Jimin's Early Story - Tumblr Posts
*Closer Than This* MORE Thoughts...
Links included. (Note: This is not about the song Closer Than This but adds to a topic brought up in that previous post.)
In my first Closer Than This post I said: As all of the BTS members have now gone to the military, old & new content continues to be released. With that, more has been revealed & discussed about Jimin’s difficult start. After completing the post, that thought remained on my mind. Eventually, the reason for my reflection became more clear.
I recently rewatched Jimin’s appearance on Suga’s show, Suchwita. During the conversation with Suga, Jimin said, “I was in a rush.” when he was explaining why he worked so hard, would cry before performances, & was frustrated when BTS was starting out. When I first saw the show, I thought JM meant he was in a rush only because he was anxious and impatient to very quickly be a big deal (for lack of a better term), but then I remember watching JK watch JMs episode of Suchwita and went back to watch that too. JKs reaction to that part of the conversation always stuck out to me, but since he didn’t elaborate, I wasn’t sure what his reaction meant, so I pushed it to the back of my mind - until now.
This time when I heard JM & Suga’s conversation, in light of the things I have recently seen & have been reminded of, I realized Jimin likely meant he was in a rush due to the limited time he had to prepare to debut. He was the last to arrive as a trainee and only had a short time before the actual debut. Ooooh! That makes more sense with all of the information coming together in my mind.
However, Suga continued in Suchwita as though Jimin meant what I thought the first time. He said, according to translation, Jimin always wanted to look so cool & confident right away but that passing time would have helped with that eventually. Well, when you’re a new band, trying to succeed, you don’t know how much time you have to improve. Will the band end or continue? Will you personally be kicked out or be kept? AND you don’t want to be the reason the band doesn't make it. Jin even said that he practiced additional time so he wouldn’t hold back all the others, who seemed so talented and advanced to him. So when JM & Suga were talking about this time period, and Suga is referring to the older conversation I mentioned in the previous post, where he had spoken with Jimin in the car years ago, it pretty much matches the idea that in spite of how it exactly happened, it ultimately ended out that JM complained to Suga about being trained to rap when he felt he wasn't very good at it, and he really wanted to be a singer. Suga ultimately advocated to the company for JM to become a singer.
However, my point is that Jimin had the opportunity during Suchwita to set the record straight about his start --- but he didn’t. I have been frustrated & disappointed lately about how Jimin’s origin story is continually not fully and clearly told so people understand not only how difficult his beginning was & why he had some early hiccups in his performances but also so people could see how huge his development and accomplishments truly are, considering all that happened since then.
JKs response (specifically at 25:07) confirmed that, like the Dumpling Incident between Jimin and V, there is more to this story. JK sort of Hmf’d and said, “Ah. What is he talking about? Ah, Yoongi hyung really…” according to the translation. My impression then and now is that JK wasn’t fully buying how Suga was explaining the situation either.
If you recall, earlier this year there was a big complaint by fans about a segment of the BTSIsland game “In the SEOM". JMs game character was complaining about struggling with performance and Suga’s game character was rather unsympathetic with its response. He told the JM character that he needed to practice more, and if he had time to feel down, he had time to practice more. He also said that if the JM character didn’t improve, they might have to leave him on the island and basically move on without him. Fans felt the scene misrepresented the “real” relationship between Suga and JM. The game generally takes events that really occurred and acts it out in the game/cartoon environment. I haven’t played the game at all, but I have seen snips from it, and this appears to be how it works.
In the real life conversation between JM & Suga in the car, this part of the conversation has JM mentioning JK’s voice and Suga’s response is that if JM wants to sing like JK, he has to work harder. Working harder doesn’t help much without training and instruction (which JM may have just started getting AFTER debut). Remember: JK had had more training than JM up to that point due to the JM rapper fiasco and JKs training happened while they were not busy working and performing. Suga’s comments to crying JM back then at debut time had been pretty much “Who is this guy? Get up there and sing. Get better later.” So I’m not so sure that the cartoon was meant to disparage the events that actually happened back then, and it actually may have been more accurate than fans felt comfortable hearing.
We know that Suga is a straight shooter when he speaks and can be very direct and blunt in his communication. His intention may have even been to motivate JM rather than destroy him, but it is a rather sharp and potentially damaging way to accomplish that. I do feel that in time Suga overall was and is supportive of JM and really cares for him in a special way, but they were all young and under pressure and weren’t/aren’t always perfect in their actions or choices, so it is possible that as the group was getting to know each other and tensions were high, the relationships weren’t as informed or kind as they later became. Remember: Jimin arrived late to the program, so he had less time to bond with these new members also.
In any event, I’m sure there is more to all the stories we know about BTS and their journey, and we are likely never going to know all the details for a variety of reasons. Jimin may have had many reasons for not clarifying the story. He may have felt it would have been seen as complaining, and it might have ended up creating bad blood with the company to highlight their shortcomings. It might be that JM doesn’t feel it matters as much as it does to me. It could be that he was being respectful to Suga as his hyung and on his show. It could be for a reason I don’t know. Also, maybe JK’s reaction indicates that Suga didn’t actually come across as supportive at the time as it was being stated, even though behind the scenes Suga did advocate for JMs singing and position, as is seen in other instances throughout their career.
Anyway, BTS’s story, due to complexity and sometimes lack of transparency, inspires so much thought about their actual experiences but also about how those experiences apply to our own real life interactions and situations. This is just another piece of the huge Bangtan puzzle I have thought about and wanted to organize in my mind.