okay i’m going to make some clarifications on the bts fiasco that went down yesterday because i feel some mainly-tumblr army (if they exist) may not understand completely what’s going on, and even now the solos are being allowed on free rein to bark in the tags for some goofy reason (did they just conveniently forget about their recent literal tattoos permanently inked into their bodies lmfao whatever fits the very poorly developed narratives i guess).
the first thing i’ll say is to watch the bts festa dinner - it may be easy to gather your information from armys and news sites on social media with how much clarification is being thrown around, but please gather your thoughts from the actual video wherein bts are very vulnerable with us, they share their reasoning and struggles behind these decisions, and there are probably things they say in the video that are not being spoken about on social media. bts chose to speak with us personally about this, and so it would be best to hear the message from its roots. but also keep in mind that there are mistranslations in the english captions, as i will discuss below. here is the link for the video: https://youtu.be/1t0iJ7F_k9Q
the reason k-armys and i-armys were reacting so differently in the initial aftermath of the bts festa dinner: bts are not going on hiatus, they will simply be focusing more on their solo music, but will be active as a group in many other senses. bighit music had to clarify this in a statement a few hours after the release of the video because i-armys were worrying about what a more prolonged hiatus could mean for bts, mostly because of negative preconceptions of the word many thanks to one british group. news sites had already released their articles on the nature of this uncertain upcoming spooky “bts hiatus”. there were in fact mistranslations in the english captions of the video, and this fact was backed up by army translators who also said a hiatus was not explicitly mentioned in the video. here is an illustration of bighit’s statement:
so, this individual music will be more prominent than before as it will be released in the form of full, physical, label-backed albums as opposed to the more simple mixtapes we are used to from rapline. rm explains in the video that this is because himself and the rest of the group have been struggling creatively since the beginning of the pandemic, and these struggles became more stressful to them thanks to the kpop industry’s emphasis on quantity over quality. when songwriting was successful, they feared it was only reflecting their own thoughts as opposed to lyrics that could mirror the thoughts of the group as a whole, and as such they filed them away as songs to be used in future solo projects. but, with time, this led to a backlog in individual music and only a minimal amount of music in comparison to be added into their group projects. as such, they will be focusing more musically on their individual projects for a period of time in the hope that it will give them space to develop musically and personally as individuals and consequently enable them to come back together as a full-time group stronger than ever in the eventual future, as they explicitly state their willingness to be a long-running act.
but it’s been emphasised that this is not a group hiatus - so what does this mean? well, in terms of non-music related activities, it means quite a lot - should they be nominated together, they will attend award shows together, will probably continue to do vlives together, they will still appear in advertisements together for their brand deals, and above all, which i’m very excited for: run bts, their variety show, is coming back. with that in mind, it’s also probable that a new season of bts in the soop or bts bon voyage will be recorded and released at some point in the year, as is annual tradition. they are still working together. now, this may still be a hiatus in your point of view, it’s a very broad term, but i personally don’t think it is a hiatus as they will continue on as an active group and will continue to have joint schedules as well as individual, it’s only that those individual schedules will be more prominent than they were before, and that is the big change in what they are calling their “second chapter”.
i initially viewed the mistranslation news as “oh, well, okay that means it’s only in relation to music activities” but with the wording of bighit’s statement, that may not even be the case either. with their creative struggles in mind, i have doubt that we will be getting another bts comeback any time soon, but i do not believe it’s completely off the table to have few standalone singles scattered here and there (as they did with butter and ptd) throughout the second chapter period further along the line, especially considering this second chapter has a significant focus on musically nourishing the members, and hopefully this will have an effect as time progresses and they can use such opportunities to gradually wean back into the promised eventual full-time bts third chapter.
many armys breathed a sigh of relief with the statements from bighit and army translators. they experienced anxiety at the idea of missing bts during this uncertain hiatus with no set end date. however, many things still stand in that bts have faced and shared their musical and personal struggles - both bts and army had a lot of weight tossed on their backs and with the mistranslation clarifications the biggest weight was in fact lifted, but there still remains much to carry. this is still a big change. now we know and have the reassurance that we will not be missing bts throughout this second chapter, we must channel our energy in supporting their upcoming projects. they made all these decisions with us as army in mind and they cried and worried over how we would react to their struggles and to a change from the norm they’ve upheld for 9 years. we must reassure them that as real army, we will support them in what they felt was right in a well-deserved step-back from certain stresses and pressures that they’ve endured this past two years for us. we can only return the favour.
and side note, for the love of god, don’t pay any mind to those solo lunatics. bts make it very clear that even throughout this second chapter they will be working with army in mind. jimin says, and i may be slightly paraphrasing due to poor memory but be sure that the meaning remains the same, “i am not a solo artist, i am a member of a group”, all things considered. army will remain and will always remain as army. army will support j-hope’s album, jimin’s album, etcetera. jungkook didn’t release ‘my you’ mere days ago for you to start listening to 14 year olds going “omg jjk1 album is so good we’re the jungkooker fandom” or some stupid sh!t like that. remember those types of people have never been real fans - they’ll always be antis who token stan one member to spread their negativity within our army spaces. if you ask them one question about their supposed “fav” 3/4 of the time they will be failing to answer because they really don’t care. they will never listen to reason, and they have always conveniently ignored everything their “fav” has said in support of the others in order to hate on and discredit the other members, and grasp at the wildest of straws to deny their love for each other. they can’t even be bothered to stream the vast majority of music their “fav” releases because it’ll be under the name bts and consequently fail to put more money in their pockets because they find it oh so painful to support their “favs” actual brothers simultaneously. they have never stanned even one of those guys. just a reminder :)
more clarification has since been released :)
and for those spreading silly rumours that the clarifications are “hybe saving face”, here are jungkook’s own words from his vlive yesterday:
full credit goes to verritaee and eternallyhyyh for these translations
and namjoon’s expressing of upset at the media’s overreaction on weverse yesterday:
cont.
full credit to btstranslation7 for these translations
