[BTS] What Should Beginners Study? [ARMY]

What I Learned in the BTS Rabbit Hole

The 'Summer Continuous Posting Challenge' is happening on note, and although I jumped in lightly, I was so busy watching Bangtan, watching Bangtan, and watching Bangtan that before I knew it, the deadline was right in front of me lol.
Oh, and for those who came here from the prompt project, just to clarify, Bangtan is the abbreviated Korean reading of Bangtan Sonyeondan, and refers to the global idol group BTS.

The prompt I chose this time is: '#StudyRecord'!

I wondered if there was anything I'd learned recently, but when I thought about it again, this note itself was my BTS study record.
The process of how an ARMY who fell down the rabbit hole is trying to chew up and understand the massive content that is BTS is all here. That's a bold claim.
So, let's look back on that this time!

Though, since this ARMY tends to run off into the wilderness, it might not be very generalizable...

The Path to Becoming an ARMY

The 'Like' Factory and Basic Terminology

If you've just become an ARMY and don't know your left from your right, please start here.

Honestly, in the beginning, your time just melts away from the task of liking everything that flows through your social media feed.The Human 'Like' Factory Phase is what I would call it.
The scary thing is that this phase shows no signs of ending and continues in parallel with other phases. Fighting!

Now, having overcome the prologue and with sleep deprivation becoming a chronic condition, let's move on to what a fledgling ARMY should study next.
By the way, I'll assume you've already learned the members' names, characters, and K-pop terminology while watching videos in the early stages.

Music Content

BTS has been consistently releasing music since 2013, and even excluding solos, collaborations, and covers, they have released over 100 songs.
First, it's best to start studying with their album tracks and music videos!

I've made a list of all their songs, but it's chaotic just having song titles in Japanese, English, and Korean, and on top of that, albums were released separately in Japan and Korea, and there were also:
'Japanese versions where the lyrics were replaced with Japanese'
'Japanese songs that were sung in Japanese and released in Japan'
which was quite confusing at first lol.

Oh, and the fact that the types of albums are different from Japan is also a cause for confusion. I was like, 'What's a mini-album? Which one is a full album?'...

It's fun to shuffle your playlist and play 'Solo Intro-Don Quiz'! Wait, am I actually doing that? Yeah.

Once you've gone through those, there are solos, covers, and mixtapes (free distribution songs), so head over to YouTube or SoundCloud 💜

Video Content

There is so much of it that grasping the big picture is super difficult, but this is homework that must be tackled.
For now, you have to cover the official Facebook and YouTube, as well as Weverse. Once that's done, let's move on to organizing the discography information...

Honestly, if an all-fan tries to cover all BTS content, the highlights are 7 times + alpha (you need episodes to enjoy the chemistry and the group as a whole), so I think this is a lifelong job lol

How to use various tools

Learning how to use various social media, especially notification control, is essential. Otherwise, you'll get overwhelmed by too many notifications. It's a hassle, so I recommend creating a dedicated account for monitoring BTS.
By the way, the only accounts my Instagram follows are the official BTS account, the members, Sayaka Yamamoto, and the Kano Sisters. Why, though?

You'll end up creating a ton of accounts and probably spending money too, so learning how to manage all that is also essential.

By the way, if you have an old smartphone, I recommend upgrading at the right time. It depends on whether you use a smartphone, tablet, or PC as your main device, but everyone probably uses a smartphone.
The more storage, the better. Everyone goes through the phase of 'I kept downloading photos I liked, so now I have the same photos lined up in my camera roll, and I could probably play a game of Concentration with them.'

Streaming and Voting

Streaming to boost BTS's music charts is the foundation of fan activities. Let's listen every day (*´艸｀)
Especially after a new song is released, the liking, reposting, commenting, streaming, and MV streaming marathon begins. Baby everyone, fighting!

When I first fell down the rabbit hole, I saw a tweet that said,
'Please use this playlist when you go out 💜'
and I thought, 'Wow, they're enjoying incorporating fan activities into their daily life,' but thinking about it later,
'Please use your home devices to rack up play counts even while you're out 💜'
was what it meant. When I realized that, I was like, oh... ( ﾟДﾟ)

Voting is diverse, and there is no end in sight. It's a very deep part of fan activities, and once you start, the number of apps you have will skyrocket. Since it requires organized activity, it seems there are Vote Teams and the like working in coordination.

There are various voting patterns, such as 'you can vote a specific number of times a day' or 'you can save up voting rights by watching commercials and pour them in at any time.'
Finding a voting account on X and tracing back from their posts might be the fastest way to see where and what kind of voting is happening.

There was also a detailed explanatory article on note, so I'll post it here!

If you try to do too much at once, you'll lose track, so please start at your own pace.

Military Service

Male K-pop idols go to military service, so there is a gap in their activity period. This is called the 'military hiatus.' I think it's good to have at least the minimum amount of information.

As a personal impression, it boils down to 'the wall of the military is lower than I thought.'
I know what they eat every day, and leaked information and videos from superiors, colleagues, and their families are everywhere. Honestly, I feel like I know more about their daily lives than during their solo activity period.
Is this level of information leakage okay, South Korean military? Are you testing your information management skills with BTS? Or does the whole country just love BTS that much?

Korean Language

This is the biggest learning content!
For now, you need an environment where you can translate Korean, so let's start by getting Papago and a Korean input keyboard.

There is content on Weverse called "Learn! Korean with BTS," and some of it can be viewed for free. It's actually quite fun, as it uses quotes from the members as subject matter lol
Related books have also been released, so if you're interested, you might want to start from there.

You can jump to articles tagged with "Learn! Korean" from the link below.

If you watch videos to death, the members' habits will be imprinted on you, and you'll gradually start sounding like a Korean version of Lou Oshiba. Be careful.
"Jeongmal," "Jinjja," "Neomu neomu," "Choego," and "Giyowo" appear especially often.

Others

It's not common at all, but since I got hooked on BTS, I also learned the following.
For those who mainly use PC browsers, I recommend strengthening your automatic translation environment with extensions, as it makes reading articles and posts easier.

You could say that my computer hobby has worsened because of BTS, but well, that's that.
I've reached this point by adding the technologies I originally used often, such as APIs for data acquisition and PowerQuery for managing and analyzing the acquired data.

Recently, I couldn't suppress the sense of discomfort, so I moved my AI-focused articles to a dedicated magazine, but I still don't feel like it's going well (distant look).

It's heading in a different direction than the fan site I originally imagined. Why is that? Am I adding too many things I like to BTS?

The path of learning continues.

So, that was my "#StudyRecord" entry.
I'm still a rookie ARMY and have only just begun to vaguely understand the vastness of the BTS ocean, so my learning will continue.
If you'd like, I hope you'll continue to watch over my growth through note. Since I have a nature that can't walk the straight and narrow, I'll probably keep straying onto side paths, but I look forward to your continued support (*ﾉωﾉ)

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