I've been thinking a lot about the nature of rumors the last few days
You can probably guess why, so let me preface this with: I will be sharing some of my thoughts about the events surrounding JK so if you're as sick of this discourse as I am, feel free to skip. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything or prove/disprove, just letting my thoughts be known.
But first, let's look back at this iconic photo
It was Hobi's big day but for this one photo at least, Jimin stole the show. We're in the era of Jimin finally getting the recognition for being funny as fuck, but it's still not enough tbh.
Outside of this hilarious photo and the incredible meme material of the behind the scenes of Jimin standing awkwardly in the corner while Hobi and Becky G kiki, I noticed one more thing when this photo dropped.
Irene Kim is a model and influencer based in New York. She came to support J-hope for Hobipalooza and came to his Listening Party (pictured with him down below, and with an adorably flushed and happy jimin) and has been basically publicly filmed and photographed around Hobi for years.
I thought it was actually very nice that Hobi and Irene could be public friends without having to worry about the constant kpop idol dating rumors flying around. Finally, some normalizing of male and female friendships!
Or, well....proving just how bubbly our bubbles can be, it turns out that a bunch of people have been trying to prove these two have been a couple for years and rumors and "proof" have been accumulating consistently in forums and gossip sites, and I was blissfully unaware of it all.
Matching clothes, matching shoes, household items, phone cases, rings, matching photos of food, etc. The classic idol dating scandal evidence.
And from these forum evidences, people were convinced. And pissed, because of course.
"I wonder what their reason for not having any consideration towards the ARMYs" always gets me. What does his relationship with another human being have to to do with us????
TBH, this probably didn't make much noise for me because I stay as far away from rumors and gossip and stalker content as possible, and the only things that I catch are the stuff that gets blown up into full on hate campaigns, and kpop fans seem to save that kind of special attention for the maknae line and Namjoon (not to say all the boys haven't been through terrible shit, especially yoongi, but if we're talking about the regularity and consistency throughout the years its those 4)
Anyway, by all standards of dating scandal evidence, these two are checking every box and more if you consider most dating rumors don't even include the 2 people involved actively interacting with each other, let alone photos together. Pretty convincing, if you're one to be convinced by things like this, and if you are I hope you're just happy to see Hobi in what looks like a wonderful and very supportive relationship!
Too bad Irene got married earlier this year, to her boyfriend of 2 years.
Now, could they have been dating before that, broken up amicably and remained amazingly close friends? Maybe. Sure. It's not impossible. But is it more likely that Hobi and Irene were simply very good friends this entire time, and shared tastes and trips and shopped at similar places and wore similar things (that hoodie they were matching in was from her clothing brand btw)? To me, yes. Because i'm gonna bring up once again that heteronormativity is a disease and that men and women can be friends.
I'm sure all of the Tannies have female friends and friends of all genders and sexualities that we don't see them with for all types of reasons. I'm sure most idols have mixed gender friendship groups, and just aren't free to show it to their fans because of the toxic culture surrounding dating scandals. Sadly, that seems to be another aspect of normal life idols have to sacrifice for their dreams.
So what does this have to do with Jungkook?
I've seen the rumors that have been popping up for months about him and Winter, and i've seen the recent uproar about their seemingly matching tattoos. I did some digging myself, and I honestly cannot tell you they're not the same tattoo. It's hard to say because we simply don't have a clear view of it: The moment in the show is very blurry and any 4k resolution screen shot from D+ is going to be AI enhanced, not specifically by an individual but just part of the technology. If you're an anime fan and you've tried to watch 4k upscaled episodes of 90s anime you'll know what I mean: lines get sharpened and bent, things bleed into each other and get distorted: it can be very unreliable for details. But the shape's are undeniably similar, and the placement matches. There are pictures from his discharge that show something on his arm, some i'm reasonably confident aren't edited.
But some images going around are edited, and it's equally true, after seeing chikooritajjk point out, that Jungkook has a history of getting matching or similar tattoos with his friends. He's done it multiple times before and because they're male friends no one cared. Additionally, having matching tattoos with someone of the opposite gender would lead people to care, which brings up how questionable of a choice it would be for JK and Winter to do something like that, especially if they were dating, knowing the reaction it would get. Winter didn't try to hide her tattoo at all, and I find it hard to believe Jungkook would just plan on never wearing short sleeves again. We haven't seen much of him since discharge, but he's worn shorter sleeve shirts at the airport, on live and even ditched (half) his shirt completely in a scene in the gym vlog with Tae and Namjoon that was shared with us. So, thing's are very much NOT black and white.
I won't say that it's impossible for Jungkook to decide to get a matching tat with his romantic partner, whether on impulse or what, because that man truly does what he wants and makes his own path. What I will say is, none of this truly matters as much as protecting him against the disgusting and frankly, horrifying hate campaign that has been orchestrated around this so called "dating rumor". Vile lies and slander have been spread about him for months now but the uptick in visibility of this rumor has given anti's and, yes, people in high places who benefit from interfering with BTSs comeback, a chance to boost their garbage fabrications and attempt to ruin reputations. And it's shit that deserves to go to court, so make sure you're actively reporting everything you see to Big Hit's portal. That in itself is enough for me not to give much credence to anything coming out of this mess. Apparently we haven't seen the last of these attacks. Stay vigilant.
Supporting and protecting Jungkook and the rest of BTS should be our main priority as ARMY, but If you're that invested in the rumors, both companies have chosen to neither confirm or deny but Jungkook will surely be scrutinized and analyzed in an attempt to force him or more photos reveal more, and I honestly don't care to be part of that scrutiny. I hope beyond hope that won't end up being the case and we can all just let him live his life, truly.
That is what me and plenty of other people mean when we say in order to truly love and support jikook as a pair, we have to respect them as individuals. Because frankly, whatever I believe about the nature of their relationship will always be second to their safety and happiness. But since we're here, let me bring up something i said in my Lens's post that is so important to my POV when it comes to things like this:
"...queer people can love and have feelings for each other and not date for many less complicated reasons than they're part of the biggest band in the world and live in a homophobic country, and thats important to acknowledge. Because it keeps your lens clear to rely on what you know to be true and what you see."
The end all be all of whatever is going on in their lives is up to Jungkook and Jimin to reveal to us, when and if they want to. That is what it means to trust and respect them, and if that's uncomfortable for you to accept I recommend stepping back from this space. At the end of the day the bond between Jikook is real, the love they share is real and the things they've shown us are real. We're being blessed with another season of AYS and seeing their love for each other first hand and thats something that will never change. Let's cherish it and the happiness it brings us, let's ignore the rumors and bullshit that people are trying to drown us and them in, and let's love and protect our forever artists for all time.
