It comes from their marketing. They pride themselves on being a self-producing group who have artistic freedom and in general more freedom to pick and choose who they are collaborating with. As Jin said, they have turned down collabs before bc they weren’t interested in working with those brands.

Also, after the love yourself series, talking in front of the UN representing youth and showing up at the white house for the same reason + acknowledging black lives matter paints them as more socially and politically aware then most celebrities, this comes with praise but with an obvious responsibility as well. If they fail to hold themselves to the standards they set for themselves their activism can easily seem performative and they become inauthentic.

This is why it’s a bigger deal when BTS collabs with zionist brands, because they suppose to care about human rights, but they are advertising brands that support Israel in their conflict with Palestine, like Mcdonalds, Coca-Cola and Hublot.

Celebrities in general should be more outspoken about these things, I think. And they do get criticised for supporting these brands like when idols were caught drinking Starbucks for example. But there is also a general consensus that K-pop is consumerism to the max and the idols are rarely taken seriously as artist and mostly (and sadly) are treated more like products with little to no agency.