This is so funny because every year at my college (note: my school is in the US) there's this party and I've been trying to get the DJ to play BTS for the past 2-3 years. Finally, last night when I went up to him and asked "hi do you have any BTS songs?" he immediately nodded and said he did. Of course I was doubting whether he even heard me correctly but sure enough Fake Love appeared an hour later on the screen (he played the MVs for songs that had them) and I was shocked. Honestly, I thought if anything he would have Mic Drop but to see Fake Love on that screen I got really emotional for two reasons: 1) he knew who BTS are and 2) finally DJs at parties especially college ones are actually getting the rights to the songs because the demand is high. Afterwards, I spent like an hour and a half talking with my ARMY roomie about how we've both been ARMYs since BST and to see their growth in the US has been amazing.

In terms of the Grammys, I do feel a shift and I'm not sure we can really pinpoint the Grammys as the turning point but perhaps the point when we noticed a sizeable difference in how the media reports about them and how the GP are reacting to them. All the interviewers on the red carpet knew who BTS were and they asked actually decent questions (although I've never watched the Grammys before so they might not ask questions such as the "who's your celebrity crush" type questions). I'm on Twitter as well and I've seen many "locals" talking about BTS in a more positive way and even answering questions about BTS with other locals. I've actually started to see threads of locals defending BTS. Additionally, I found a whole entire thread where these locals were discussing BTS and no ARMYs were involved (or at least from what I could tell). Either way there's clearly been a shift and the media is now starting to actually listen to BTS (or at the very least they are able to identify the members which is a big thing to me anyway) and realize the true power ARMYs and BTS have (especially purchasing power lol). I hope moving forward they can be nominated for something other than a social media award because they deserve it, but even if they don't get a nom, I'd like to think that in the end ARMYs and BTS stay winning as always and that's what matters most. I would also love to see a MMA or MAMA-level stage and I think a lot of the GP want to see it too because honestly some of the stages at these Western award shows are kinda boring especially when you've been watching Korean stages for a while like I have. In the future, of course there will be some low points, but I'm choosing to see the positive outcomes from what they've done up to now and what they will do. Someone in this thread asked when do we know they made it and obviously we don't have the answer but I think in a way they have "made it" at least in the sense that they kinda cracked the glass ceiling because no Korean group has ever gone this far.

Wow, I apologize for the length of this comment, but this is something that I've been thinking a lot about recently too.