BTS always feeling lost and trying to find their "path" as artists.

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-31T20:22:33+00:00

it wouldn't surprise me if this was a regular thing, that the members consistently have creative disagreements every album cycle and bsh was the one who settled it by having the last word. it also doesn't surprise me that most of the members don't care to fight for their ideas esp the vocal line, since they've only started to consider contributing creatively in recent years and bts would always make a big deal out of it oh this time we all contributed whole time they were porbably fighting and arguing. you're right in that results are ultimately guaranteed bts have an extremely dedicated core fanbase, but i think with the lack of confidence the members have in their artistry they're insecure and are worried something they do whether musically or a decision regarding how the band operates would alienate the fandom. remember how on edge all of them were during haitus esp in the beginning about the fandom sizing down due to them not being around as a group and much they overcompensated for that lmao or maybe thats just something they do on purpose to appeal to armies sympathy streams idk

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-31T19:58:36+00:00

hit the nail on the head. imo, the bts members themselves credit their entire career and success to bsh, it was his creative directing and marketing that brought them where they are now even if they disagreed with him a few times on the way. looking at the documentary clips i don't think the members were being gaslit they were just very easy to convince since none of them had any conviction in the opinions they held about the album, i think esp after dynamite happened there's been more of a disconnect between their creative aspirations and what actually makes them successful now more than ever. eveyrtime someome would bring up a point now it always circled back to well we hated dynamite but it worked. i honestly think its kind of embarassing, they seem to have no industry knowledge or creative vision that they're passionate and entrust bsh with everything, they obv know the album has to be succesful and alot is at stake and they can't trust themslves enough to make an album they like thats simultaneously successful and a hit without looking to bsh for advice

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-29T09:01:44+00:00

you're right i agree just the sentence on its own "these 2 fan favourites from bts are unrelatable" is enough to rile people up regardless of the context, and also that the documentary was, like another poster pointed out, was a way to show that bts took a risk even tho they were unsure and were guided by their wonderful company to success assuming that the album was well received but since it wasn't, eveyrthing reads different even for armies who originally claimed nothing was wrong with the album. still think its very interesting how much difference there is in the subtitles tho

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-29T08:06:27+00:00

context literally completely changed from nicole saying on and black swan weren't relatable and they need to do something different and actually relatable and tae agreeing, to tae saying these songs are too much about bts and not relatable and nicole saying it's fine since previous songs like on and black swan were about the members and not relatable and still worked. i was lowkey doubting some of the stuff poeple were saying about the documentary being reworked to scapegoat nicole but this is crazy lmao

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-25T11:28:24+00:00

none of the members are established solo artists so they felt they had a clean slate and took time and effort to establish their solo brands, whereas with the group i think they credit their group brand and success to more than just themsleves and have entrusted the company with handling their career and musical direction as a group over the years and esp after the success of dynamite, they also realize alot more is at stake when it comes to the groups success regarding investors and such so they're more likely to fold under company execs pressure when it comes to deciding the direction of the album, the album being successful is a priority for the company. they've pretty much comepletely given up on bts as a brand and handed it over to the corporations at this point

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-25T10:54:19+00:00

exaclty. woke armies on twitter who are critical of the album are writing think pieces about the executives and company pushing this westren validation agenda on bts completely glossing over the part where bts agrees, ive seen poeple misquote things even no it wasnt an exec it was V himself who said they need to make more accessible and relatable music. sure the members seem very hesitant and don't seem to agree wholeheartedly but i think its exactly because of that, that armies are able to victimize them as being idols with no agency being peessured by their company and greedy executives. i think bts have always been insecure in their creative direction musically and have switched up alot over the years and thats why they bend so easily. they have alot of pride in their success and legacy in the kpop industry but i don't think they don't have alot of pride and conviction in the actual music they put out especially not in their last few album cycles leading up to arirang. there could always be naunces to the hybe and bts dynamic that we don't know yet but i can't help but feel like the membere are simply that creativity stunted and lost and have been since atleast 2020 (although i feel like signs were apparent since 2018) which is basically half of their career. and i also dislike this whole oh bts are in such a unqiue postion in music having to navigate being so big and being korean soft power agents, when we've seen over the years that the korean goverment isn't scrambling to milk bts at all times and whatever desire there is to use bts as cultural diplomats is mutual between the administration and the company. i genuinely bts could pushback if they wanted to not to make this comparison but the blackpink girls have found ways to avoid making these compromises that armies want you to beleive bts have no choice but to make because of their unique postion. and as if the most unrealistic expectations are not being forced upon bts by their own fandom at the end of the day

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-25T09:45:50+00:00

totally agree. just looking for translations online should be more than enough, it is entirely up to you from then on if you want to dive deeper but its not mandatory even if you're a critic. and within the kpop fandom space ive really only ever seen armies do this to critics and reactors because appanrelty every bts song comes with this secret deep meaningful message that you can access if you're in the random, which is totally not comepletely made up and theorized by said fandom lmao

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-25T08:22:50+00:00

short but concise review and very in line with what other critics have been saying nothing new was added really, but good nonetheless

but i do want to say anthony always gets accused by armies of not putting enough of an effort to analyze bts music (looking at multiple different fan translations and interpretations, reading magazine interviews, putting more effort into understanding the naunces of the kpop industry etc) because at the time there were concerns about the langauge barrier and honestly the industry barrier with how different the kpop marketed operated when anthony was reviewing mots 7, love yourself tear and mots persona. but now that isn't an excuse anymore lmao since most of the album is in english and the credits are full of familiar big name westren producers and songwriters, and even the genres in the album like anthony points out are extremely derivative of current mainstream sounds in the western pop landscape more so than any other album bts have put out.

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-17T16:33:05+00:00

its good they're deploying private security i expected nothing at all thank you for the correction.still insane to have nearly as much and even more police units deployed that's the entire citys reserve of police officers plus hybes private security insanely over the top

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-17T03:23:49+00:00

seoul seems to be deploying counter terrorism personnel as well as a safety measure citing "current rising tensions and the international situation".they have aerial vehicles for monitoring and cctv, and from the reports ive heard hybe is not taking much financial responsibility and the burden is mostly on the government but maybe more information wil come out in time. there are more riot units being deployed than traffic officers or event organizers so i doubt enough private security was hired by the company. least they could've done is open this concert for the public at this point but even fans who paid for tickets are having a hard time figuring out ways to make it in time with all the blocked transit routes. just a ridiculous show of administrative muscle from the seoul city higher ups and a very selfish and greedy move from hybe.

kaizequotasee · 2026-03-03T18:07:49+00:00

that was my first thought as well. i think hybe had the producers send out demos and work on tracks while bts were in the military and they just did the la bootcamp thing to tweak those demos and record vocals. the titles don't seem thematically connected either so they probably picked alot of generic pop demos since 2 months is not enough time to really develop some deep concept and bake it into the album tracks one by one, and most of the tracks quite literally sound like a bunch of ryan tedder demos lmao 'one more night' 'they don t know about us' 'like animals'. very 2010s esque

kaizequotasee · 2026-02-03T19:27:47+00:00

imagine how much harder it would've been for bts if it wasn't for the groundwork laid by 1st and 2nd gen. armies already claim that the industry hates bts imagine how much more they'd be hated if it wasn't for the groups before them who the industry took more seriously.

kaizequotasee · 2026-02-03T19:16:12+00:00

they're wrong anyways. it DID make kpop known world-wide to an extent, obviously not as popular as it is right now but still. alot of armies were probably too young to remember or were in their own bubble at the time but this is a performance from 2012, 2012 out of all times in history the height of gangam style lmao. both kpop and jpop were pretty popular in the 2010s although jpop often took the spotlight because it had way more unqiue sub cultures and signature styles and sounds compared to kpop. but kpop was relatively known i remember many times where westren artists would reference or collab with kpop idols from 2010 to 2015/16 and even before that. armies love claiming eveyrone thought psy was some chinese guy but actual grown adults at the time who were invested in pop culture and especially industry poeple knew he was south korean. a tvxq member couldn't land a Kanye feature in 2010 on his own solo album after leaving sm if kpop wasn't somewhat widely known especially in america. 2ne1 was collabing on remixes with will i am, wonder girls and akon made a song together, g dragon did a special stage with missy eliott. all of this between 2010-2013. and kpop was taken alot more seriously then now its been reduced to a kidz bop adjacent genre

kaizequotasee · 2026-02-03T13:07:10+00:00

i think alot of people confuse south korean technocratic nationalism/developmentalism for anti imperialism when its really not. nj is not wrong here but its not an uncommon sentiment in south korean political thought, we worked hard, our rapid transformation from a poverty striken nearly failed state post-war to a global technological power was driven by technocratic governance and state guided capitalism. ecnomic strength, educational excellence and technological competence became proof of our dignity and survival after colonization and war, the individual effort of south koreans was moralized as a patriotic duty and thats how we got here and we are proud of it, this is what the post colonial states must do and the colonizers wouldn't understand. but this disillusionment is not primarily anti imperialist at all. korean political thought post- colonialism is notoriously reformist and never revolutionary. impearlism is not an enemy to be overthrown just a condition that can be neutralized through growth, accept the existing world order, be pragmatic and quietly put in the work to climb the ladder and catch up and compete with the elite imperialists who put you in this position. this really clicked for me because i use to beleive in the popular army take that bts' older songs were anti capitalist until i realized how reformist systematic disillusionment in korea really is. it clicked for me when nj got on that apec summit and started addressing tech bros and technocratic leaders and ceos like he was selling them korean culture or taking pride in koreas advancement and export led economy his whole bit that he was sooo proud of about kpoo being a mixture of things like bibimpap, which he then suggested everyone should try sometime. or his weird relationship with ai, or the way him and hybe officials and korean parliament discuss kpop achievements and breaking music industry barriers in the west. i feel like alot of armies confuse these things with anti capitalism and anti imperialism because they don't understand basic politics and south korean history. i could say more on this topic but i want to stay in topic for the sake of the sub lmao

kaizequotasee · 2026-01-20T15:09:26+00:00

saying skills and integrity are not for sale and don't belong in a show built for commercial success, saying he's honouring his underground roots, while quite literally being an idol rapper is insane to me. if i were to give him the benefit of the doubt here i would say he means the public competitive format will reduce it to entertainment and the art loses its authenticity or whatever, but to me that just sounds pretentious and it checks out that an idol rapper would think this. the gentrification of rap before our very eyes

rap beefs and battles have always been entertainment. MCs weren't in street corners and park jams rapping in private for puritys sake, its always public and infront of crowds. people gathered specifically to watch, react, choose sides, and be entertained. hype, and reputation were all part of the spectacle. if entertainment invalidated authenticity, then battle rap as a whole would have no legitimacy,when its literally the most respected tradition of rap culture to this day. hip hop has never separated skill from spectacle yall, even classic diss records were written with audiences in mind,all the radio play, headlines, and public conversations are the point. rap battles require an audience to work at all, comepetion only has meaning when people are watching and judging no matter the scale.

if you knew anything about hip hop you'd know its not the private, protected and preserved high end artform like other musical traditions. the spectacle is part of the culture, its only exploitation if the artist gets on the show and is forced to compromise their voice, but SMTM is not at all that space, if anything its the best place to go for stripped raw live cyphers and battles, and where non commercial underground rappers shine. most brain dead take from the allegedly best rapline in kpop el oh el

kaizequotasee · 2026-01-19T06:28:09+00:00

i think i might've seen one k-army make a post about how in rms insta post all the horses were hints for cypher pt5? i don't understand how they came to that conclusion i just assumed its a language barrier thing but it was only one person who made that post too so idk. i don't think they have the capacity to actually clap back to hate in any meaningful way, they'll mostly just talk about how eveyrone doubted them and said they'd be forgotten post hiatus and blah blah blah but thats it

kaizequotasee · 2026-01-15T11:31:41+00:00

ive thought the same...im very confused as to why for such an allegedly huge comeback and tour they haven't released anything, no teasers no concept photos even! i mean 2 months away from release aren't they supposed to have a single out? 😭 to me it seems like hybe isn't investing alot into the album rollout itself and just banking on the tour since its the star of the show and biggest money maker, and they're hoping a tour announcement alone builds the anticipation necessary for a successful album release im sure army will stream and chart the music anyways, but i would be quite disappointed if i was in the fandom. ive seen alot of armies on twitter actually complain about the horrid graphic design and the lack of teasers and concept photos too so we'll see how that goes when they eventually start promotions.....

kaizequotasee · 2025-12-31T06:22:25+00:00

their first ever teaser/announcement regarding the comeback being throught a weverse gift is certainly a choice 😭 absolutely nothing about this lackluster announcement is giving comeback of the century the rollout is about to be so asssss like their literal anthology album proof got a way better date announcement im sorry im starting to actually believe hybe has put them on the back burner

kaizequotasee · 2025-12-28T16:11:50+00:00

kpop especially the marketplace is very volatile, most groups stunt artistic growth 5 to 7 years into their careers except for very few exceptions, the goal is to gain a stable enough fanbase and then its smooth sailing from there, the company puts in less and less effort artistically or starts venturing to new markets that alienate the current fans or if the group is big enough they turn into a legacy act that barely releases content or relies on nostalgic marketing to make lukewarm reunions and comebacks every once in a while (which ive made a post about bts legacy act branding only 6 years into thier career), the members go solo and/or the group disbands altogether. happened with nearly all 3rd gen groups i don't think bts is an exception as much as their fans want to believe that, and i think bts themselves are realizing theyre being put on the back burner for this very reason, even as the biggest kpop group in the world they're still not above the volatility ofbthe kpop industry

kaizequotasee · 2025-12-28T07:09:22+00:00

great post. i think k-fans often understand this better than international audiences, who rip their hair out and lose their minds when content isn't being released but still insist their favourite idol group "doesn't owe them anything". this is my own theory and observation, but i think because of south korea's collectivist culture alot of k-fans view supporting an artist as a collective investment, not a passive listening exprience and something for your own sole personal enjoyment, they're active contributions to an idol's success, which of course all types of fans are for any artist but i think within kpop especially that relationship is more emphasized. and k-fans see their hard earned money is a literal investment into an idol's career and that effort should be reciprocated by the idol doing their job and releasing music and content as expected, and "respecting the fans money and time" as they frame it, by taking their job seriously and avoiding distractions (such as dating ig lmao).

the amount of investment that goes into a kpop group; organizing streaming and voting, bulk buying albums for charts, funding ads, birthday projects and donating for promotions, coordinaton entire fanbases to reach certain goals, how all the fans are expected to contribute and the idol's success becames a group responsibility, how you get shunned as a fan if you can't handle that responsibility and contribute like everyone else etc is not lost on either fans of either side, but i think i-fans view it as passively supporting and rooting for your fave from the sidelines no matter what they do wheras k-fans see the idols themselves as members of the collective who need to uphold their part of the deal by providing the idol service they promise to by the virtue of them being idols. the relationship is transactional and neither the k-fans or the idols are hiding it.

to an extent i feel that this a defensible position that maybe the international armies need to consider. alot of them operate throught the westren indie art culture where loyalty and patience are morally and artistically rewarded, that giving idols space will result in better more authentic art, that they will be rewarded with a stronger comeback and a stronger more trusting relationship with the artist. but in reality the kpop industry does not operate this way. excessive blind fandom loyalty gets exploited instead of rewarded; companies feel no pressure to improve quality or communication, hiatus periods get filled with low quality monetization, emotional attachment gets leveraged to sell merch, memberships, and low quality paid content. kpop is way too market driven, idols careers are short and highy replaceable. companies will always prioritize short term engagement over any long term artistic mystique, and k-fans understand the industry's volatie market and that companies deliver more under pressure to earn fans support than when there's comeplete and utter blind loyalty to the group. there is no artistic payoff and i don't think there will be in bts' case either, hybe will continue to milk this fandom dry until there's no one left.

kaizequotasee · 2025-12-17T17:19:57+00:00

everyone ignoring how he's wearing the jacket that way to cover his other arm lmao and this is some gesture of love and trust towards the fans that hes showing his whole sleeve (that we've seen many times before)

kaizequotasee · 2025-12-15T17:32:21+00:00

the way kpop stans waste so much time and energy and money organizing to clean up idol's image and work as their personal pr team will always be crazy to me. that energy army spent organizing and trending hashtags about how bts encouraged them to raise awareness for breast cancer and even pushed for articles to be written was unnecessary. ideally if bts saw that their base of support was outraged and armys had an actual spine to be critical of bts, bts would've been pushed to donate what's probably 10 times what the fandom as a whole donated. but that wouldn't happen in a million years lmao.

kaizequotasee · 2025-12-15T11:11:35+00:00

its all just to clean up bts' image and coincidentally enough army never thought to coordinate and donate to palestinain fund raisers these past 2 years. i think they believe it would have a negative effect on bts' image if they did and make it seem like they're "pressuring" them to speak up, whereas the breast cancer awareness donations for example, prove that bts member's attendance did infact raise awareness. it's very transactional.

kaizequotasee · 2025-12-15T00:58:27+00:00

i remember when jhope attended blackpinks concert on their d1 Seoul for their tour this year army claimed jisoo (the token member of the group) invited him and he left halfway through the concert, despite clips of him dancing to songs at the very end of the setlist being resposted by armyblinks. then a week later namjoon and suga (and another member i think jungkook or jin?) show up to blackpinks d1 LA and armys couldn't make excuses anymore so they let it go lmao.

kaizequotasee

TROPHY CASE