Entirely Insane If You Ask Me - Tumblr Posts
This, at its heart, is where streaming parties came from. Where voting campaigns were birthed. When ARMYs truly became vicious and outwardly hostile towards other fandoms. Not that people didn’t stream or didn’t spread the word about voting but at this point it became organized. A unilaterally, controlled movement. A consorted effort by fans both at home and abroad to do what we could, even if it only felt like we couldn’t do much.
Bc like op said, bts was always a formidable group. There was always a dedicated fanbase. They were just shut out by the big3. But after their first win with I Need U? Their trajectory was,,,not necessarily guaranteed but certainly predictable. They were on an upswing, one with in unforeseeable end/outcome. That’s why when Wings came around there was so much blatant animosity. Folks were intimidated. But it wasn’t a “minority” group like so many claim. It was big fandoms, from incredibly popular groups, getting together. Setting aside beefs to join forces. The minority was the ones that didn’t actively participate, but like op said they certainly didn’t bother to speak up or say anything. (Beyond just the break wings project, I remember a certain fandom writing petitions to blue house to get Bts’s daesang taken away….but I digress) Like. The amount of vitriol they were met with was absolutely insane. Worse than, genuinely, anything I had ever seen.
I am absolutely a huge proponent for letting the guys be. They are grown men. They can handle themselves. I can also be objective about the fact that, regardless of fandom, there are always going to be malicious and hateful people who stir up drama. But like, as a fan, you can’t just see all that bts went through and not become a bit jaded. To become untrusting and, especially, protective. They’ve conquered so much and have managed to grow and develop beyond my wildest dreams but it, no pun intended, was not without blood, sweat, and tears.
Were you around when the Breaking Wings Project was happening? What did it feel like seeing that? I hear that things were very difficult for both BTS and ARMY at the time. I'm trying to have a better grasp of what it felt like to be in the midst of such targeted hate. Even though the hate that I see now also feels very targeted, the amount of love and support and funny clapbacks help dilute the vitriol somewhat. I'm guessing it was not necessarily like that back in the day?
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Yeah I was here. It was a shit show. This was 2016 and everybody knew BTS was unstoppable in a sense. People say BTS blew up in 2017 with DNA but the reality is BTS was always a strong group, always outperforming despite their very humble start. By the time the Wings teasers dropped, everybody knew BTS was the next best thing. The Break Wings project was just one of several ways k-pop stans were so confident they would win, they didn’t even try to be discreet. They were organizing hate spamming, counter voting, etc just because they hated BTS and wanted to teach ARMYs, the audacious tiny fandom stanning a group not from the Big 3, they wanted to teach ARMYs a lesson. People will say today that it was a minority of various fandoms who planned it, but the wider fandoms saw them organizing in plain sight and did nothing. The animosity back then was so bad it felt like k-ARMYs would be getting jumped irl any day.. ARMYs had to organize, get creative, be disciplined, religiously keep receipts if they wanted to stand a chance.
Of course, BTS dropped Blood, Sweat and Tears in October 2016 and it didn’t matter whatever those people planned.