Beware of Fake ARMY Influencers

      There has been a lot of drama on the Threads timeline lately with regard to a certain ARMY "influencer."  As BTS gets closer to their military discharge dates we will see more and more people try to use them for financial gain. In order to keep our space more peaceful and be able to keep it a safe space to fangirl and fanboy in, we need to make sure ARMY is aware of the kinds of people who bait post and try to leech off of our attention for their benefit, which more often than not, is financial gain. We need to push these people out of our spaces and let them know that they can't get away with using us or BTS to grift or make money through shady means off of us and our fandom. 

     BTS ARMY is the biggest fandom worldwide with over approximately 90 million members. BTS is the biggest global group in the world. Concert tickets sell out in minutes as does their merch. They are known as the "Sold Out Kings" because if they endorse an item or product or simply mention using it, it will more than likely sell out quickly. Jungkook mentioned he uses Downy fabric softener once and it sold out across all of South Korea. Downy had to let consumers know it would be a while before it returned to store shelves. The entire brand had a nationwide shortage. Then there was the time Jungkook showed us his kombucha he liked drinking during a livestream and he came back on live stream later on and said it sold out and he couldn't find it anymore because ARMYs bought it out. His little frown was so cute and it was funny but that's evidence of ARMY power. There are so many many other instances of this happening. Companies watch this happen and study the marketability of BTS and the members and how ARMY responds and spends as consumers. Influencers and content creators watch this too and it's not always a good thing.

     I don't watch YouTube or TikTok reactors who show their reactions to BTS videos (with the exception of Jose Ochoa because he's been ARMY for a while so he's real). There are patterns to how some of them operate and it's all to clout chase off of ARMY attention. First they post that they are going to check out BTS for whatever reason. It may start with, "I'm watching BTS videos for the first time because my girlfriend told me to." Then they pretend to get into BTS and "react" to videos giving commentary throughout. It never fails but there will be other fandoms in the comment section saying things like, "if you like BTS you should check out (insert kpop group here) because they're actually better," and the reactor usually likes the comment and takes note. Well meaning ARMY passes the word and shares the reactor's video and recommends other songs and videos from BTS for them to check out. Lots of ARMY will then follow them and they become monetized (able to make money from their videos) and they collect followers that are ARMY from doing BTS related content. These ARMY follow them because they posted BTS and they seem positive, harmless. This is where it gets sketchy. 

     Once these reactors (not all but some do this) get a ton of ARMY following them and they get likes and comments recommending other songs for them to check out they will usually make other videos reacting to BTS songs. Then they move on and they will take recommendations from the comment section. They suddenly need to go through all of the popular groups in kpop and they will start saying negative things about BTS in the process. They make their money off of the engagement whether negative or positive and they move on. There was a guy back when I was on Twitter that everyone hyped up as this amazing reactor who was so cool and he was really enjoying getting into BTS (newsflash they all are) and come to find out he was a raging misogynist who was following incels on his Facebook account. An ARMY called him out on it and he was rude to her and others when they explained that this doesn't align with ARMY or BTS values and all. He didn't care. He just wanted the paycheck he got from his BTS reaction videos. He used that attention to monetize and grow his account and continued to argue when called out on why he would have a fandom of mostly women follow him when he had incel material on his Facebook. This is the kind of grifter we definitely don't need in our space and whose content we don't need to be consuming and making him money.

     There are other influencer types who use ARMY and BTS attention to make money off of us who aren't as easy to spot and ARMY needs to be aware of them too. One is Stefne Miller from Army529project or  Stefap529 on Threads and TikTok. I followed her a while ago but I just didn't really watch her videos much. I think I followed her because she made a video talking about the anniversary of an 80's group that we both grew up listening to and I related to that as an older ARMY and the nostalgia. I paid attention to some of the trivia posted on the Army529project side but mostly ignored her when she talked directly to the camera. Then she made the video that got everyone's attention recently where she made negative comments about RM. 

     ARMYs know that we don't say anything bad to put the guys down. We know the struggles that they have gone through in the past and when you know the history, you come to understand they are human beings like us who work hard for their dreams and goals. Insulting them is unacceptable unless one of them does something terrible and luckily for us that hasn't been the way our guys operate. They are genuinely good people. Not liking songs is OK but why broadcast that? Not everyone wants nor cares for your opinion. The song you hate could have literally saved someone's life. Not liking the leader of the group, a group that would not exist if Bang Shi-hyuk didn't get inspired to start a rap group from seeing RM, is just anti behavior. I don't know why it seems like some people in this new wave of ARMY don't understand that you don't get to call yourself ARMY if you don't like or show proper respect to all 7 members. You can call yourself a casual fan and be done with it. I'm a casual fan of a few other Kpop groups. There's nothing wrong with being a casual fan. 

      Stef made a video where she said that she has never gotten to know RM and she said in the beginning before she even got into the story of the video that she knows that she will attract "haters" from the comments that are coming yet she chose to continue with the video. I won't link it because I don't want to give her more engagement which means money for her so I will summarize. She mentioned that she is enlistment ARMY and that fact alone surprised me because I thought she had been ARMY as long as or longer than I was (I'm 2018 ARMY). She then said, "Here's where the controversial part comes in. No judgement." Now that was giving, "not to be rude but..." energy and I hate it when people do that because you know something rude is coming. She already knew she was going to say something that a lot of people were not going to like so she was rage baiting at that point and she was also asking not to be judged. We knew at that point that whatever she was going to say was going to be negative and we knew it's was going to be about RM because the big title on the top of the video in bold lettering was "MY TRUTH ABOUT RM." 

     After she set the stage by asking not to be judged and saying that ARMY was going to come for her, she proceeded to tell the story she wanted to tell. She said that she never got into RM out of all of the members of BTS (the leader of the whole group whom we know faces the most scrutiny). RM is the one she never bothered to get to know till now. She didn't bother to pay attention to him because his tears and general vibe during the Festa dinner in 2022 made her feel "unsafe." For a writer she's not that articulate in this video at expressing herself. What do you mean you felt "unsafe" because the leader of BTS was crying in a video where they all were all expressing to their massive fandom of dedicated ARMY that they were taking a break? Some of these fans had followed them for nearly a decade and the members were concerned if ARMY would be there when BTS returned. This break ended up being because they were required to join the South Korean military as all able bodied men in SK are required to do. They didn't know if their fans would stay and a two year break in an industry like Kpop that moves like a revolving door with often fickle fans would be a terrifying thing for them. But she didn't bother to do an ounce of research and had just become ARMY or so called "ARMY" so she wouldn't have known how terrifying that would be for them. There is no excuse for that but let's move on. 

     One of the main ARMY rules about how we respect BTS is that we don't compare them to each other in negative ways or pit them against each other because they are seven individuals with different styles and vibes and real ARMY OT7s stick to that. We love them all for their differences as well as their similarities. We don't use their emotional moments and post them on the internet to make fun of them or to keep plastering them crying or showing their sadness to use it against them. I feel like a lot of those values have been lost over this enlistment break as new people have come into the fandom. We acknowledge their humanness and don't act like they aren't able to show vulnerabilities so when they do, we don't go after them for it like it's cringe or negative. In a world where men are told "boys don't cry" and " man up" we as ARMY love that BTS expresses their emotions and cries if they feel like crying. Men in general should be able to cry if they feel like it. That's for a whole other post though, I digress. Every member was upset at that dinner at some point or another. Why you would use that as a gauge of how one of the members is all the time is beyond me. It was one emotional moment in time. Anything you want to know about BTS's history is on YouTube or their official social media channels on IG or Twitter. Any seasoned ARMY would be able to find links or give newer ARMY info or point you in the direction of someone who would be able to answer questions. We will gladly help out. They put out a book that is in their own words called "Beyond The Story: A 10 Year Record of BTS" by BTS and Myeongseok Kang. Stef could've read that and gotten more insight into RM. 

     She said she emotionally "detached" herself from RM because of that one dinner. She could have gone back and watched any of his ending 'ments (what ending speeches are called) from any concerts and seen how warm and loving he is and how much he loves ARMY and the members. Seeing him cry in a 'ment where he says he loves ARMY hits different and she didn't even bother. She says she "didn't feel safe" and that smacks of just general weirdness because, sure she's going through some stuff with her mother's health but unfortunately so are a lot of us. Our parents are ageing. My father is in late stage kidney failure and has a heart condition and dementia. I would never expect an idol to be my total comfort in that area to the point of blaming them for not being there enough for me. This is what she's doing to RM. Putting the weight of her problems on his shoulders and not wanting to look at someone else hurting because she was. Somehow the other 6 were there for her till Jin left. She's married and has other family members. If RM is singled out as not being there for her it's time for her to disconnect from all 7 and go seek comfort in real life people she knows. 

     She mentioned being intimidated by him because he's smart. Another weird statement of hers that doesn't sit right with me or make any sense. Projecting her insecurities on him yet she is college educated supposedly. Her IMDB credentials show that she has worked on Hollywood movies so why is she so intimidated by RM given her supposed success? Something isn't right there and it's seeming like she is faking this whole vulnerable, pitiful, insecure thing to get attention and use ARMY but I will get back to that. At the end of the video she said that she knows "ARMY will cut a bitch" and "don't come after me" is repeated twice. Now if that isn't setting the stage for what happens next I don't know what is.

     Within 2 days she released a second video that one would think would have been an apology but it was just her doubling down on what she said and painting ARMY as villains. She stood by what she said in the first video. She crapped on the vulnerability of the leader of BTS and came back and the first thing she did was not issue an apology for anyone she offended including an apology to RM for misunderstanding him but she mentioned that the video went viral with over 200k views on TikTok. She talked about how people were age shaming her which I agree is wrong, but then she immediately plugged her book. She mentioned that she should make this backlash from ARMY a whole new chapter because the book is her story and it's about how she loves ARMY. She wants to add this chapter as it has to do with ageism. Give me all the breaks because she orchestrated this whole thing to draw attention to the book. The comments calling her a hag were rude and unnecessary I agree, but now she's using that as another angle and younger ARMY who called her that should be ashamed of themselves because they had plenty of other arguments to use against her but age is not one of them. Age shaming in this case is an ignorant thing to do because ageism is not accepted in this fandom. A lot of us are over 30 or 40 and you will get old too if you're lucky enough to live that long so don't ever do that to people please. It's not as cute as you all think it is when you do it and I see you. It also reduces your argument to shallow things like looks and deflects from the real issue at hand.

     She got condescending and said that people didn't know what she meant when she said that she "detached" from RM. She pulled up a ChatGPT definition of it and that was so cringe to me as a writer. She's a writer too. Why use ChatGPT when AI is often wrong?  She couldn't be bothered to pull a definition from a psychology source or at the very least Merriam-Webster's dictionary? I don't know about you but if I don't know or I want to be sure of the definition of a word the last place I would check is AI. I'm old school so I would go to dictionary.com or Merriam-Webster. People knew what it meant. The psychological aspect of  detachment is covered in Psychology Today magazine and she should have just posted a clip or definition from that.

     None of this adds up for me. Since going through all of this there is a lot to unpack about this woman and how she is using ARMY for attention. She even tags BTS members in her posts. She had the audacity to tag RM in her video saying all of that negative stuff about him. This was certainly something that was calculated and planned for attention albeit negative attention. This all happened during Tablo and RM's release of "Stop the Rain" which caused a lot of buzz due to the serious nature of the song. The lyrics are heavy and are about depression and abuse making it hard for some ARMYs to listen to. Because there was so much discourse on line about the song, she used the negative attention surrounding RM, created more drama, and directed it towards herself making herself a victim and then plugging her book. 

     She is the founder of Army529project which has meetups that charge $300 to register and it's like a travel thing for ARMY. When most people plan meetups for their fandoms, they just decide to get together and meet at a location together and they don't charge hundreds of dollars to be a part of hanging out with people in the fandom. You can just get with a few people, plan to meet in whatever city you choose as long as you can get there, and then pay nothing more than the cost your individual accommodations and food and the usual expenses. I remember seeing a former moot on Twitter going to an epic Coldplay meetup through a major Coldplayer fan base where they met at a restaurant for a few hours and Chris ended up joining them. I don't think anyone there paid any more than what their food cost and the cost of gas to get there. The video is on TikTok if you look up "Chris Martin shows up to fan meetup."

     Stef could have done the video after she had explored RM's discography and backstory. Why didn't she? If I was going to admit that I didn't bother to give the proper respect to the leader of the group I supposedly stan and make a video addressing the fandom I'm a part of, what I would have done is make it after I had done the research. In my opinion, this wouldn't have been an issue at all if she had started the video saying that she had neglected him prior but had gone back and done her research and framed it to explain what she had learned as newer ARMY rather than what she had neglected to take the time to learn in the first place. That actually would have been a positive thing to say that she had a preconceived notion about someone and then she did her research properly and changed her mind. But, come to think of it that might not have gotten her the reaction she wanted. She needed ARMY mad enough to get her those views.

     I know this is getting long but let's talk about monetization for a minute. On Instagram you need to have at least 10,000 followers to be able to monetize and anyone that understands social media knows how hard that can be to achieve and how much of a goal it is for some people to be able to make money from being chronically online. She has 9541 followers on Instagram right now as I'm writing this. I'm not sure if Threads is still doing their bonus program but you only need 1,000 followers on Threads once you have 10,000 on Instagram to be monetized on both. She's almost there and I don't think that's a coincidence. Over on TikTok she has over 20,000 followers and that first video hating on RM has over 342,000 views. With 20,000 plus followers on TikTok she's monetized over there too because you also need 10,000 there to get paid and every click on that video and every comment good or bad earned her money and that's sick. She made money off of that one and the one where she is laughing in the comment section about RM losing on Mnet. Now she's looking to target IG and Threads for the same thing along with selling her book and travel meetups all in the name of being ARMY and using BTS. 

     Did she deserve the backlash she faced? Yes. I don't agree with age shaming part at all though. I think we're the same age give or take, pretty sure we're both Gen Xers nonetheless. Her take really has nothing to do with age so she didn't deserve any of that and ARMY that I followed asked people to stop with the ageist comments. I saw my moots commenting to her trying to have a respectful conversation and getting blocked or ignored. I saw her laughing in the comment section when it was mentioned that RM lost on Mnet and using terms that tried to call ARMY a cult like "groupthink," a term used in the book "1984" where the government controlled people and expected everyone to think and feel the same way in a cult like dictatorship. That's not what this is and if she thinks ARMY is like that then she should leave. All we ask is that our fandom likes and respects all 7 members. It's not that hard. We express opinions and play "we listen and we don't judge" and don't crucify others over their opinions. The issue becomes when you put the members down and dislike them. Or when you bash ARMY as a whole and don't take notes when corrected. Why are you even in a fandom if you don't like the group you supposedly stan? To me that says you're here for clout and your own financial gain. Why would anyone stan a group of 7 and be OT6? There are very rare reasons but none apply here, ex: if a member engaged in a criminal act but wasn't removed from the group. That's certainly not the case here.

     So what do we do about these people who target ARMY for attention? We have to get them out of our spaces by blocking, reporting if applicable to the situation (reporting only things to Hybe that they could be sued for like slander or libel), and making sure other people know about them and block them as well. There are a lot of new ARMYs and we need to guide them in the right direction so they don't get their ARMY experience ruined by these people. She's made a comment about not voting, either in AMA or Mnet I'm not sure, that was along the lines that RM didn't tell us to vote so she's not going to. Well had she been ARMY long enough before she tried to be some sort of spokesperson for us with her projects she would have noticed that BTS doesn't make statements asking us to vote in these votings. The official pages usually congratulate the members on nominations but they don't come out and say "vote for us."  They don't even come out and say directly to buy their albums or merch but they do say they hope we enjoy them or show them a lot of love. Funny how she'll flaunt merch purchases without being asked directly by the members to purchase that stuff but voting is different. That kind of attitude from a large very visible account can encourage others to ignore things that core ARMY finds important. The best way to deal with these people is to starve them of attention which hits their money supply. Don't engage with the content, block, report to the platform when necessary and to Hybe if there is slander, and if you have to discuss them keep it to the group chats to not spread their content. They'll get the picture when the algorithm stops favoring them and they start to lose followers and money. Maybe they'll try to grift off of another fandom. Hopefully they give up altogether and go touch grass.