The PRC proved no match for ARMY. When the K-pop superstar group BTS acknowledged the shared sacrifice of Americans and Koreans as they received the Korea Society’s James A. Van Fleet Award, named after a U.S. general during the Korean War, Chinese social media roiled with outrage, perceiving BTS’s message to be a slight against Chinese soldiers in the war. The Global Times, China’s state-owned tabloid, blasted the group for its “one-sided attitude” that “negate[d] history.” Online stores began pulling BTS-related product, anticipating the kind of nationalist frenzy that has cost giant franchises like the NBA and the South Korean supermarket store Lotte hundreds of millions of dollars in the past.
But China’s media offensive against the kings of K-pop barely lasted two days. Global Times quietly deleted some of its articles criticizing BTS, and the negativity against the group in Chinese social media also faded quickly. Some Chinese fans’ call for a boycott hardly made a dent on BTS, supported by their worldwide fan club “ARMY” (which stands for Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth, if you were wondering). Shortly after they received the Van Fleet Award, BTS became one of only five music groups in history to seize the top two spots simultaneously on Billboard’s Hot 100 songs chart, joining the Beatles and Bee Gees among others. Last week’s initial public offering of Big Hit Entertainment, BTS’s production company, was among the most successful IPOs in the history of the Korean stock market as its share price nearly doubled on the first day.
