 46:22
  talking about different black people talking about this
• 46:24
  online, I got from, you know, the actual people who listen to
• 46:27
  BTS and their fans, the black armies talking about their
• 46:31
  concerns about it, their disappointment as well.
• 46:34
  And then to the black people who don't listen to K Pop, which
• 46:37
  again, I've never, I've always say this, I'd never blame any
• 46:40
  black person who has their problems with K pop.
• 46:42
  I completely understand. And I'm not going to sit here
• 46:44
  and argue with you because I get it.
• 46:46
  That's actually why I didn't listen to K Pop for for the
• 46:48
  longest time until I got into BTS.
• 46:50
  But I will say there were some people, you can tell we're just
• 46:53
  trying to use this for clout. Then all of a sudden it starts
• 46:55
  getting into like black people who don't or black people who do
• 46:59
  like K Pop. Y'all are coons.
• 47:01
  How can you, you know, enjoy this genre who takes so much
• 47:04
  from us? Y'all are a disappointment to
• 47:05
  the community. I'm like, OK, now we're kind of
• 47:08
  going off too far. It went from one thing to like
• 47:11
  trying to be educational to now you're actually blaming the
• 47:13
  black people because we listen to this.
• 47:15
  I mean, and you know, again, we've covered this not even with
• 47:19
  like it can't obviously stop bringing up the mini recording.
• 47:24
  But I think one one thing just to tie this kind of into us
• 47:29
  being accepting, which will kind of go in, I guess into the next
• 47:31
  segue with the response of Howard University when it comes
• 47:37
  to black people and enjoying anything like there's not a
• 47:43
  whole lot in our day-to-day lives that isn't rooted in white
• 47:47
  supremacy and anti blackness. I mean, shit as insignificant as
• 47:51
  like the master bedroom that's directly comes from plantation
• 47:57
  houses and literally masters bedroom, but that's now a staple
• 48:02
  and homes just modernize. It's just like things have never
• 48:06
  been rectified from those years of shadow slavery.
• 48:13
  And you know, going back to, I think there's a lot of people
• 48:17
  and I've seen the sentiment, I've seen the sentiment, but no
• 48:19
  one ever really says it because they feel like, I guess if they
• 48:22
  say it, it makes them feel or look racist.
• 48:25
  But I'm going to very blanketly talk about this point.
• 48:28
  I see a lot of sentiment around like every time insert artists.
• 48:32
  But for this, we'll talk about BTS.
• 48:34
  Every time BTS does anything that's closely related to black
• 48:37
  people, whether it is cladding, whatever the case may be, it
• 48:41
  feels like why people always have something to say or
• 48:44
  something that it's just quoteable, not good enough, or
• 48:47
  it's not represented correctly or whatever the case.
• 48:50
  And I'm not saying this is like the like answer solution to all
• 48:54
  and ever because I again, we're not a model is.
• 48:56
  So it's like, I can't say this is 100% the reason why you see
• 49:01
  any time our culture is being represented incorrectly or
• 49:05
  something's not being shown in the best light, why we get so up
• 49:08
  in arms about it or why we're like talking about it or
• 49:11
  advocating for ourselves about it.
• 49:14
  And again, I have no studies for this.
• 49:15
  I don't have any, any, any statistics for this.
• 49:17
  But in my opinion, I think that's just unhealed trauma from
• 49:21
  our ancestors, from we've never as community of black people who
• 49:27
  exist here in America, who have ancestry of people who built
• 49:31
  this country. We've never received
• 49:33
  recognition. We've been told all of our lives
• 49:36
  to just get over it. There's just so much of
• 49:39
  basically erasure that happens to the point they're literally a
• 49:42
  race trying to erase it out of our government systems and our
• 49:45
  libraries. And critical race theory is
• 49:47
  becoming like non existent. There's so much of that
• 49:50
  happening in a day-to-day walk for most Black Americans that it
• 49:55
  almost is like a trauma response.
• 49:57
  It's almost expected for our culture and the things that are
• 50:02
  sacred to us to be kind of taken, bastardized, repackaged,
• 50:06
  renamed and utilized for popularity.
• 50:10
  And anytime we say, hey, you know, this is actually something
• 50:13
  that's significant to us, it's always for everybody.
• 50:16
  Well, we didn't say that you couldn't use it, but the least
• 50:19
  you could do is represent it properly.
• 50:22
  I think that's the bare minimum. And I don't think that's too
• 50:24
  much to ask for a culture that you continuously take from to
• 50:28
  represent it correctly, because you would want your culture to
• 50:30
  be represented correctly. I think it's just that's, that's
• 50:33
  what it means to exchange cultures and to have that
• 50:36
  respect. I can't say how many times I in
• 50:39
  my beginning of getting into K pop, I've watched video after
• 50:43
  video of not just Koreans, but white people, black people,
• 50:47
  anybody who's visited Korea in the last, you know, 5-6 years,
• 50:49
  teaching us that have never been to Korea, how to conduct
• 50:53
  ourselves in Korea because of respect, because of their
• 50:57
  culture. And it's like that is never
• 50:59
  forwarded to us. But the bad, the flip side of
• 51:03
  that, which again will tie into the next part of this, is that I
• 51:06
  honestly do also believe that again, the duality of black
• 51:08
  people, we're very welcoming. We're very forgiving.
• 51:11
  We give a lot of chances because we know what it's like to be
• 51:14
  bothered and ostracized and kind of put at the bottom for the
• 51:21
  sake of other people to get ahead.
• 51:23
  And yet we continue to open the doors and not gatekeep the
• 51:26
  things that bring us joy. Because tying this into the
• 51:29
  Howard thing, what's good for black people and especially
• 51:31
  black women? 99% of the time, that's a big,
• 51:34
  you know, statistic, But like, I'm a stand on it 99% of the
• 51:38
  time. If something's good for black
• 51:39
  women, it's probably good for most people.
• 51:41
  I mean, I can't say how many videos I've watched of, you
• 51:43
  know, just segueing out of that, just like Black women traveling
• 51:47
  and giving their opinions on countries they visited.
• 51:50
  And the, I see people in the comments sections, you know, of
• 51:53
  different ethnicities just being like, you know, now I feel a lot
• 51:57
  more educated and I know that if it's not safe for you, it's
• 51:59
  probably not going to be safe for me.
• 52:00
  And again, I'm paraphrasing. That's not like verbatim a
• 52:02
  comment I've seen, but it's the sentiment.
• 52:05
  And even like, again, tying it back to the Howard situation,
• 52:08
  because there was a need for black education, because that's
• 52:11
  what the people who created these universities set out to
• 52:15
  do. That in turn open the door for
• 52:19
  other ethnicities to be taken in and given an education, women to
• 52:23
  be taken in. And again, if it's good for
• 52:24
  black people most of the time and it helps progress us as a
• 52:28
  cult, as a community, it is more than likely good for the rest of
• 52:32
  society. And we tend to invite people in
• 52:39
  without really any merit, which is something I love about black
• 52:43
  people for sure. Like it is something that I, I
• 52:46
  admire that we are just so welcoming.
• 52:47
  I mean, I, I can't say how many, how many, how many spaces I've
• 52:51
  been in that are typically which you would call like a black
• 52:54
  space that you would see just some random other.
• 52:57
  And they're not treated like other.
• 53:00
  They're treated like family. It's.
• 53:01
  Inviting them to the cookout, which I'm tired of saying, but
• 53:05
  yeah. I mean, like, yeah, that's a
• 53:06
  whole thing. Like I can't.
• 53:08
  I've said that shit about BTS members who I think would be
• 53:11
  invited to the cookout. There's no cookout.
• 53:13
  Cookouts never happened. I mean, it has, but I mean, but
• 53:16
  it's just it's again, it's that it's that sentiment like, again,
• 53:19
  we know what it's like to feel other.
• 53:21
  We know what it's like to be belittled and having things
• 53:25
  diminished and taken from us. And the last thing we want to do
• 53:29
  for whatever reason, and some people do again, we're not a
• 53:32
  monolith. Some people do, some people
• 53:33
  don't, is gatekeep safe spaces. So with that being said, Howard
• 53:37
  did respond to everything and I have some opinions on that and
• 53:43
  that tie into that sentiment. Yeah.
• 53:45
  And I'm not sure, like, who wrote this article.
• 53:48
  Like, I'm not sure if this is someone like a faculty member
• 53:51
  that works there or like a student that goes there.
• 53:54
  And like, this is like they're publishing, you know, in the
• 53:57
  university. Well yes, like Shea stated they
• 53:59
  did put out their own article and it briefly talked about, you
• 54:02
  know the Korean students that went there back in 1896 as well
• 54:05
  as brought up BTS is come back because this was I think after
• 54:09
  the album had dropped. I can't remember but the article
• 54:11
  is in the description as well. And also the way K pop in
• 54:15
  general is influenced by black American Music specifically
• 54:19
  music that was popular in the 80s and 90s.
• 54:22
  So when it actually came to them discussing the animation, they
• 54:25
  did talk about like how not only Howard but HBCS use in general
• 54:29
  have always been about providing academic opportunities for
• 54:32
  everyone. Like we've been talking about to
• 54:34
  debunk the mint that only black students attended and even
• 54:37
  mentioned their class the academic year of 1896 to 1897.
• 54:43
  Their student body included students from Honduras, Japan,
• 54:47
  the West Indies, various African countries, and of course, Korea.
• 54:51
  And I am assuming from this statement to I think this is the
• 54:55
  first time they actually had students from Korea as a
• 54:59
  country, which I also think was why this was such a big deal And
• 55:02
  the reason why they wrote that like Washington Post as well,
• 55:06
  because it's the first time they had like students there from the
• 55:08
  country of Korea. And they also did mention and
• 55:11
  highlighted their own K Pop cover dance performance group
• 55:14
  that they have. They're called 1 Oak in the
• 55:16
  article. Yeah, and again, I'm not looking
• 55:18
  for a witch hunt by any means. And again, we I'm not really
• 55:20
  sure who wrote this article either.
• 55:22
  I mean, I'm sure like again, articles like you said posted in
• 55:25
  the description, and this is no shade to that person, but the
• 55:30
  only way things are going to change is if things are brought
• 55:32
  to light. And I don't know how helpful
• 55:35
  this article was in giving BTS the brand a pass.
• 55:41
  Yeah, I see that. That's that's kind of what it
• 55:43
  felt like. It's kind of what it felt like.
• 55:44
  It felt like, oh, this happens, you know, but we again,
• 55:47
  accepting, welcoming, nurturing, those are all qualities that
• 55:52
  Black collective has and for our benefit or for our downfall.
• 55:56
  I think it, I think I think this is also why we never can really
• 56:00
  get on one page when it comes to the conversation of
• 56:03
  appropriation versus appreciation.
• 56:05
  I've talked about this in length when I used to do social media
• 56:07
  because we can't decide what is sacred to us, what is not.
• 56:10
  Again, just this conversation with HBC us, the whole like
• 56:13
  again, the Wikipedia warriors that in the comment sections of
• 56:16
  people, especially black Army that we're talking about this
• 56:20
  basically trying to get a gotcha moment or aha moment like
• 56:24
  because it was founded by a white man.
• 56:26
  Why is but then you have to take that and be like, why was why
• 56:29
  was it founded by a white man? Why did a white man have the
• 56:33
  ability to create a space for black people?
• 56:36
  And why was that necessary? That if you keep peeling back
• 56:39
  the layered your the answer is not going to be like, again,
• 56:43
  white people are the savior. It's it's because white people
• 56:47
  are the feeling like, I didn't mean to say that, but like,
• 56:50
  yeah. It's fine.
• 56:53
  It's I've talked about these things before.
• 56:55
  I've tried my best to talk about these things as.
• 56:59
  Sensitively. This is I can throughout this
• 57:00
  whole podcast in general, but like you said, we're going to
• 57:03
  have to have those uncomfortable conversations.
• 57:05
  So it's like, and we want to be real.
• 57:07
  Yeah, This Is Us being real. We're not trying to villainize
• 57:10
  white people. We're not trying to say all of
• 57:12
  white people are bad. Obviously not.
• 57:14
  I just had two white people in Part 1 and even they somewhat
• 57:18
  agreed when I brought this up. So it's like there comes to a
• 57:20
  point. Yeah, it's not white people,
• 57:22
  it's white supremacy. That's really what this is down
• 57:25
  to, the concept of whiteness, the concept of be like, be
• 57:29
  honestly, Whiteness, being close to godliness truly is what it
• 57:32
  feels like. And anything that's not why
• 57:34
  isn't right. And you peel back the layers of
• 57:37
  why. If you just keep asking why,
• 57:39
  eventually you'll get to an answer that's going to be
• 57:41
  uncomfortable. And I think a lot of people
• 57:42
  don't do that enough. Because if you peel back the
• 57:45
  layers of why these HBC us exist in the 1st place, again, you're
• 57:49
  going to have to feel that guilt as a person who is connected to
• 57:52
  that in some way, shape or fashion.
• 57:54
  But yeah, during that time, and I think it would again, Howard
• 57:58
  University's response, it wasn't like I was disappointed again.
• 58:00
  I just was like, it was almost like I expected that.
• 58:03
  I did not expect him to go like again with a witch hunt.
• 58:06
  I don't want anybody to go with a witch hunt against BTS because
• 58:08
  that's not the point. The point isn't to like
• 58:10
  reprimand it, to educate and to make amends and be hopeful that
• 58:16
  these things don't continue to happen.
• 58:17
  Because if they continue to happen, I mean, it's only so
• 58:20
  much that fan base that as as a black fan can take, it's only so
• 58:25
  many times that you know what we're going to feel shunned and
• 58:28
  uttered before again, there's been a lot of people that have
• 58:30
  left. I mean, I, I obviously don't
• 58:32
  know people and like specifically, but I mean, I'm
• 58:35
  pretty sure if you looked at like the demographics and look
• 58:37
  at the decline of the interest of K pipe, K pop in general, not
• 58:40
  just BTS, probably a lot of black people have left because
• 58:43
  of just the blatantness of not giving a fuck about these
• 58:47
  things. And Long story short and bottom
• 58:49
  line is all this for me. So we can maybe move on to the
• 58:52
  next controversy. And well, obviously after you
• 58:55
  make your final statements, the goal of all this and even
• 58:59
  talking about it is number 1, to feel seen, to feel like we're
• 59:04
  not crazy and we're not, you know, like we're being validated
• 59:07
  in some kind of way. And the goal in my, in my humble
• 59:11
  opinion, is that I just hope eventually Hive really does,
• 59:15
  especially with a group like BTS who is trying to appeal to a
• 59:18
  global market and have Western validation, which I don't have a
• 59:23
  problem with. I mean, a lot of people think
• 59:24
  it's stupid for artists to want the recognition of their art in
• 59:30
  any facet except I guess where they come from, which is stupid,
• 59:33
  but whatever. If you're going to try to keep
• 59:35
  appealing to a global market, you have to understand the
• 59:37
  global part of it is you have to take that in consideration when
• 59:41
  you're putting anything out because you don't want to
• 59:43
  continue to sully the brand. If you want genuine
• 59:47
  relationships with fans. And I'm not talking about
• 59:50
  parasocial, I'm just saying if you want this general dynamic of
• 59:53
  this transactional relationship, we have to continue to thrive.
• 59:56
  You have to really mindful of what you're putting out and what
• 1:00:00
  message you're sending in the message that you're trying to
• 1:00:02
  send because everything has a subliminal.
• 1:00:04
  Anything can, anything can have a subliminal.
• 1:00:06
  And from what a lot of people I saw talking about this, and
• 1:00:10
  myself included, this is another example of us being looked over
• 1:00:15
  and kind of erased. And yeah, I mean, I just, I
• 1:00:18
  think that's kind of the long short of it.
• 1:00:20
  I just want to, I, I wish in the future there's some kind of
• 1:00:23
  liaison that is of the global majority that is not Korean or
• 1:00:27
  white. Hate to say it, but I mean, the
• 1:00:29
  whole company is probably full of Korean or East Asians.
• 1:00:33
  And white people don't have the, this is going to sound like a
• 1:00:37
  slight, but it's not. White people don't have the
• 1:00:39
  depth to be able to cover the things that come with being part
• 1:00:42
  of a global majority. That's just, that's the nicest
• 1:00:45
  way I can say that without having some kind of bias.
• 1:00:48
  And yeah, I just, I hope that eventually they really do take
• 1:00:52
  into consideration, especially because it's not just BTS, like
• 1:00:54
  their entire company is trying to reach a global market in some
• 1:00:59
  way or form or fashion. They're touring over here,
• 1:01:01
  they're selling stuff over here like they're promoting over
• 1:01:05
  here. I mean, most of their interviews
• 1:01:06
  have been over here, if you haven't noticed.
• 1:01:08
  I mean I know there's other things that go into that that
• 1:01:10
  happened with BTS during their military but if you notice they
• 1:01:13
  haven't done any type of like Korean interviews unless there
• 1:01:16
  were variety shows on like online.
• 1:01:19
  It's all been American or Western in general.
• 1:01:22
  Like I don't know if they've done anything in Europe or, you
• 1:01:24
  know, UK or whatever, but. They might when they go on tour.
• 1:01:27
  Right. And so if you want to appeal to
• 1:01:29
  the global market, you have to take the global market into
• 1:01:32
  consideration and understand that you're not going to get a
• 1:01:34
  perfect, but you can at least try better, you can try to do
• 1:01:37
  better. I would, I would, I would say I
• 1:01:39
  would accept an effort over just blatantly disregarding any day
• 1:01:44
  of the week from a company for sure.
• 1:01:46
  Because, you know, at the end of the day, it's still very much
• 1:01:48
  like, fuck companies, but kind of where we live in.
• 1:01:51
  Yeah. I mean, you pretty much said
• 1:01:53
  everything that I want to point out.
• 1:01:54
  I think my next thing that I'm going to talk about kind of goes
• 1:01:56
  into our next controversy topic that still kind of deals with
• 1:02:00
  the animation. It goes back to when I was
• 1:02:02
  talking about if we want to bring this back to like BTS 2.
• 1:02:05
  My problem with like also erasing their roots as like a
• 1:02:08
  history or not history, their roots as a musical group in this
• 1:02:13
  when it comes to like the history, isn't this technically
• 1:02:16
  part of your culture as well? Because I mean, I'm not trying
• 1:02:19
  to frame this as like American savior type thing that
• 1:02:23
  sometimes, even though I'm not white, but like Americans in
• 1:02:25
  general sometimes do, whether we mean to or not end up
• 1:02:29
  portraying. But it's like I how we have
• 1:02:31
  known audit on what have been recorded if they didn't come to
• 1:02:36
  America back then. I mean, yes, I know people
• 1:02:39
  complain, especially if you're not from here that like we try
• 1:02:42
  to center America and everything and like no one has to know
• 1:02:45
  everything about American history.
• 1:02:46
  But it's like, well, if we wanted to talk about the seven
• 1:02:49
  Korean men and the way that Adirang is so like sacred to
• 1:02:54
  Korean people, this is technically your history.
• 1:02:56
  This is technically Korean history, so why are we also
• 1:02:59
  erasing Korean history? And the reason I say it kind of
• 1:03:03
  goes into our next topic is because when the album did kind
• 1:03:06
  of officially, you know, release, many people, fans and
• 1:03:09
  non fans alike were I guess this nicest word to say is confused
• 1:03:14
  about the album when it was released.
• 1:03:17
  I mean, if it was just about BTS themselves, many were claiming
• 1:03:20
  like this wasn't the BTS, they knew they missed the old BTS.
• 1:03:25
  And then once again, what we've been talking about how they're
• 1:03:27
  trying to panda to the West. But oddly enough, the biggest
• 1:03:32
  thing about this album, especially it with being a
• 1:03:35
  majority of English lyrics, was questioning their Koreaness and
• 1:03:40
  asking if they were Korean enough as well as, you know,
• 1:03:45
  yeah, if they're basically Korean enough.
• 1:03:46
  Especially choosing a name like I did on with a very deep Korean
• 1:03:51
  meaning to it. And we did find out what we
• 1:03:53
  talked about like the documentary in Part 1 as well as
• 1:03:56
  the studio notes live, which is like a live BTS themselves did
• 1:04:00
  like an hour after the album released.
• 1:04:03
  They actually predicted kind of like this might be controversy
• 1:04:06
  or talking points among people and like expressing their
• 1:04:09
  worries about like naming it after a such well known folk
• 1:04:12
  song among Koreans. I do think they were more
• 1:04:15
  worried about the response they were going to get on the Korean
• 1:04:17
  side then the international side.
• 1:04:19
  But it's just wild I've been seeing on like the international
• 1:04:22
  side outside of the country Korea of people questioning
• 1:04:26
  their Koreaness. And there's also like a personal
• 1:04:29
  like K pop podcast I listen to. I'm not going to name any names,
• 1:04:34
  but I guess to say go over K pop.
• 1:04:36
  They did talk about the album when it was released.
• 1:04:38
  The questions about like, is the album Korean enough?
• 1:04:42
  Especially with like the, you know, Korean promotions as far
• 1:04:45
  as the leading up to everything. We just talked about one of the
• 1:04:49
  hosts who was born in like Korea and raised in Korea before he
• 1:04:53
  moved to the United States, talked about how this could
• 1:04:57
  probably represent Korea and Seoul today when it comes to
• 1:05:00
  like only caring about sales and results.
• 1:05:03
  They also brought up like when people here, which I did agree
• 1:05:07
  with in some way, like when that they want more Korean.
• 1:05:10
  Why do people think about like traditional Korean, not like
• 1:05:13
  modern Korea, but like, I kind of wish they expanded upon that
• 1:05:17
  because I'm not a person who lives in Korea as of today.
• 1:05:20
  I don't know what modern Korea looks like.
• 1:05:22
  So I would have loved to heard more about like what modern
• 1:05:27
  Korea are you thinking about that you wish they interpreted
• 1:05:31
  them even though you're not really an army?
• 1:05:32
  But again, Zalm isn't for armies, only consumption.
• 1:05:36
  So you're going to get people who either don't care about BTS
• 1:05:39
  or like our casual fans listen to it.
• 1:05:41
  Anyway, that's not my point. But then they also too brought
• 1:05:44
  up that with the title like Adi Wrong, they thought that ETS
• 1:05:48
  throughout this whole album was going to talk about like the
• 1:05:50
  struggles of being Korean overseas, especially blowing up
• 1:05:54
  in the West, and not have it in just one song.
• 1:05:57
  We will talk about the album. And I know for that last part,
• 1:06:01
  when I heard that, I was like, I get it.
• 1:06:03
  Like, especially when you start out.
• 1:06:05
  And there's a lot of other artists too that do talk about
• 1:06:07
  their struggles that people want to hear and they can relate to
• 1:06:09
  it as well. But like, don't you get to a
• 1:06:11
  certain point, especially if you get older or like you're trying
• 1:06:14
  to expand your musicality? Doesn't that get tiring?
• 1:06:17
  Doesn't that get like triggering?
• 1:06:19
  So like always talk about your trauma.
• 1:06:21
  I feel like that's also putting you in a box.
• 1:06:24
  Like, do you, do you just not want them to be happy?
• 1:06:27
  Is that what you're telling me? You don't want these artists to
• 1:06:29
  actually express the type of joy ever in their life.
• 1:06:34
  Yeah. I think with that, just before
• 1:06:38
  we go into the, you know, the other stuff with that
• 1:06:40
  specifically that there's something very relatable about
• 1:06:45
  struggle. Trouble is a universal like
• 1:06:47
  emotion or result of like our everyday experience.
• 1:06:51
  And so when you find an artist who again, it's if there's a
• 1:06:54
  reason why I think a lot of artists who make like what you
• 1:06:58
  call like sad boy music are so popular because again, every
• 1:07:00
  everybody, everybody, no matter what your situation is, no
• 1:07:03
  matter financial situation, cultural situation, it doesn't
• 1:07:06
  matter where you live, everybody goes through their downtime,
• 1:07:08
  everybody goes through a down and a low.
• 1:07:10
  Everybody gets low. And there's something about
• 1:07:12
  struggle that humanizes an artist groups as big as BTS,
• 1:07:17
  when they are speaking in these brackets that none of us are
• 1:07:21
  able to touch because we ain't got that kind of money.
• 1:07:23
  It kind of makes them feel more distant and and like and like.
• 1:07:30
  Unreachable. Yeah, on a while, struggling so
• 1:07:32
  hard to say that it's OK, it's OK, it's been a long couple
• 1:07:35
  days. Yeah.
• 1:07:37
  It makes them feel kind of out of reach, is what I was trying
• 1:07:39
  to say. It makes them feel further than
• 1:07:41
  they already are. I mean, literally really can't
• 1:07:43
  get close to them as it is, but something about struggle and the
• 1:07:48
  type of struggle that each member went through and the
• 1:07:51
  collective group went through, I think it resonates with people,
• 1:07:54
  which is why the Love Yourself era and the Wings era and the
• 1:07:59
  HOH era, which kind of both. And those eras were so sought
• 1:08:05
  after. And I think a lot of people
• 1:08:06
  wanted that. Again, because those of those,
• 1:08:09
  those of us who weren't here during those eras didn't get to
• 1:08:12
  experience that, but we got to experience it on the back end.
• 1:08:16
  We wanted an authentic moment. And not me.
• 1:08:18
  I'm saying we as people who think like this one of that
• 1:08:21
  authentic moment. That's that's similar to that to
• 1:08:25
  back up a little conversation around BTS and this album not
• 1:08:29
  being Korean enough, like hard stop them being seven men born
• 1:08:34
  and raised in Korea with Korean roots.
• 1:08:37
  That is enough. Like period, point blank,
• 1:08:39
  regardless if they're speaking in Korean or they're speaking in
• 1:08:43
  Congress or whatever the fuck they call it, or they're
• 1:08:45
  speaking in anything that is relatable or understandable to
• 1:08:49
  the global majority, them being from Korea, Korean root is them
• 1:08:54
  being Korean enough. Now, I cannot necessarily and I
• 1:08:57
  will not go over Koreans if there were any, but I didn't see
• 1:09:01
  them, but I don't. And that's not a like, oh, my
• 1:09:03
  timelines, just because my timeline gives me all the
• 1:09:06
  controversy. So I can't even say my timelines
• 1:09:07
  just give me the positive. It doesn't.
• 1:09:09
  It gives me every fucking thing that because my my algorithm
• 1:09:13
  knows I like drama. I do.
• 1:09:14
  I like the drama because I like to hear people's are organic
• 1:09:19
  thoughts and their raw thoughts and not the predictable shape.
• 1:09:24
  And while I do think we'll get into this later, there are some
• 1:09:27
  critiques that can be had with this album.
• 1:09:29
  Them not being Korean enough and the album not being Korean
• 1:09:32
  enough is a very weak excuse and a very weak or very just.
• 1:09:37
  It's very, it's very childish in a way, because I don't, we do
• 1:09:41
  this. I don't know we but people do
• 1:09:43
  this with other, I would say other types of music, but not as
• 1:09:47
  much it feels like with this particular genre.
• 1:09:51
  And it's funny because this genre is literally a melting pot
• 1:09:55
  of other genres. K pop doesn't really have its
• 1:09:58
  own unique sound. It never has.
• 1:10:00
  And it's just a it's just, it's a, it's a just a amalgamation of
• 1:10:05
  many other different genres. So if you take that away, that
• 1:10:09
  can't be the reason. So OK, the English lyrics, I
• 1:10:11
  mean, they've had, they had English lyrics all throughout
• 1:10:14
  their discography. It might not be the the most.
• 1:10:18
  It might. This is, and I said this before
• 1:10:20
  we even got the album and when we got the track list, I made a
• 1:10:24
  statement in my Discord server that this was going to be their
• 1:10:26
  most English leaning album that they've done today because of
• 1:10:30
  who was connected on this album. And I was right.
• 1:10:33
  So I just want to put that out there.
• 1:10:34
  I was right. Listen to me, I'll be right on
• 1:10:36
  time anyway. But it can't be that because
• 1:10:38
  they've had plenty of songs. They've literally they're solo
• 1:10:41
  projects full of English and some of that was some of y'all's
• 1:10:45
  favorite shit. So we'll take that off.
• 1:10:47
  The only other possible, like in my mind, the only other possible
• 1:10:51
  scenario where you think it's not Korean enough is because you
• 1:10:54
  want them to put on essentially A minstrel shelf and that's
• 1:10:57
  weird. And even pack that because, and
• 1:11:00
  again, I'm not going to say it's solely a certain type of person
• 1:11:03
  that's online talking about this, but I will just say if
• 1:11:06
  you're not Korean, that ain't your business.
• 1:11:08
  You are only here to consume and listen from a consumer
• 1:11:12
  perspective and not from a what's the word I'm looking for?
• 1:11:18
  You don't get to make any judgement calls.
• 1:11:19
  You don't get you don't get to do that when it comes to what
• 1:11:23
  they choose to put out. If you don't like something,
• 1:11:25
  that's one thing. But to say if something's not
• 1:11:27
  this enough or that enough it that kind of comes up a little
• 1:11:31
  bit racist. So maybe you should check that.
• 1:11:35
  But we won't go. I'm not your therapist.
• 1:11:36
  We won't go into that. But yeah, really, honestly, hard
• 1:11:39
  stop them being Korean is enough.
• 1:11:42
  Like if they decide to do a fully English album, they would
• 1:11:45
  still be 7 Korean men doing and that'd be still Korean enough.
• 1:11:49
  Yeah. And I seen like Koreans of the
• 1:11:53
  diaspora, meaning like Korean people who either left Korea
• 1:11:57
  very early on for whatever the reason is or like we're born and
• 1:12:01
  raised outside of Korea. So like America, Canada,
• 1:12:05
  somewhere in Europe, like you name it.
• 1:12:07
  So I have seen some of them have been like, I haven't seen them
• 1:12:12
  questioning BTS is Korean this. But like I also there's one girl
• 1:12:16
  that I do come across her post a lot and she was talking about
• 1:12:19
  how she just watched the documentary.
• 1:12:20
  And this was new for me, even me as well.
• 1:12:24
  And I feel like I can kind of relate to this because we have
• 1:12:26
  this ourselves with like black Americans and, you know, like
• 1:12:29
  other black people from other countries as well as like black
• 1:12:32
  people from like Africa of I guess the documentary was kind
• 1:12:37
  of tricking her a little bit when they were discussing the
• 1:12:40
  album because they reminded her of like people always
• 1:12:43
  questioning her Koreaness because she grew up in America
• 1:12:47
  and even from Koreans themselves, like from Korea,
• 1:12:49
  like saying she wasn't Korean enough because she grew up in
• 1:12:51
  America. And then like, you know, other
• 1:12:54
  races in America, like they see her as Korean.
• 1:12:57
  But like, you know, so that I could understand as well, but
• 1:13:02
  it's just really baffled me when it came to like Koreans like BTS
• 1:13:07
  born and raised in first language is Korean.
• 1:13:10
  Because the one time they want to put in more English in an
• 1:13:14
  album, which you would think more people, especially who
• 1:13:16
  speak English would be more happy because you can actually
• 1:13:18
  sing along to the lyrics. We don't have to butcher Korean
• 1:13:22
  or like mumble the words. I sometimes I'm sitting here
• 1:13:26
  wondering like, is it true that like a lot of y'all wouldn't
• 1:13:29
  like K pop if you understood the words more?
• 1:13:32
  You got to check that as well. So but yeah, that's what I was
• 1:13:37
  just thinking too. So and like you don't see people
• 1:13:40
  questioning other K pop groups. Are they create enough?
• 1:13:43
  Because I don't know if people realize this or another.
• 1:13:47
  This is another like blindness to like you just see an Asian
• 1:13:49
  person. So like you just don't really
• 1:13:51
  question where they from in Asia, but it's like you all do
• 1:13:55
  know there's tons of K pop groups.
• 1:13:57
  We're not all the members are Korean, right?
• 1:13:59
  I can name like 10 off the top of my hands right now.
• 1:14:02
  Or even if they are Korean, like I stated, they're from the
• 1:14:04
  Korean diaspora. So they might be Korean
• 1:14:06
  Canadian, they might be Korean Australian, New Zealand,
• 1:14:09
  whatever. So it's like to have a group,
• 1:14:13
  all seven members. Well, again, born and raised in
• 1:14:18
  Korea, requestioning the Koreaness off of an album just
• 1:14:24
  because it has English words in it on yeah I don't know.
• 1:14:29
  Yeah, I mean, and you know, it's this, it's this strange part of
• 1:14:33
  the parasocial relationship that falls into this entitlement.
• 1:14:37
  I think because again, I think a lot of people, for the most
• 1:14:40
  part, when I hear people, when I hurt people, because again, I
• 1:14:43
  think there was obviously a drop off.
• 1:14:47
  And from what I, we talked last time, there is now more
• 1:14:50
  controversy that we probably won't get into because it hasn't
• 1:14:53
  going to do what we're talking about.
• 1:14:55
  But it, it ties a little bit. But the, the initial controversy
• 1:14:58
  and all the, you know, backlash of it not being Korean enough
• 1:15:01
  and the album being bold or whatever has kind of died off.
• 1:15:04
  And I think we talked about it before with like that is the
• 1:15:09
  Internet wave, the social media wave.
• 1:15:11
  There is a sudden spike in just being negative, negative,
• 1:15:15
  negative and all of a sudden it drops because nobody cared.
• 1:15:17
  It's not the popular thing as far as the trends go.
• 1:15:21
  And as far as like the cycle of what's popular in social media.
• 1:15:25
  There is a, there was a creator put out a video who before that
• 1:15:31
  didn't have any content really. And I remember because I, I, I
• 1:15:36
  told you on Discord, just take it, don't, don't respond to
• 1:15:39
  these people because again, you respond to these people, you
• 1:15:42
  bring more traction to their videos.
• 1:15:43
  They're getting money off of that negativity or a negative
• 1:15:48
  post. Typically.
• 1:15:50
  And I'm sure you know, we when we talked about this in length
• 1:15:52
  with people like Shannon and Discord like that, those
• 1:15:55
  negative posts bring in people who are so ready to defend, are
• 1:15:58
  so ready to like talk shit about you, not realizing that a lot of
• 1:16:03
  these people are rage baiting you to boost their number so
• 1:16:08
  they can get a check, so they can buy the seats that you
• 1:16:11
  didn't get for the concert. And I just feel like if y'all
• 1:16:14
  would just stop feeding into the bullshit.
• 1:16:16
  It's hard. I get it.
• 1:16:17
  Everybody wants to just like have a get back, you know, and I
• 1:16:20
  get that. But like people aren't going to
• 1:16:22
  talk And obviously you can't stop the training negativity.
• 1:16:24
  It just is what it is. And I said it to say there's an
• 1:16:27
  entitlement, I think that comes from the parasocial parts of
• 1:16:30
  this fanship, relationship or whatever the, you know, this,
• 1:16:33
  this exchange where it's like you're not fitting in the box
• 1:16:37
  that I put you in. You're trying to get out that
• 1:16:40
  box. And that's not what I paid for.
• 1:16:41
  I paid for you to be in this box and you to be the person that I
• 1:16:45
  want you to be and the music that I want you to do.
• 1:16:47
  And I've we said talked about this earlier that a lot of
• 1:16:49
  people, in my opinion, wanted another love yourself era, but
• 1:16:53
  just post military, but they're not the same people.
• 1:16:57
  They were in the love yourself air.
• 1:16:58
  They are post military. They have experienced more shit
• 1:17:02
  and in the last few years, you know, and again, I think a lot
• 1:17:04
  of people were also, and this is a different, you know, shrink of
• 1:17:07
  thought. A lot of people were ready for
• 1:17:08
  them to come back and talk their shit.
• 1:17:10
  Not to say the BTS is above it, because I think that we've seen
• 1:17:15
  many times before them taking jabs and, you know, talking
• 1:17:19
  against certain things and that there's a time and place for
• 1:17:22
  that. But also, I think you had
• 1:17:24
  brought this up in the last recording the, the, the
• 1:17:30
  chokehold that a lot of fans in this fandom have when it comes
• 1:17:34
  to wanting them to be angry and like the starving artist and the
• 1:17:39
  helpless and, and that you always need the help of ARMY.
• 1:17:42
  Like there's not a moment that goes by the BTS doesn't
• 1:17:45
  acknowledge Army's existence and, and, and, and gives them
• 1:17:48
  the props for where they are today.
• 1:17:50
  And if they never again have to ever say Army's the reason why
• 1:17:53
  we're here. We know they know that is
• 1:17:55
  solidified, but whatever, for whatever reason, being people
• 1:17:58
  feel justified in feeling like their best work is when they
• 1:18:02
  were angry and when they were outraged and when they were like
• 1:18:08
  depressed and like looking at Yugi's story with August D,
• 1:18:12
  people were expecting August D to come back out, but he doesn't
• 1:18:15
  he's not there anymore. He's let that go.
• 1:18:17
  He's healed from that. And I think, you know, to tie in
• 1:18:20
  the, you know, the shit that happened during his military
• 1:18:23
  time with scooter incident, I think a lot of people were just
• 1:18:27
  really especially a lot of fans because I can't necessarily say
• 1:18:30
  it was people on the like, there's been like two ways of
• 1:18:32
  this. The people who are like locals
• 1:18:34
  and who heard about BTS are are anticipating this because it's
• 1:18:38
  so talked about. And then there's fans, and I
• 1:18:40
  think some fans were really just waiting on Yugi to come pop his
• 1:18:43
  shit. And in my opinion, I think what
• 1:18:45
  he's doing is the right move. I think him being avoided and
• 1:18:48
  busting through that damn airport in like record timing
• 1:18:52
  and so on. Then until Nanjun got hurt and
• 1:18:54
  then he slowed that pace down a little bit.
• 1:18:58
  Listen, that just shows his love for his brothers.
• 1:19:00
  OK, love for Nam June because same because somebody got to
• 1:19:03
  take care of that big old. I'm just praying for him for the
• 1:19:05
  rest of this tour, OK? We don't need any more injuries
• 1:19:08
  no more. He would be the one like him
• 1:19:11
  because like tables and just sidetrack tables slide all over
• 1:19:14
  the fucking stage with no problem and but Nam June takes a
• 1:19:18
  step out of place and he's got a torn ACL, not putting that
• 1:19:21
  inutable. OK, this isn't.
• 1:19:23
  Spoiling anything? This isn't spoiling anything.
• 1:19:26
  I literally watched a clip from the sound check from this
• 1:19:29
  morning. Tay literally ran off the stage
• 1:19:33
  to one of the side stages, jumped over the barricade so he
• 1:19:38
  can be closer to the fans and you seek a security like 5
• 1:19:42
  seconds later trying to catch his ass.
• 1:19:45
  Like, Sir, I know you were in the Special Unit Forces,
• 1:19:49
  whatever it was called. Stop.
• 1:19:52
  Stop but can't eat a chicken wing.
• 1:19:54
  But anyway, so. Oh my God, come on, Wing, come.
• 1:19:58
  On wing, but to wrap that up, it's just the chokehold and it
• 1:20:04
  it really just, it just needs to be let go.
• 1:20:06
  Like these men have experienced a lot, they've overcame a lot.
• 1:20:10
  Point of a come up story is to eventually come up.
• 1:20:13
  That's the whole point. We don't, we don't a Cinderella
• 1:20:16
  story, which is another way to call it.
• 1:20:18
  Eventually, Cinderella comes up out of that shrub.
• 1:20:22
  Because otherwise it's just abuse, like, you know what I'm
• 1:20:25
  saying? Like otherwise it's just abuse.
• 1:20:27
  And nobody wants to read or look at a story that's just abuse
• 1:20:30
  constantly or struggle constantly.
• 1:20:32
  And that's not, that is not hopeful, that's not inspiring.
• 1:20:37
  It may be entertaining and it may give you like righteous
• 1:20:40
  rage, but it's not that's not their story.
• 1:20:44
  And I think we're in a space. And again, this is the first
• 1:20:48
  album back from a long hiatus and in a new era, and people act
• 1:20:55
  like this was the last album they're ever going to fucking
• 1:20:57
  make. Like, if you didn't like this
• 1:20:59
  one, cool, fine. There's going to be many more
• 1:21:02
  after this. Jung, he's already said he's
• 1:21:03
  we're going to be in basically walkers in wheelchairs before
• 1:21:05
  they decide to retire. So there'll be another.
• 1:21:09
  Instruments. Learning instruments, being a
• 1:21:11
  full BTS, the real band, you know, the with Nam Jun on the
• 1:21:15
  sacks Anyway, like, so yeah, I just feel like people obviously
• 1:21:21
  will get over it. I mean, clearly it's been what
• 1:21:23
  now within a month since all this has went down and people
• 1:21:27
  got over it. People are moving on to the next
• 1:21:28
  thing. And now, of course, there's
• 1:21:30
  another thing that people are upset about or, you know, up in
• 1:21:32
  a rage about. It's always going to be
• 1:21:34
  something. And I think it's unfortunate
• 1:21:36
  that BTS feels to us, those of us who don't have this strange
• 1:21:41
  relationship with their music and their journey, who just let
• 1:21:45
  them, who want them just to express themselves in a way
• 1:21:48
  that's authentic, in a way that makes sense to the time that
• 1:21:51
  they're in. I don't want BTS talking about
• 1:21:53
  the shit they were talking about during Danger.
• 1:21:56
  Like that doesn't make any sense now.
• 1:21:58
  It can be, it can reflect on those things.
• 1:22:02
  It can make parallel to those things.
• 1:22:04
  But I don't want the same fucking project over and over
• 1:22:07
  and over. I will get bored.
• 1:22:09
  Most people do get bored, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:22:11
  It's it's natural people. I mean, I understand people have
• 1:22:13
  their comfort things, but like those albums still exist.
• 1:22:16
  Like just go listen to them. It's OK.
• 1:22:18
  Like I promised. I mean, clearly we'll probably
• 1:22:20
  talk about this too. They definitely have the
• 1:22:23
  streams. It didn't hurt if you decide to
• 1:22:26
  take a break from the album. It didn't affect the streams
• 1:22:28
  much because they, you know, got all these accolades that we'll
• 1:22:31
  touch on later. But yeah, it's been it's been a
• 1:22:34
  strange. But as I was talking to again,
• 1:22:36
  because I'm a I'm not a newer army, but I'm new in context,
• 1:22:40
  right? And then during Black Swan,
• 1:22:43
  which was Map of Soul and I haven't seen this is my first
• 1:22:47
  official release, like full release with them.
• 1:22:50
  And from what I hear from other army who have been here since,
• 1:22:53
  you know, they were, you know, conceptual thing.
• 1:22:56
  This happens every comeback. You know, this maybe not in this
• 1:22:59
  extent, but something like this. This this isn't the BTSI know
• 1:23:04
  tagline, the you know, all these all of these points have been
• 1:23:09
  brought up before. It's just, I think when we
• 1:23:11
  talked about this, because of the surge in interest, it just
• 1:23:15
  is a lot louder. And it's funny to me that it
• 1:23:18
  seems like people who are newer to this and the people who are
• 1:23:23
  looking on the outside and they're enjoying this project.
• 1:23:26
  And it feels like a lot of people who again know the old
• 1:23:29
  BTS quote UN quote are the ones that are the most upset, which I
• 1:23:33
  find that kind of funny. It's funny and it's very
• 1:23:35
  interesting because I do feel like that also goes into when
• 1:23:38
  BTS was more like K pop than like the global group that we
• 1:23:43
  know them of now. Because like let's, we have to
• 1:23:46
  be honest at this point, they are considered a global group in
• 1:23:49
  my eyes. And I feel like that also goes
• 1:23:52
  into just like people not in BTS talk like Nandu talked about
• 1:23:57
  this in the beginning of the documentary too.
• 1:23:59
  This is an instance where they've surpassed the limit that
• 1:24:02
  K pop puts on groups and idols where a majority of the time,
• 1:24:06
  unless you're super junior which I don't understand, but a
• 1:24:11
  majority of the time your shelf life is like 2526 maybe 27.
• 1:24:17
  Usually once you get out of military it kind of fades out of
• 1:24:20
  like the idol life or like the K pop group and the K pop music.
• 1:24:25
  You may still be with your group but like y'all aren't really
• 1:24:27
  making group music, you're doing more individual activities.
• 1:24:30
  So for a group that is like BTS who also too because of the fans
• 1:24:36
  and I was watching the Zane Lowe interview, I didn't take any
• 1:24:39
  notes on it, but I was watching it before we came on here.
• 1:24:41
  And I know he kind of asked a question similar to that.
• 1:24:43
  And it was John Cook who talked about like they all decided to
• 1:24:47
  go together instead of separate out the years because that's
• 1:24:50
  what most groups would do. They would when it's time for
• 1:24:52
  them to go to enlistment, they would go, some of the members
• 1:24:56
  would do their activities. That member may come back and
• 1:24:58
  the next member goes on. This is the first time as well.
• 1:25:02
  Well, no, because I know there's been other groups that went
• 1:25:04
  together and came back. But as far as like a group on
• 1:25:06
  the scale of like BTS, like they decided because not only for the
• 1:25:10
  fans, but because they literally at this point do consider each
• 1:25:15
  other family, which, you know, you try not to stay with
• 1:25:19
  everyone because not all groups are like that.
• 1:25:21
  Some people see them as Co workers, but with them, they've
• 1:25:23
  said it multiple times, they do see each other like family.
• 1:25:26
  They've decided to go at a time to where they could come back
• 1:25:29
  all together to hurry up and make music for the fans.
• 1:25:34
  And it's also interesting too, because there was a Billboard
• 1:25:37
  article that came out with Bonky D and I think he talked about
• 1:25:40
  when he was talking with Nam June and John Cook and asked
• 1:25:43
  them about the song right in camp and they decided to go.
• 1:25:46
  And then again with the whole like we need to protect BTS
• 1:25:50
  people working, planning that like they rushed them into
• 1:25:52
  starting this album too soon. It's like, weren't you also when
• 1:25:56
  they were gone, talking about like how you're ready for them
• 1:25:59
  to come back? Because I'm sure you would have.
• 1:26:01
  Actually, there was people complaining at least not you
• 1:26:03
  talk about on his one live, which all of 2025 they thought
• 1:26:07
  they were going to release something and they didn't
• 1:26:09
  release something and people weren't complaining about it.
• 1:26:12
  So you would have been complaining even more if they
• 1:26:14
  took like a full year break and then came back with an album.
• 1:26:18
  No one's ever happy. I mean, that's the bottom line
• 1:26:20
  to all this. But I'm just bringing up like
• 1:26:22
  the talking points of how like they contradict each other and
• 1:26:24
  like how they're hypocritical. It's like y'all say one thing,
• 1:26:28
  but then I know you're going to say the opposite if it didn't
• 1:26:31
  turn out this way. Kind of like what Shay said,
• 1:26:33
  which is true. Like this happens every
• 1:26:35
  comeback. I don't know, for me, like it
• 1:26:36
  just seems louder. Maybe because I'm more on social
• 1:26:39
  media. Like before I was like back
• 1:26:42
  then, I wasn't as much as really Twitter, but my timeline is kind
• 1:26:45
  of curated. We all are talking about you,
• 1:26:47
  miss obviously love yourself and like map of the soul and like
• 1:26:51
  bring back Black Swan. Excuse me, Black Swan was my
• 1:26:54
  favorite from the beginning, but I distinctly remember that
• 1:26:57
  hatred for Black Swan, especially with the promotions
• 1:27:00
  of like artist death and they put out like a dance video, not
• 1:27:03
  of BTS, but of one of like the answers from like a well known I
• 1:27:08
  don't yes, and that version is. Which?
• 1:27:13
  I'm still upset to this day it's never been released on streaming
• 1:27:16
  like Dang, what are we doing? Big hit high.
• 1:27:19
  But anyway, we're. Not mad enough?
• 1:27:22
  I guess not. We're.
• 1:27:23
  Not, but when the original version came out, people were
• 1:27:25
  like, this is too hip hop, this is too trap.
• 1:27:28
  I thought this was supposed to be sentimental and I'm like, I
• 1:27:30
  remember all this, so it's a pattern.
• 1:27:33
  Anybody who did any, anybody who didn't like Black Swan on 1st,
• 1:27:36
  that if your soul did not ascend when Black Swan was released, I
• 1:27:40
  feel like you're just dead inside.
• 1:27:42
  Because I, I literally will. I will unfriend you if you think
• 1:27:46
  that Black Swan is not a masterpiece the original,
• 1:27:50
  because it is so. Listen, I still keep saying it
• 1:27:52
  should have won that Grammy, but again, we, we ain't got time for
• 1:27:56
  that. Yeah, we had the Grammys or
• 1:27:57
  something we don't want to talk about right outside.
• 1:27:59
  Well, we might have to talk about it again real soon,
• 1:28:01
  especially with this new album, because I'm seeing stuff.
• 1:28:04
  So yeah, for. Sure, man.
• 1:28:06
  Yeah, I was dealt with that. I don't know if you want to add
• 1:28:08
  on to that. We've, I mean, other than other
• 1:28:11
  than kind of my final thoughts on the the album's reception, I
• 1:28:18
  think the way that it was laid out as far as like promotions,
• 1:28:22
  the album release, then the documentary with the Netflix
• 1:28:26
  special into all of the interviews of the millions of
• 1:28:30
  things that they've done. I find it funny that one of the
• 1:28:34
  sentiments I think around the way things are released is like,
• 1:28:37
  oh, well, the doctor documentary should have came out first.
• 1:28:40
  And like, no, it shouldn't have. And other than the fact that
• 1:28:42
  we've been dumb because then we would gotten spoiled because
• 1:28:45
  there's clearly so many spoilers and in the documentary.
• 1:28:48
  But even if they edited that out, you don't, you should not
• 1:28:52
  need contact of something or then it to resonate with you.
• 1:28:57
  If it doesn't resonate with you, it just doesn't resonate with
• 1:28:59
  you. And that's OK.
• 1:29:00
  Like everything doesn't have to be curated for you specifically.
• 1:29:04
  This ain't about you specifically.
• 1:29:06
  This album wasn't about you the person.
• 1:29:09
  It was us, the collective. It was them and their story and
• 1:29:13
  how that ties into them today. We single, we we, we censor
• 1:29:17
  ourselves a lot. I think the individual fan, the
• 1:29:20
  ones who have such, again, I'm not saying that this album
• 1:29:23
  doesn't have valid criticism. I think there are some things
• 1:29:25
  that, you know, I can understand and respect that certain things
• 1:29:29
  and we'll talk about it later. What I can't respect is you need
• 1:29:34
  somebody to hold your hand and basically spoon feed you to
• 1:29:39
  understand things and not take the time and let something
• 1:29:42
  marinate. I can't think of us an album
• 1:29:45
  that I loved immediately on 1st listen, no album that I've ever
• 1:29:49
  listened to. And I'm a huge music person.
• 1:29:52
  I can't think of an album And I was like, this is an instant
• 1:29:53
  classic. And I have I have a lot of
• 1:29:56
  instinct. I have a lot of classics now on
• 1:29:57
  my in my, you know, repertoire of, you know, what I would
• 1:30:00
  consider a classic album or classic body work.
• 1:30:03
  But did I like it at first? Probably not right off RIP
• 1:30:06
  because you have to let things and I we talked about this in
• 1:30:09
  discord. I told this chord, you know, the
• 1:30:12
  way that I listen to music is the same for every album.
• 1:30:15
  I listen to it a minimum of three times and I listen to it
• 1:30:19
  in different media once, like with regular like headphones or,
• 1:30:22
  you know, something that you know, or just from the speaker
• 1:30:24
  from the phone. Like I was at home when this
• 1:30:26
  dropped. And so I just put my in ears in
• 1:30:29
  or my, in my ears, my, my ear floods in and let's do it that
• 1:30:33
  way. And that way wasn't as good as
• 1:30:39
  it was when I put it in the speakers of my car.
• 1:30:42
  Totally different experience. And then was able to put it
• 1:30:45
  through the speakers in my TV. Samsung sponsor us being able to
• 1:30:52
  listen to it. And then we go because we're
• 1:30:53
  going to the Vegas show. I'm doing a, you know, ghetto
• 1:30:58
  listening party because we're going to go to karaoke spot and
• 1:31:02
  listen to it that way because and again, then getting it in
• 1:31:06
  the concert. Every experience and every way
• 1:31:08
  that you listen to a project, it changes.
• 1:31:11
  There are things that you'll notice that you didn't notice
• 1:31:13
  with just listening to it from your phone and you'll listen to
• 1:31:15
  it one time through your phone and like so you can give it that
• 1:31:17
  listen so you can make that video.
• 1:31:20
  But if you don't take the time to let something marinate,
• 1:31:22
  regardless if you like the group or not, I think that you're
• 1:31:25
  doing yourself a disservice by just writing it off.
• 1:31:28
  It's like, oh, this is just trash because I listened to it
• 1:31:30
  one time on my shit ass iPhone that the speaker wasn't made to
• 1:31:34
  capture the things that were clearly just very detailed in
• 1:31:39
  this in this album, which we'll jump into later on.
• 1:31:41
  And again, I don't think any album is above critique.
• 1:31:44
  I don't think that like the rollout was above critique.
• 1:31:47
  I don't think that certain choices that were made were
• 1:31:49
  above critique. But some of the things that I've
• 1:31:52
  seen and obviously now we're a little further ahead in in the
• 1:31:56
  in the future of this release. It's just lazy.
• 1:32:01
  It's lazy. It's it's in genuine, as in it's
• 1:32:05
  kind of disappointing that, you know, people don't really give a
• 1:32:08
  fuck to listen to like full bodies of music anymore.
• 1:32:12
  And that's like that's not just BTS, that's across the board.
• 1:32:15
  Like a lot of my favorite artists talk about this a lot
• 1:32:17
  like people don't want to listen to full bodies of work.
• 1:32:19
  Listen to something front to back.
• 1:32:21
  There's not a moment that I listen to this album that I'm
• 1:32:23
  jumping around. Even now I'm almost a month
• 1:32:26
  later, I'm still when I put this on, I started body, body, body
• 1:32:30
  and I end with into the Sun and I even listen to the bell
• 1:32:34
  because you've got to. Listen to the bell.
• 1:32:35
  You have to listen to the bell, you need that cleanser, you need
• 1:32:38
  those hurts to get in there and like align your chakras or some
• 1:32:41
  shit they are moving into, you know, like obviously going to be
• 1:32:44
  talking about the album. I think if you made it this far
• 1:32:47
  into this almost 2 hour part of the podcast, everything's not
• 1:32:51
  going to be for you and everything's not curated for you
• 1:32:54
  specifically. So take yourself out of it.
• 1:32:58
  Put yourself in the shoes of the people who make these things and
• 1:33:01
  also just give things more of a chance than you would just
• 1:33:06
  unless you just absolutely hate it because you just don't like
• 1:33:08
  BTS. I'm not even talking to you.
• 1:33:11
  Anybody who uses these, you know, this isn't the old BTS.
• 1:33:13
  This is riddled. I would argue this is the most
• 1:33:15
  authentic BTS album that we've gotten in a long time.
• 1:33:18
  Yeah. And I'll, I'll stand on that.
• 1:33:20
  And you know, I've, I've had people tell me you must listen
• 1:33:22
  to BTS. I've listened to every BTS song
• 1:33:24
  that's available. And even the stuff that isn't,
• 1:33:27
  you know, I'm saying the stuff that is in the way I've, I've,
• 1:33:29
  I've gone through the sound clouds and the, and the Youtubes
• 1:33:33
  that have the old songs that came from mixtapes.
• 1:33:35
  I've, I've went, I've done my talk.
• 1:33:37
  And I would still say that this is one of the more authentic
• 1:33:41
  album because it's not placating to a theme.
• 1:33:45
  It's not making things easy for you to be able to understand,
• 1:33:50
  even though it should be because it's in English, most of it.
• 1:33:54
  So, yeah, I mean, they're going to grow.
• 1:33:58
  You got to either grow with them or you're going to be very
• 1:34:00
  uncomfortable. And you're, you know, using a
• 1:34:03
  metaphor when it's time to, you know, depot plant, you keep it
• 1:34:08
  in there, it's going to get real cramped and the roots are going
• 1:34:09
  to grow outside of end of your plant.
• 1:34:11
  It's probably going to suffer. But you know, you have to, you
• 1:34:14
  have to move with, you have to move with the pot.
• 1:34:16
  You have to take the pot and move from the small pot to the
• 1:34:18
  bigger pot and you don't move with it.
• 1:34:20
  You're going to be uncomfortable and cramp, cramp and unhappy.
• 1:34:24
  Everything's always going to be wrong and nothing's going to be
• 1:34:25
  the way you want it to be. Oh, what a man.
• 1:34:29
  That's all I can say. Honestly, I don't have any more
• 1:34:32
  to put into that. So I think Shay pretty much
• 1:34:34
  ended it that where that well on the same sentiment that I feel.
• 1:34:40
  So yeah, yeah, we're just going to out of the whole thing, just
• 1:34:46
  brand do better fans. If you don't like it, just don't
• 1:34:50
  listen to it. You don't have to hold on to
• 1:34:53
  something you don't like anymore because it starts becoming like
• 1:34:56
  a visual hatred and you're just going to make yourself
• 1:34:59
  miserable. It's OK to let things that don't
• 1:35:02
  serve you anymore go. And yes, you will go through a
• 1:35:05
  grieving process. I'm not saying that's going to
• 1:35:08
  be easy, but like at the end of the day, if you do want to make
• 1:35:11
  it about you would like, not BTS, you just you got to do
• 1:35:15
  what's best for you. So if it's letting them go, it's
• 1:35:18
  OK to let them go, grieve, and then just move on to things
• 1:35:23
  that's going to satisfy you and the way you want things to be
• 1:35:26
  handled. Amen, Amen, Amen.
• 1:35:28
  And a lady. Yeah.
• 1:35:31
  So yes, thank you, Shay, for joining me talking about these
• 1:35:34
  controversies. I know it's been a lot,
• 1:35:37
  especially since we've talked about them.
• 1:35:39
  Literally at this point to death beat this.
• 1:35:42
  Bitch to the ground. I just wanted to make sure we
• 1:35:45
  get it out there because I feel like it'd be a disservice for
• 1:35:47
  myself as well and just this podcast, because like you stated
• 1:35:51
  way at the beginning, we got to talk about the uncomfortable
• 1:35:54
  stuff. That doesn't mean I love BTS any
• 1:35:56
  less. I didn't blame BTS for any of
• 1:35:57
  this. They didn't do anything
• 1:35:59
  themselves to like bring this on.
• 1:36:01
  But like, you know, someone's got to talk about it and
• 1:36:05
  hopefully it reaches the right place, hopefully in their
• 1:36:07
  conquest or their journey of breaking out into the West more
• 1:36:13
  we get, you know, it says diversity, like hire the word at
• 1:36:18
  this point, I don't know. Just put somebody black and
• 1:36:21
  Hive, OK, Just put somebody from the projects in Hive to make
• 1:36:24
  sure not not the projects, but you know what I mean, Put
• 1:36:27
  somebody. Put someone with the degree with
• 1:36:30
  cultural sensitivity. There, yes, and a woman,
• 1:36:35
  specifically a black woman, put a black woman in hive today.
• 1:36:37
  Thank. You yes, So we'll go ahead and
• 1:36:41
  end it there so we can go ahead and talk about the album, but
• 1:36:44
  thank you for listening to this as part of the extravaganza.
• 1:36:47
  You can e-mail us at iwasthinkingpod@gmail.com.
• 1:36:51
  You can also comment. I know and like Spotify on this
• 1:36:54
  episode, specifically on anything like your thoughts on
• 1:36:57
  what we just talked about. You can follow us on all social
• 1:37:01
  media on I was thinking Pod and we'd really appreciate if you
• 1:37:05
  rate US the highest ratings or whatever platform you're
• 1:37:07
  listening. So I have been your host Simone
• 1:37:09
  and it's been my lovely guest Shay, who will come back to talk
• 1:37:12
  about the album and we will see you then.
• 1:37:15
  Thanks guys. Bye, bye.