Things we need to work on as a fandom before BTS returns

      Chapter 2 has been a complete whirlwind of emotions and most of it has been positive. We got so much more content than I ever expected and BTS showed us how much they love ARMY by giving us gifts every step of the way. We made it. Congratulations to all ARMY who stayed and stood ten toes down for the apobangpo spirit, supported them, and never even thought about leaving. To new ARMYs joining during the "break," we welcome you and we welcome the opportunity to help you become strong ARMYs for BTS. 

     That being said the fandom has changed a lot during this chapter and it is sad for those of us that have been here for a while. Someone on Bluesky said it best when they said that the fandom has split between three (major) apps and that's part of the reason we seem divided. We have Twitter ARMY, Threads ARMY, and Bluesky ARMY. Not that we're leaving out Weverse ARMY it's just that as far as ARMY that shares info goes, those three apps are known as the top three now and Weverse ARMY is more known for being a bit immature and unhinged at times. Weverse isn't known as a place to get info unless it is in an official capacity from the company or the guys. It hasn't really been much of a space for fans to talk and share info in a while with all the spam and political propaganda you have to fight through just to get your post seen.

     When BTS reunites as a full group after military service I hope they leave Twitter and go to Bluesky. Twitter continues to be toxic and a place known for engagement bait that breeds misinformation. There are more features built into Bluesky that help you keep your feed clean and because of that I think the fandom would be better organized over there. Threads doesn't have good moderation at all and is becoming Twitter 2.0 in terms of toxicity. There's no way to block a bunch of people at once and there aren't third party nuke apps that go along with it like there used to be for Twitter. With those third party apps, if someone made an offensive post you could block everyone who liked it with one click . Bluesky has blocklists for blocking a bunch of people all at once and they are easily shareable lists. They also have add lists that make it easier to add a bunch of ARMY all at once for those new to the app. I agree with the person who posted on Bluesky that we are all spread out across three platforms and that's why we seem disorganized now. I thank the ARMY who share important information with us on Threads and Bluesky that comes from BTS official Twitter and from the voting and streaming bases on Twitter because I left Twitter and won't be going back till that man is gone (Elon).

     Here are some things we need to work on as a fandom now and when the members return as a group. We have been discussing a lot of different topics and anything that is not here will probably be in another post coming up soon. Some topics mentioned in the post where I was asking for ideas have already been covered in this blog so be sure to check out my other posts as well.

     Voting and Streaming

     Chapter 2 brought out some attitudes that I don't like. I probably cleaned my timeline enough by blocking or muting, but the arguments against voting and streaming have been covered here before on my blog. I also got into the debate between casual and core ARMY and that ruffled feathers. That has been covered in another post here. BTS didn't have a single award just handed to them without hard work and we as ARMY continue to work to give them those awards. Don't want to vote or stream? Then don't come to our comment sections and complain about it. I literally watched someone complain about not having time to vote or stream then proceed to comment on like ten different posts thirsting over guys from other groups. Not a single post about voting for Jin on Mnet. Meanwhile the rest of my moots were posting their votes for Jin, thirsting, and dropping streaming screenshots. We all have busy lives and time is often not about how much you have but about how you choose to use it. Spread voting out throughout the day if possible. You don't have to put in all your votes at the same time depending on the vote window. If a voting app is set to where you can vote 50 times a day like AMAs do 25 or so early and do the rest later. If you want to do it you will.  If you don't want to do it then don't. No one is forcing you but don't you dare come into our comments bitching about not having time or not wanting to because we don't care. Just be quiet about it and stay out of our way. If you want tips on how to manage the time it takes to get it all in then ask. We can let you know how we balance it. You don't get to complain about us losing if you didn't vote and you shouldn't be celebrating if you didn't help contribute either. Just saying. 

     Original 2013 and early days ARMY (OG ARMY) worked hard for them to put them on the map and for that we thank them. It's our job to keep it going and give them the career longevity they deserve. We often say we wish we had been there at debut (ARMY that joined after) but, we're here now so we can do the work now to keep them going into the future. Voting and streaming are important. Voting is how awards are won and streaming helps with charts and Mnet awards (which we also vote for). Mnet voting that we do on weekends and Thursdays (live vote) whenever there is a new release nominated is tied to the MAMA awards and popularity or wins on the show lead to end of the year nominations for daesangs and bonsangs (Korean grand prize awards). 

     If you don't know how to get started there is a resources post in this blog with info on platforms we use for voting and streaming. You can also ask ARMY who usually post about it. There are always ARMY that are willing to answer questions and help with teaching newer ARMY how to do things. We're all constantly learning. I was on Stationhead sometime last year and I was streaming with MoAs (TXT's fandom) and I went to the chat section. They were helping each other learn proper streaming and how to vote on Mnet. That was so cool and inspirational. Meanwhile we had a really popular BTS station that I stopped listening to because they said comments promoting voting and streaming caused stress and anxiety and they don't want that in the chat. They made a whole announcement about it on their station over the air and require you to post on the thread side of Stationhead where info gets buried. Not productive at all but the MoAs were so cute and they made me miss the way ARMY used to be.

   Stop complaining on the timeline about voting. It deters others from wanting to participate and other fandoms and multis are now using it against us to try to convince the newer ARMY not to participate. I realize I have a lot of ARMY that follow me and are moots (we follow each other) that just came into the fandom during enlistment, some just over the past year or the past 6 months even. If we're trying to get them to vote, stop complaining about the most mundane things like ads in the app. Who cares? Yes they are annoying but the main Mnet countdown doesn't charge money or coins to vote. Some do and I don't participate in those because it's not a fair shake. I watched a group that hadn't put out any music in a year or two beat BTS last minute in one of those paid votings because they were buying stars or whatever on some other app and dropping them all during the last hour. When you complain about trivial things, people who never voted see that and figure if you aren't doing it or you don't want to because of ads or because you say you don't have time then it must be too much trouble and they won't vote either. Some of you complain and think because you only have 50 followers it doesn't matter. On Threads your posts may have way more reach than you think. If someone like me with way more followers responds to you then your post is going to get even more reach because that's how the algorithm works. Be aware of the negativity of your complaining affecting the way voting is seen by newer ARMY. 

     Use positive motivation when you encourage others. I saw posts being shared by ARMY that came from solos saying ARMY wasn't being there for Jin. Any posts putting down ARMY after voting usually come from solos. Stop sharing them!! They are miserable and despicable and they always have something negative to say about ARMY. Don't fall into that trap. I've been blocking the solos on sight but I'm going to start blocking people sharing their posts because it's ignorant for them to say ARMYs aren't voting when my timeline is full of ARMY dropping screenshots of their proof they voted. It does nothing but piss off those working hard and diminishes our hard work. 

     We also need to diversify our streaming platforms. I know that Spotify is the favorite of the streaming apps among ARMY because of the numbers BTS have there and the records. I left Spotify Premium a while ago and I only stream on a free account on occasion. I prefer Apple Music which has better sound quality and is cheaper than Spotify for me. Since all streams on Apple are premium there is no confusion as to if your streams count as much as say someone on a free account. Apple has daily charts that are updated in the app though they don't post the number of streams. It makes me sad to see that we don't make a dent in the charts there in most areas but shout out to LATAM ARMY on Apple Music who always bring it in some way when it comes to making sure there is a member of BTS somewhere on the charts in your countries on Apple Music. Focusing on streaming on different platforms like Apple will help with charts as well. Seems like we had gotten into that for a while then moved away from it. I appreciate all the ARMY making Apple playlists and I re-share them when I see them.

Live Stream Behavior

     One major thing we need to clean up is the behavior of users in the chat on live streams. I feel like this is one that we have screamed and screamed about for a while and nothing ever seems to get better. Before the guys enlisted, certain member's live streams were noticeably worse than others and it was annoying. Jin's and Yoongi's always tend to be tamer. Maybe it's because they're older. I also don't remember Jimin's being bad either so the age thing may not be it. I feel like it also depends on the time of day or night. When school is in it seems like the immature ones aren't on as much. When Jungkook did his epic long livestreams and they would fall in the afternoon for me on the East Coast of the US and the chat wasn't so bad meaning he was on really late at night or early in the morning Korea time. 

     We can't control when they go live so that's not an option. A few of us have written Weverse and asked for moderation on streams and haven't gotten anything back but they do make posts every now and then that they put on Weverse with rules that don't seem to be enforced. I posted on their IG before and they had my comments removed for some reason. I have mentioned it in the Weverse surveys that they send when they ask for feedback. Bad comments should be able to be filtered out as should spam and with them charging for digital memberships they should be able to afford to hire moderators to sift through all the comments. Right now ARMY goes into the chat and reports inappropriate comments and spam so we do their work for free to make sure the guys don't see the bad stuff. We shouldn't have to do that, but if we can get people to act with respect to BTS in live streams we won't have to be the moderators of the chat. 

    Here's what needs to go:

• STOP asking them to speak other languages. Frankly no one cares if you can't understand. That's a you problem. Asking a Korean person to speak English or French or Arabic or whatever else when you know their first language is Korean and they are communicating in their native language is rude. Stop it. Learn Korean or pay for the digital membership that gives you subtitles live. You could also watch later when subtitles are added for everyone for free which is usually 2 to 3 days later. 
• STOP spamming country flags. It's not the World Cup or the Olympics. You can just say once "my name is xxx and I'm from xxxx "and post 1 flag. The flag spam clogs the chat and good questions and comments go unnoticed because of the useless spam.
• Repetitive old jokes get annoying and clog the chat as well and need to stop. Spamming "Yoongi Marry Me" will get your comment reported as will asking for other members on someone else's live. That's just rude and that's in the guidelines on Weverse for the chat. Other comments about being this one or that one's wife are spam too. Telling them there's someone behind them is also old and a tacky worn out joke at this point. All the useless stuff is just boring.
• Sexual comments made to them or asking them personal questions about their private lives, dating lives, shipping (taekook forever crap) needs to stop too. Posting thirst comments on Threads is one thing but we DO NOT say those things to the guys in chat and we DO NOT ship them in the chat. 
• Telling them to stop ignoring you will get you reported because no one is ignoring you. They can't comment back to every single comment and you sound like an entitled brat when you post that stuff. Stop spamming junk and trying to center yourself and make yourself look like some poor fan that's being ignored. Ninety-nine percent of those comments won't be addressed. If they don't respond to you, get over it. They won't respond to most of us. Make appropriate comments with respect and you may be seen and answered if you don't act selfish. 
• STOP telling them what to do. You don't control what they eat, drink, or their religion. Those are just 3 things that I can think of right now that I've seen people comment on that are controlling and rude. If Hobi wants to eat meat and that bothers you because you don't eat meat then go be a fan of some vegetarian artist because their lives aren't yours. That's a you issue not one for him or any of the others. If JK is drinking and you don't, no one cares. Go stan a dry artist. His drinking is not your business and you don't get to play amateur psychologist and fake psychoanalyze him and start rumors. You will be reported to Hybe for libel if I see those comments again. You don't get to try to change their religion and you shouldn't be asking them their religion either. Your beliefs are just that, yours. Don't want to stan a group that doesn't follow your religion then don't--go find someone who does and leave BTS alone. You aren't going to marry them so asking them to convert makes you look stupid. Stop it. 

     None of these things is befitting of ARMY behavior. You joined a fandom when you became ARMY and participating in ARMY related activities requires some decorum. Tell them what songs of theirs you like. Tell them how their music helps or heals you. Ask about current or upcoming projects. Ask about food recipes and what they like to eat these days or what clothes or accessories they like. Stop telling them they look sick or tired because that's rude too to someone who is neither sick nor tired but may be feeling low on self-esteem for whatever reason. You just make them feel worse. Our rapport with them should be friendly but respectful.

     Disrespecting ARMY When You Are Corrected 

     We all make mistakes and we are all constantly learning. I would never ever claim to know everything about BTS because every single day I learn something new and I welcome the knowledge. I approach my whole life like that. Never stop learning has been a motto of mine forever. That being said I'm always against misinformation and disinformation. I am seeing ARMY, some newer ARMY, get offended when they post misinformation or AI pics. When ARMY corrects you don't get mad and block people. You could learn something and if you're spreading something because you don't know better, then fact check and delete. We need to stop allowing speculation from K-media, clout chasing accounts posting AI fakes, and people posting incorrect statements to have us sharing things that are wrong. There was discussion about the 1 Verse song by JHope and people were posting that as the new song of the 3 that JHope was releasing. The new song is "Killing it Girl" feat Glorilla out June 13th. One Verse song is on SoundCloud with a ton of other unreleased BTS songs and is old. Someone was corrected about that and blocked the ARMY that corrected them. I've corrected ARMY who pull pics from Pinterest of the guys that are labeled wrong and indexed wrong by the internet. If you are corrected please delete or correct your post. Threads are now indexed and show up when you Google a subject meaning your Threads are used by search engines and AI to compile info. If you are sharing a pic of Namjoon as a kid and it's some guy from another kpop group and you're told that's not Joon and you leave your post up without correcting it, other ARMY who don't know any better are getting wrong information and search engines are using your incorrect data and marking it as correct in their systems. That's how you're pulling mislabeled photos from Pinterest. 

     I was told I should "gently correct" people. I'm not harsh when I correct people. I don't do it to shame. I do it because I don't like misinformation and if I posted something wrong I would want to know and correct it. When you post about voting after voting has closed it confuses people who think there's something wrong with their app when they can't get in to vote. It also tells me you probably aren't really voting yourself if you make a post an hour after voting ends telling people to go vote. 

     If you find that you shared misinformation, the best thing to do is delete it and make a post explaining that what you posted before was wrong and if there is a correction, list it in that post. If you post pictures that are fake delete and add real ones. There are plenty of authentic photos of BTS on Weverse going back through almost all promotions. You can download them straight from there in batches for free. Whenever a member releases concept photos I click on download and "download all" so I get all the ones for that promo. This way I know I'm getting a bunch of official photos. Unfortunately on Pinterest people play with AI and take original photos and run them through Rimini (an AI app) or other AI and they ruin them by adding makeup and eyelashes and double lids on Joon and Tae (Tae has 1 double eyelid 1 mono lid and Namjoon has mono lids on both eyes) and then there's the far fetched ones where Namjoon is covered in tattoos or smoking but it looks cartoon-y or Tae is a big as a wrestler. If you post and you think they're real and you are told they are fake just delete and replace. No problem. 

     We need to be very careful of influencers and big accounts as the guys come back from enlistment. Not everyone is really ARMY and not everyone has our best interests in mind.  My last post was about reactors and a particular "influencer" who has a book out now about ARMY and merch to go along with it, go figure. We need to stop giving everyone who says they like BTS our attention. BTS has been around for 12 years and has been a force around the globe and people know there's money in being associated with that. Even other celebrities are using them to help promote their projects. Some of it is subtle in a way but other things are blatantly attention grabs and engagement farming. There will be people who will pretend to be into BTS for clout (especially on TikTok, YouTube and IG the sites that pay you for the attention you get no matter if it is negative or positive) and there will be people who try to exploit ARMY by making us look like villains as they use negativity to make us mad and draw negative comments to their content. Things have always been like this but as BTS and ARMY grow and other fandoms get jealous and as people who are content creators look for more material we become targets. Let's not be easy targets anymore. 

     This also goes for misinformation in the form of leaks. There are those on Twitter/X especially who are clout chaser "army" and they will make up rumors or pull rumors from K-pop tabloids to run with and people post them to Threads and act like it's real or give it attention it doesn't need. Don't share these things just block and report. If we start starving the toxic influencers and anyone else looking for clout (the ones posting videos and pics of the guys on private time) then we can get them to stop posting that kind of thing and potentially get them to leave our spaces. If they realize they won't get likes and follows then they won't keep using us. We have control of this if we work together.

     There are only a few days left till the process of the remaining 5 members returning from enlistment begins and we are all hyped and beyond excited. We have the opportunity to become stronger and show BTS that while they were away we've matured and gotten stronger but the focus needs to be on how we can help them and not so much on big accounts and individuals seeking attention. We need to show them we can ask good questions in the chat when they're live. We need to be the shield, the Kevlar vest that they used as their first logo and prove that we are indeed bulletproof and we are there to protect them so they get that career longevity they deserve. Apobangpo.

Extra links:

Bluesky tips for ARMY. The site is definitely one worth checking out.

My blog post on misinformation

Voting fan base linktree