BTS fans outraged after industry group claims hiatus will harm ‘future of South Korean music industry’
Just a week after BTS announced the group would be going on hiatus, a South Korean music industry group is incurring the ire of ARMY locals online after not-so-subtly suggesting the band’s hiatus. K-Pop superstars could have serious implications for the continued success of K-Pop around the world.
In a statement from the Korea Singers Association attributed to President Lee Ja Yeon and reposted by Korea timethe industry group has expressed concern that the BTS phenomenon will be difficult for South Korea to replicate — an odd assumption, given that many K-Pop groups have found massive success overseas in recent years.
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“I’m afraid that the ‘BTS Hallyu Wave,’ a movement possessing the greatest cultural soft power the world has ever seen, will soon die out,” Lee said, referring to the Chinese term for the K-Pop boom meaning ” Korean”. Wave.” “In the years before this movement was born, it was thought that finding the ‘Next Beatles’ would be a very difficult achievement, and now we’ve come to a point where it’s hard to hope for the ‘Next BTS’. ‘ to emerge anytime soon. Thus, there is great concern about Hallyu’s heartbeat stopping.
ARMY was quick to attack the Korea Singers Association’s statement, chastising the group for placing unrealistic expectations on BTS, whose members have openly spoken of burnout in the past. The backlash was so fierce that “LEAVE BTS ALONE” quickly rose to the top of Twitter’s trending topics once fans caught wind of the release.
“I did not register to be a missionary of the Hallyu wave and Korean culture”, a fan wrote on Twitter, while another fan on Reddit wrote, “BTS didn’t post an hour-long video explaining everything to make people feel bad about them to keep working.”
Lee also suggests that without BTS, South Korea will lose its cultural cachet as a go-to destination for international K-Pop fans, as BTS enthusiasts will find other artists or groups to support. “If BTS leaves, the missionaries of Hallyu and Korean culture, ARMYs, also leave,” she said in the statement. “South Korea’s tourism industry will suffer and it will be difficult to hope for a future for South Korea as a cultural hub in Asia.”
Last week, BTS – made up of members Jin, Jimin, RM, J-Hope, Suga, V and Jungkook – broke the news of the hiatus to fans during a pre-recorded segment as part of the group’s annual FESTA celebration. . A BTS representative later said rolling stone that the break is designed to allow members to explore other opportunities outside of group boundaries. “Right now, we’ve lost our direction, and I just want to take some time to reflect,” RM said during the FESTA video, explaining that “the whole idol system” means K-Pop artists don’t have “time to mature.” Jimin also spoke about the group’s burnout, calling their efforts to re-examine and reinvent the BTS brand an “exhausting and time-consuming process.”
After worried fans wondered if the hiatus would ultimately lead to a complete disbandment of BTS, Jungkook spoke at length about the hiatus in a livestream the next day. “Let me tell you again: we’re not going to break up,” he said in the video. “We still have a lot of work to do as a group, and we will continue to do more in the future.” He later added, “BTS is forever.”
The band’s hiatus came days after the release of their extensive anthology album, Evidence – a three-CD collection featuring fan favorites plus three new songs and a handful of previously unreleased demos. The band also recently performed at the Grammys, headlined a Las Vegas residency and visited the White House to discuss rising anti-Asian sentiment in the United States.
J-Hope will be the first BTS member to show off his solo efforts when he headlines Lollapalooza this summer. Jimin, Suga, and Jungkook also plan to release solo projects in the future.
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