Publishing ARMY Stories Helps Us Reclaim Our Narrative
Like most fandoms that have a large proportion of female fans, ARMY has fought numerous battles with mainstream media characterizations of the fandom. Often reduced to “obsessive” or “crazed” “little girls,” ARMY has called for better representation time and time again. Though the tides are starting to change here and there, we have something much more powerful at our disposal: the ability to tell our own stories.
With the ubiquitous nature of social media and the possibility for nearly anyone to create a website, blog, or YouTube channel, ARMY don’t have to accept the narratives perpetuated by media gatekeepers. Instead, we can take charge, at least in part, of the overarching story that will endure as part of pop culture and music history.
Like many others, I’ve been trying to find my place both in fandom and in the world for a while now. Part of my ARMY journey specifically has included my attempts to create thoughtful and fair content about BTS and ARMY. (As they say, if you want something done right, you’ll have to do it yourself.) With the launch of I am ARMY: It’s time to begin, a collection of autoethnographic essays that explore ARMY journeys in relation to identity, mental health, self-love, and more, I was able to contribute to our shared story in a way I had previously only dreamed of.
In my chapter, “Finding BTS gave me back myself,” I trace the path I took to becoming an ARMY and how being involved in the BTS world has impacted my mental health, capacity for self-love, and general outlook on life. When I graduated from college and moved to a new city to take a job, I shut down in many ways. I’ve dealt with anxiety and depression for most of my life, but this level of disengagement was new for me.
“As I attempted to learn how to balance real life, work, and two educational programs, the weight of all the change I had experienced in such a short time, after an entire lifetime of so little change, began to weigh heavy. I spent a couple of months mostly shut down. Every day was a similar routine … Rather than participating in life, I was merely existing. … Was this really how I was supposed to live for the rest of my life?”
Stuck in a rut and learning to live with mental health conditions, I wasn’t adjusting very well to adult life. But thankfully, as I slowly descended down the “rabbit hole” of BTS content, I began to see the world a bit differently. I found hope and happiness in BTS’ content, ranging from their music and lyrics to their live content and vlogs, all the way to the Bangtan Universe. I’ve since dedicated much time and effort to contemplating BTS’ content and attempting to share my own content to help uplift the mainstream image of both BTS and ARMY. To be sure, BTS is only a part of my story, but a critical part nonetheless. For over five years now, I’ve drawn so much inspiration and comfort from their work that I can’t even begin to imagine what my life would have looked like if I hadn’t acted on the urge to look more closely at BTS all those years ago.
“I will continue to be shaped by BTS-related content, with the hope that I will also be continually inspired to change and improve both myself and my mental health.”
As fans of a Korean boy group, we have a lot of prejudice, assumptions, and misconceptions to undo; perhaps we won’t be able to erase them all. But all that matters is that we try, each in our own way, to put forth our true stories. Documenting fandom experiences, especially for a fandom that defines this generation of music, is crucial. Relying on others to do it for us just surrenders our own power and agency, which we can instead employ to help write our own history. Writing about oneself is often a challenge, but it’s a challenge worth taking. Sure, it’ll be awkward and weird at times, and if you’re anything like me, you may feel as if you don’t have a story to tell. However, there is true power, hope, and healing in writing one’s story. Like Namjoon said in his speech at the United Nations, “find your voice by speaking yourself.”
If you’d like to read the personal stories of nine ARMY from around the world, you can pick up your copy of I am ARMY: It’s time to begin from Revolutionaries or Amazon.
Courtney Lazore is a writer/editor with special interests in BTS, Korean history and culture, and fan studies. You can find her on her website The BTS Effect or on Twitter.
