Hate Campaigns Against BTS and What We Can Do About Them

photo credit: Shamia Casiano via Pexels

(Note: I was going to post this tomorrow morning because Monday is the day I decided to post new posts. Given the current situation with Tae now being targeted by fake activists and them dragging Namjoon into it through his IG I am so mad I figured I would add to this and post today. We have to band together as ARMY and fight for our artists.)

  Some of the most evil, disgusting, malicious lies I have ever seen anyone tell about another human being came from antis on Twitter and were directed towards BTS. Before I got into BTS which drew me into the K-pop world, I never knew that people sat around behind the computer and just made up lies about singers. Gossip rags, sure, but I didn't think regular people did things like that. Gossip writers do it to sell magazines and it's trash so people know not to take it seriously. I knew that this kind of thing existed in politics but the extent of fan wars in K-pop has got to be next level garbage.  

     In July 2015, BTS faced death threats online from antis during their Episode II: Red Bullet tour stop in New York. They performed for about two hours and the show was cancelled after staff noticed death threats on social media being made against RM. One of the tweets was a hand holding a gun with the caption saying something like they were on their way and RIP RM. There was a fan meet scheduled that was also cancelled. It's one thing to say you don't like a group's music or you don't like their style but threatening to murder someone is on a whole other level of crazy. It takes a special kind of psycho to do some of these things.

         A year later they faced the Break Wings project. This coordinated hate campaign was started by several other fandoms when BTS's album "Wings" was released in 2016.  I'm not naming fandoms here because I don't want to get into fan wars but if you follow the links or look into it on your own there's plenty of information on who was involved. This was the big incident where they were accused of inflating sales of their albums. This subject was revisited once again this year as a part of the whole Min Hee-Jin fiasco. They were investigated for sajaegi (boosting chart rankings through illegal means using artificially inflated album sales) twice and were cleared of any wrongdoing both times. Here is a link to a Pinterest account that kept receipts from that time including group chat conversations and tweet screenshots. These fans basically got jealous that their groups were being outdone by BTS who were only three years old at the time and escalated their jealous lies into a sajaegi investigation. 

     Break Wings failed miserably but it still left a mark on BTS and the fandom emotionally. I feel like finding out about this and other hate trains against them and how they have come through it strong and with integrity intact makes me love and respect them more. This is also why some ARMY don't feel the need to befriend other fandoms and that's perfectly fine because nothing says we have to be friends. We owe these other fandoms nothing. What I do feel though is that I will be civil and not engage in fan wars.  

      The malice aimed at RM (Kim Namjoon), the leader of BTS, has seemed to increase off and on whenever a member of BTS (whether it is him or not) releases an album or single. Jimin is the member with the latest release and last week I was hearing about a hate campaign antis started against Namjoon on Twitter. It reminded me of the cancel campaign that a certain fandom of a girl group started against Namjoon over a Frank Ocean song. They tried to paint him as Islamophobic because he shared the song (which is in no way anti-Muslim and neither is Namjoon). When it was pointed out that the group they stan also liked the 12 year old song, shared the same song on social media, and had even attended a Frank Ocean concert they ignored it. A Frank Ocean fan page came into the picture to drop the truth complete with notes on the interpretation of the song. A couple of TikTokers joined in and added their lies to the fire saying Namjoon wrote the song (he did not) and trying to connect him to unrelated social issues going on between religions in South Korea at the time. The next time Namjoon went live the comment section was full of harassing comments asking him to apologize to Muslim ARMYs for sharing the song. He said he wasn't apologizing as he had done nothing wrong. I was so proud of him at that moment for standing his ground because people like being loud and wrong and acting self-righteous when they jump on these hate trains. They were wrong and were explained in detail why they were wrong and they decided to be willfully ignorant because hate and anger to these kinds of people (antis) is a way for them to project their personal issues onto others. 

     BTS have faced so much malice and hate from the beginning and it continues. Not getting into politics but all those fake performative activism campaigns people have been spamming on Weverse began as hate campaigns from other fandoms too. These never were genuine calls to help and if they were, they would never have been all over our space for BTS. They would use larger platforms and do things like set up fundraisers for donations or start letter writing campaigns to political leaders and not spam our fan letters pages trying to make idols say something publicly that they want them to say. They are using politics and religion to distract us from voting, streaming, and buying merchandise (particularly streaming). Before you engage  any activity that is aimed at hurting the boys, ask yourself what the motivation is. I have seen the tweets and group chats planning this too and they have long since been copied and sent to Hybe. Here is an article that explains why all of this performative activism aimed at forcing celebrities to talk is useless. This says it better than I ever could. Thanks to the ARMY who sent me this article.

     As I am editing this now, there is a hate train going against Taehyung on Weverse. Tae posted some old photos of him on vacation and in one of the pictures he is holding a McDonald's french fry package that is used in children's Happy Meals. The comparison to how large his hand is and how small the package is is so cute. Of course our usual suspects the ever annoying pain in the ass performative activists have made their way back to Weverse to protest Tae and his McDonald's package that's from 2022! So I guess they are going to go back and attack every single post of anyone that shares MCD or Starbucks from the dawn of time. Be serious. This is all so out of hand. ARMY's are on it reporting to Hybe BigHit but these people are so absurd. They come in with these gas lighting comments that abusers use against their victims saying "we love you but..." and "I support you but..." --no one cares! Weverse is not the place for their fake activism and our guys do not deserve this. 

   When I found out what happened to Tablo of Epik High (a close friend of BTS who collabs on "All Day" with RM and was in an episode of Suchwita with Yoongi), it made me really sad and angry, but I have so much respect for him and how he persevered through having netizens try to destroy him. Someone started the whole hate campaign against him in a chat room all because they were jealous of him going to an Ivy League school and getting two degrees. Jealousy over a brilliant rapper who is a genius who tells it like it is but at the same time is a kind sweet guy just living his life. Sounds like someone else we know and love (Namjoon).  

     So who are these people and why to they do some of the evil things they do? We use the terms "antis" and "sasaengs" to describe haters. They come from every walk of life just like proper fans do. They often "token stan" a group or artist to hide their hate behind liking another artist. Say a hater decides they don't like "A" and want to make hating on "A" their whole personality. Instead of hating on "A" outright they decide to stan "B" so they just look like a passionate fan. They may not even pay attention to "B"'s music or content. They just pretend to stan them so they can justify their hate towards "A" and find others who will agree with them because as they say, misery loves company. 

      BTS was not with a company that was one of the Big 3 at the time they debuted (top 3 rich successful Kpop agencies/labels) and Big Hit was close to bankruptcy. They pulled themselves out of that through hard work and dedication. The main groups that were big 3 that had been on top at the time took offense to that. 

I say groups here because some of these groups actively participated in the accusations hurled at BTS. They were treated by their seniors (older artists in the same field) like the younger step siblings that were never supposed to have nice things and when they earned those things (strong organic sales, loving dedicated fans, national and international recognition) the ones used to getting praised got jealous of the new kids and their fandoms ganged up to attack. 

     What confuses me and always will about the whole thing is that coming from nowhere and working hard to be successful and succeeding is supposed to be ideal. From what I know of Korean culture, how Koreans fought to reclaim their land after the Japanese occupation, and how the economy was able to boom in a short time to become a force on the world stage, BTS's success should be seen as a thing of pride and basically how people should be living. Hard work and dedication and a love of what you do for a living. It baffles me that there have been tons of netizens and media ready to take them down for doing what every one tells their kids to do - work hard and you can achieve your dreams. I guess ultimately it boils down to jealousy and the people who are not where they want to be just decide to use their frustration at their own failures or perceived failures as a reason to dump their negativity onto other people. Celebrities become a target because no one expects them to fight back. If they do, especially in Kpop culture, they may be seen as rude or disrespectful to fans.

     There is a K-drama on Netflix called "Celebrity" and in it there is a group of women who are rich influencers competing with each other for social media dominance. There is an outside person pulling the strings and controlling who gets to be on top of the social circle of these women. The last few episodes really made me think about Kpop fan wars and how you never really know who is behind the keyboard. The lifestyle and psychological profile of the anonymous person seems dead on what I think antis are like in real life. 

     It's hard not to jump in and argue back with haters and defend BTS openly when they receive hate. All that does though is give the trolls what they want and that's an audience and engagement. Some "shooters" (people who fight trolls back on the internet on the behalf of their fandom) will say that they are just "returning the same energy." I used to agree with that though I never used to participate. What I noticed is that it's useless. They don't want to learn from their mistakes so calmly correcting them does nothing and as the saying from Lemony Snicket goes, " If everyone fought fire with fire, the whole world would go up in smoke." I've seen antis take a small comment back to them and escalate that to death threats and threatening to expose user information. It's not worth all of that drama in my opinion. I would much rather see these people get sued by Big Hit/ Hybe and have their accounts suspended or banned permanently from the platforms they spread hate on.

     Whenever you see malicious comments, photos, plans to attack or disrupt Weverse or any space frequented by BTS and ARMY you can report these things to Big Hit/ Hybe's legal team and they will review it and seek legal action. They update us periodically about cases in the works and cases that are finished. This is why you will see ARMY getting excited about certain "This is Big Hit" notifications and talking about karma being an ARMY along with those announcements. People think that free speech means saying what you want to without consequences and that's wrong. You can certainly say whatever you want but you are never exempt from the consequences whatever they may be.

     Here's how I send Big Hit reports:

1. Take screenshots of all the evidence that antis are talking negatively about BTS (don't bother with small scale stuff like "flopping" and "they suck" because that's not what we mean). Anything threatening their sales or streams (boycotts), threats against their lives or families lives, saying they inflate sales illegally, any accusations of criminal activity, allegations of plagiarism, and anything else that defames their character including political posts harrassing them to speak on this or that. It's still harrassment 
2. Keep a list of links for every screenshot you have. These antis like to run their mouths then go private or lock their accounts, some even temporarily deactivate to try to avoid the consequences. This is why we get screenshots first for proof then links because links may disappear later.
3. Keep it off of the timeline. Posting on your page to rant about it or share to others to block the person or report only spreads it. Unfortunately this is how things work. You'll get people commenting under your post asking what happened. Keep the conversation to DMs or group chats only. Being curious is natural but giving in and talking about it in your comments makes others aware of it and is one other post about to added to the lot. 
4.  Send info to Hybe/Big Hit via this new portal to report info Hybe Reporting Portal (updated 09/2024) Fill out the form as much as you can. In Chrome browser you can easily automatically translate the page to English or other languages. 

     I think there will always be antis because there will always be a jealous hater somewhere. The more successful and the nicer you are the more they seem to pop up. The way we handle them by collecting info to send to Big Hit, reporting, and blocking rather than engaging with them is better than wasting time arguing with some brainless troll on the internet. We get the satisfaction eventually of the Big Hit legal emails reassuring us that they are taking legal action against these offenders. Maybe one day they will learn if they can't be nice to say nothing at all.