The Evolution of Jikook, Part2
How did Jikook start? When did they become serious? How did their friendship turn into something more? How are they doing right now?
If you have been following this blog, you might have read the first part of “The Evolution of Jikook” which is a cover of the history of their relationship from 2014 until 2021. But as I mentioned in that post, in order to write a comprehensive recap, a certain amount of time is needed to be passed because some truths and facts don’t show themselves at the moment. As you may know, in 2022, many new things happened, and some information from the past was revealed. For this reason, I rewrote the old post from the beginning of 2020 with the participation of the new information. Here is my recap on the evolution of Jikook during the pandemic and the post-pandemic era.
Attention: I don’t expect you to agree with me on all parts of this post, and I even expect some parts to be triggering. These are only MY opinions, they are strictly based on the facts we know at this moment, but the revelation of more information in the future can approve or disprove some of these opinions and theories. The previous part will remain unedited, and its disclaimers apply to this part, either.
2020
In the first three months of 2020, Jikook had a very different vibe. At the time, we didn’t know what was causing it, but there was some sort of tension visible between them, which had started in the last weeks of 2019 but worsened in January and early February 2020. If you check their moments from this era, like Grammy Awards, ON and Black Swan MV behind the scenes, and Run BTS episodes 116 and 117, you may notice this different vibe. In 2022 we found out that BTS was planning to start chapter 2 of their career at the end of 2020, and they were supposed to be enlisted after the MOTS tour. At this time, they were dealing with their new contracts and many different issues, so I believe these crucial decisions affected Jikook in some way and caused the tension we witnessed at the time.
When the Pandemic started, it changed everything in the world, including Bangtan schedules. Their world tour got canceled, they inevitably spent the whole year in Korea, and they postponed chapter 2 and the enlistment process due to the government allowance. Coping with these changes wasn’t easy for Jikook, they wanted nothing more than to perform on the stage for the audience, and they didn’t know where and when they would be able to do it again.
At this time, JK got affected by the Itaewon club scandal, and he sold his Trimage apartment right after and rented a unit in Nine-One, and following that, a new era for Jikook started. I want to name this era the “Jikook being open about living together” because they were using every opportunity to expose that they lived together. They were sharing cars all the time, they were together on JK’s birthday night, and JM said seeing JK in the morning is the best thing for him. JK even made some hints in LGO MV about it and exposed that JM is happy when he is with him. The hickey incident also happened in this era.
Considering all these moments, it was clear that Jikook were having the time of their life as a couple in this era, and they weren’t even hiding anything. They were always together, and they were paired for ads, photoshoots, and performances so many times. At the end of the year, they did the Black Swan performance at MMA, which was an unforgettable masterpiece showing Jikook’s perfect synergy, chemistry, crazy talent, and the complete trust they have for each other. At the same time, their career was thriving, they achieved the first Billboard HOT100 No.1, and everything was going well, except they were missing the stage, but it was bearable because they had emotional support from each other to overcome this hardship. Also, the first Grammy nomination for BTS happened at this time, unlocking a new achievement for them and boosting their confidence and credibility as artists.
The year 2020 was a very different year. With the unexpected pandemic, many things in their lives and careers got out of hand and out of control, which had its pros and cons for Jikook. Despite canceling their tour and forbidding them from stages and going abroad, this unexpected situation gave Jikook more freedom and the benefit of spending enough private time together.
Having a private life as a couple helped Jikook to express themselves more domestically compared to the years before. Reviewing their memories and behind the scene moments, shows they had more moments off-camera than the main focus camera, which was a direct result of these changes. But things were about to change, even more, this time in a very controlled way.
2021
The first two or three months of 2021 were going perfectly between Jikook, pretty much the same way 2020 ended. They were stuck together, being domestic and flirty with each other and riding the same car all the time. I recall so many moments with blonde JM and blonde/silver/blue-haired JK from this time which proves my point. Also, many noticed that JK was so happy in the first months of 2021, he did three solo Vlives and posted several selcas, showing that he is enjoying his life, and JM was almost the same. It was unforgettable how they were interacting in the 20210219 OT7 Vlive, or when JM commented on JK’s art saying he is beyond human being.
But in the middle of March 2021, something changed, and that happy time ended alongside the super bold era of Jikook. This was the time they moved to the company's new building after the establishment of Hybe labels. Also, the Grammy awards happened, and they lost the prize. At the same time, JM bought his first apartment and allegedly moved there. The word "first" is interesting in this statement because at the 2022 Festa dinner, they admitted that they stopped living at the dorms years ago, and JM didn’t have a house until March 2021. Then where was he living for the last couple of years?
When we were used to seeing Jikook riding in the same car, JM posted seven videos of him riding with Jin, saying he was going home. Then three months later, with the official news of JM buying the Nine-One apartment, we found out minimoni have become neighbors. With these changes and complications in their living situation, Jikook almost stopped riding in the same car and became quiet about living together.
Why and how these changes happened? It’s still too soon to tell, but I believe Jikook were sure about winning the Grammy award, and losing it affected them severely. On the other hand, changes in their agency and label and dealing with new management and JM having a house under his name prevented them from showing their domestic couple life. Based on my theories, this was the first stage of Jikook starting to “stay low”, the next stages came not long after.
The Butter era was fine for Jikook, and despite being quiet in public, some moments were showing how much they spent time behind the cameras and how precious their relationship is to each other. Like the moments from Lee Hyun's vlog, or when JM said that he had been practicing vocals with JK, or when he brought the photo of the leather jacket he had worn on the Tokyo trip with JK as a memorable thing (a very underrated moment).
But in the PTD era, Jikook came back as their happy and loud selves again, and we witnessed them being flirty and couply in many situations, like the comeback special for PTD, Billboard magazine interview, Japan Fancafe, and ZoomCall fanmeeting, and let’s not forget their 2021 birthdays and the fact that when “the hickey” was trending in Korea because of them, they both decided to show up online and post selcas. The New York trip for the UNGA speech was Bangtan’s first trip outside South Korea after the pandemic. Jikook did their clinical examinations together, arrived at the airport in the same car, and blessed us with an airport duo photo and some sweet moments in New York.
Before going forward in this timeline, there is another thing I need to mention, and it’s about JM becoming shy in this era. As I mentioned in the first part of this post in the 2014 section, this change showed something about the debut years. It showed that JM was uncomfortable with the role he was playing. On his 2021 birthday Vlive, he said that he felt like the old days when he used to get awkward in front of the behind the scene cameras, but he didn’t say anything. Now he was asking himself why didn’t he speak up about being awkward. After an interview from early 2021, the interviewer uploaded a video asking Bangtan if they ever felt awkward in front of cameras. According to her, JM had answered this question, and then JK had said something. I believe JM was talking about the debut years, where he had to play the role of a muscled strong man who was in love with JK, and it made him feel awkward. Later in PTD Seoul concerts in 2022, when JM admitted that he hates doing bromance, (AKA fanservice) he proved that the only fanservice (in a fake way) he has ever done in his career was the roleplaying he was forced to do in his debut years.
Here comes the second stage of change in Jikook representation which started to emerge around October. I noticed this change when the second season of ITS aired. Some of the Jikook moments we had seen in the teasers of this show, were never shown in the main series. And most of the Jikook interactions were pushed to the behind the scene episode, which expectantly had way fewer viewers (you can check the JTBC charts). This behavior from the company raised some questions in my mind; Why was Bighit doing this? When it was evident that there was more Jikook content in their footage, why did they have to cut them or push them to the episode with less audience? Of course, I don't have the answer, but I have theories, I believe they did this to Jikook content to stop their moments from outshining the other popular ships' moments because they wanted to keep their relationship out of the spotlight, yet feed the "target audience". And this was the second stage of keeping Jikook on “the low”, but it wasn't the last one.
The middle of 2021 was the time that the BTS solo era technically started, and they filmed and produced several solo-based contents, like merch designs and some of the photofolios, alongside their Proof album production. Besides that, BTS started to "focus on" their solo career and tend to spend less time together as a group, therefore most of their OT7 schedules were pushed together since all the members weren't available all the time.
Around this time, JM was giving out a different vibe and even made most of us worried about his physical or mental health. We didn't know why he was acting like this, but later, he admitted that he was going through some kind of identity crisis due to the start of this solo era. He was showing this state in most of their LA schedules, and despite him being good at hiding his feelings, it was clear that he was going through something. Although Jikook were doing fine, they admitted to visiting each other every hour and spending midnights together and showed their domestic behavior in unstaged content like VMK Vlive.
After the LA trip, Jikook came back together with Jin while the other four members decided to stay in the US and enjoy their vacation after being trapped in their homeland for two years. But Jikook didn't use this opportunity and came back home for 10 days of quarantine. During this quarantine, BTS members launched their personal Instagram accounts, and their official IG era started alongside a very long Jikook drought.
This drought was the result of two things: 1. BTS' short hiatus after their LA schedules 2. JM not being interested in the IG app. In this era, all the Bangtan content we were getting was coming from their IG posts and interactions, and Jikook decided not to interact at all (they still haven't done it!) and stay on the low the way JK expressed in one of the first songs he recommended in his IG stories.
2021 was the year of transitions for BTS, a transition from pandemic to post-pandemic, from group activities to solo activities and focusing on their own life and career as individual artists. The same transitions did happen for Jikook, and they started to build their careers based on their solo identity. I believe this is the reason for them entirely separating their relationship and personal lives from their career. They don't want their precious relationship in the spotlight because it's not for sale.
2022
And finally, 2022, the year that many believe was the quietest year in Jikook history because it ended without any Jikook selcas. The Jikook drought, which started at the end of 2021, was strongly going on in the first weeks of 2022. After the trip JM had to Jeju with his friends, he went totally silent, and we heard and saw nothing of him until the end of January when all the bad news came together. JM got Covid and was rushed to the hospital because of appendicitis and had surgery. During this difficult time, JK updated his IG with a cover from a sorrowful song that was in JM's playlist before, to show how he was feeling at the moment and used the code 1108 to make it clear what was causing it.
After the end of Seoul PTD concerts, on White day (a romantic Korean holiday), JM posted the first photo with JK on his IG page, and the same day they went out together with some friends for eating dinner in a restaurant. Later we found out from the staff of that restaurant that Jikook used to go there several times from the beginning of 2022, the time people thought they weren’t spending time together because they weren't interacting on social media!
In April 2022, a lot of things happened in Jikook world, from Grammys to LV concerts and JK becoming super loud about his love for JM. When JK was hanging from a wire in the middle of the Grammy awards, JM was the one he was interacting with. JK claimed JM in his IG question boxes and said he would never stop holding him, and in a Vlive, he explained how they hugged. They did tattoos together in the same tattoo shop and bought couple bracelets from their tattoo artist jewelry collection.
In the Vlive VHopeMin + Kook did in LV, Jikook was being domestic by claiming “not eating together” as an act of treason. Also, JK manifested his excitement about boxing with JM, and when JM was showcasing his off-cam behavior, Hobi exposed the truth of Jikook hanging out naked. Jikook went to eat together in a barbeque restaurant at LV several times, and according to the restaurant's staff, they had joyous moments together late at night. On the stage of LV PTD concerts, they had some loud moments either, although the stage moments have never been a scale for their boldness, and they had kept their stage interactions subtle since the pandemic was over, there were some moments like the gesture at the end of BWL or the bridal hug outside the stadium that was more meaningful than just fanservice.
After they came back to Korea and left the airport in the same car, and JM posted another Jikook photo on his IG page, the loud activities of Jikook suddenly stopped. To find the reason for this change, I needed to review the events that happened at this time, and one thing caught my attention. Just a few hours before JM’s OST release on April 24th, Korean media started to report about JM’s issue with his house insurance payments, and Bighit released a statement regarding the situation. We found out that sasaengs, who were stealing his mails from his official address, caused this issue and made this so-called scandal for JM deliberately.
This insurance thing happened and was resolved in January of that year but became public three months later by JM antis to sabotage his OST release. Testimonies of the ARMY who had observed Jikook in the LA hotel gym (seeing Chinese sasaengs at the gym door waiting for them), made it clear that Jikook have been in a close encounter with sasaengs all the time, and their privacy has always been invaded by them. So, sasaengs harassing JM or JK wasn’t a new thing, but Bighit was also responsible in this case. They could prevent it from happening very easily, but they didn’t. Their statement also didn’t help and brought more attention to the case. This issue caused JM to disappear from social media for a long time, and he came back weeks later with an apology post.
If you are a reader of this blog, you may have been familiar with the conspiracy theory I brought up in one of my old posts. Based on this conspiracy theory, every time Jikook act bold, soon after, they face a scandal. So, was the silence of Jikook after the insurance scandal the consequence of their bold acts in April? I don’t know, and I have already called this a conspiracy theory. But whatever the reason was, it caused the third stage of Jikook to “stay low”. This stage came with the elimination of almost all Jikook moments from the official content.
Every BTS official content filmed and edited after the first third of 2022, lacks Jikook moments. In some Bangtan bombs or other official pre-recorded videos, you have to pause and zoom in a distant corner to see them talking or sitting together, and there is nothing more. If people believe that Jikook have grown apart and their lack of interaction is the reason for the lack of Jikook content, then how do they explain the lack of Jikook interaction in the DVDs of Seoul SYS concerts, their loudest era? Did Bighit time-travel and stop Jikook from interacting too much? No. They cut the loud moments, so they can’t outshine the other ships.
At the end of May, BTS visited the White House, and JK had a short trip to NYC to film “Left & Right” MV, and at the same time, he deleted all his IG posts permanently, starting a new theme focused on himself. Their D.C. trip was short, but still, 3J hung out together, and if it weren’t because of Hobi, we would never know about it. Anyways, this lack of Jikook content continued with the Proof album release and the beginning of the YTC era. I think Jikook only had three or four units this year, and most of them were by chance (Festa photoshoot units) or commercial ads advised by corporations (Hyundai and Samsung), despite Hobi admitting them being the ace duo.
With the Festa dinner and the announcement of BTS halting their group activities to do their military service, the solo era, AKA chapter two of Bangtan, started. As I mentioned in the 2021 section, this solo era had technically started months before. This dinner had some interesting moments, like when JK scolded JM for not playing his songs for him. This might not sound special and it can even be used by antis as proof of Jikook not being close (!), but it proves my theory of Jikook separating their relationship and career. Another interesting moment, was JM's absolute silence when the members were talking about their houses. JM is very protective of his living location and zooms and crops the hell out of every picture he posts. Isn't he living in Nine-one in Namjoon's neighborhood? Then what is he hiding?
With the first solo album release of Bangtan members, Hobi's listening party happened, and we saw Jikook keeping a low profile in public. But with the release of more footage and behind the scene videos, we found out Jikook were there for their Hobi hyung from the beginning, and they were hiding in a corner together because they were too shy to join the crowd (cute).
In August, JM had a two-week-long trip to LA for work after attending Hobi’s concert in Chicago, and until now, we don't know what he was doing in LA. But after that, a very busy era for JM started. He has visited numerous producers in his studio since then, and if it wasn't because those producers' IG posts, we wouldn't even know about most of them.
The start of this "busy JM" era coincided with JK going out regularly. In fact, during the two weeks of JM's absence, JK had been seen three times outside having meat, and it continued that way. He went to concerts two days in a row and spent time with friends and family several times. But being busy and booked never stopped JM from spending enough time with JK and taking care of him. He celebrated JK's birthday with him despite having appointments the same day, and he was the only member knowing and taking care of JK's food allergy.
In 2022, The Fact Music Awards was the only music show BTS participated in, and unlike the official and edited content we used to get at the time, it was full of Jikook cute moments and interactions. A few days later, JK posted a video on Weverse for JM's birthday greeting, and most people called it a thirst trap. But for me, it was a silence filled with untold words. After the Busan concert and in VMinHopeKook live, Jikook showed another level of domesticity with the seaweed soup incident and many other subtle moments. The last month of 2022 passed with tight schedules for Jikook, JK traveled to Qatar twice for the Worldcup song, and JM supported his amazing performance with his Weverse post. Also, JM had another trip to the US (this time to NYC) which showed that the busy-JM era is still going on.
Many believe that Jikook dynamics have changed in 2022 and they don’t interact because we don’t see them interacting. But the fact is, the change we witnessed in Jikook this year wasn't the result of the change in their dynamics, but it was the result of the changes in their lives. BTS has already admitted that 2022 was a very difficult year for all of the members, and Jikook wasn’t an exception. These changes (which I call stages of staying low) started in 2021, and they showed themselves more in 2022.
JM was famous for his social media activity for years, but since the IG era, he became the least active member. He has posted only a few selcas (mostly for official events) and you can only find one Yoonmin, one Jihope, and two Jikook photos on his page (Jikook still has the biggest share). Even though he has been more active in Weverse, there is not much to see there other than some occasional selcas or supportive posts, so, having no Jikook selcas this year isn’t even an indicator. On the other hand, JK was pretty much experimental with his IG page for a few months, and in the end, he cleared it out and made a very personal and professional theme that doesn’t have a place for ships because they are both focused on their career, and they are reflecting it in their IG pages, JK by a fancy and solo theme and JM by avoiding it!
But under this surface of social media and official content, we have the raw and unfiltered Jikook slipping out from time to time, and that’s why the biggest 2022 Jikook moments happened in live streams and JK’s IG question boxes. JK was the one saying he will never stop holding JM, he was excited about boxing with JM or eating special soup for his birthday, and JM was the one celebrating JK's birthday despite being busy and even reminding the whole world one day earlier. Jikook might not seem loud in 2022, but if you look at the bigger picture, you will see that nothing has changed between them.
