BTS being Cancelled?!

Sometimes, we may be too sensitive to the wordings or gestures, and we participate in cancel culture. We tended to consider things to be wrong and displeased when those behaviours crossed, even slightly, the baseline we set in our brain. This culture has always presumed as an American and Europe prevailing trend and the majority cancelled cases occurred in those countries, we called mainstreams. Here, however, the cancel behaviour that happened in the K-pop field may draw everyone’s attention -- the call-out of cancelling BTS in China.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTv9N2V2gMo

Last year in early October, BTS received an award in the Van Fleet Award, which is rewarding the non-profit organization’s contributions to South Korea-US ties. ‘We will always remember the history of pain that our two nations shared together and the sacrifice of countless men and women,’ quoting the receiving speech from RM, the leader of BTS. The ‘history of pain’ mentioned here refers to Korean War in 1950-1953, in which the US joined the war by supporting the capitalist bloc in South Korea to fight against the communist bloc in North Korea during the Cold War. During wartime, China assisted North Korea in countering the opposite bloc beyond the dividing line.

Right after the release of the virtual ceremony video on Youtube, Chinese fans found the speech offended and felt be ‘humiliated’. They claimed RM was ignoring the casualties and pain China came across in the Korean War. What happened next, fans altered their attitude towards BTS from love to hatred. Worthy to mention, BTS was scheduling their comeback in November last year by bringing the ‘BE’ album upon surface. Because of this issue, fans announced a boycott on BTS and retracted the pre-orders of the new album.

China obtains a large market in the K-pop industry and enthusiastic fans contributed so much to the effort of the sale race in purchasing multiple albums once K-pop idols make their comeback. Although there were fans who kept silent to wait for the surge pass away, the backlash in BTS Chinese fandom was still difficult to estimate. Until now, it seems the Chinese fans resume their BTS fever while some quitted the fandom forever.

Back to the speech, there weren’t any wordings have directly pointed to China. In the sense of South Korea, the US was a helper during the war. Yet, the Chinese considered the Korean War as the war to counter the US aggression to North Korea, which the Chinese were sighting differently from South Koreans’. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman put on the idea of learning the history and looking forward to building a peaceful and strong Sino-Korean friendship. This announcement simply showed the opposite side with the Chinese media user in the BTS dispute.

Sometimes, people are too sensitive to be annoyed by some subtle actions and too impatient to start the cancel of the targets’ careers and their lives. It is not always right to judge others without deep thinking and participate in cancel culture.

---

Reference

201007 - BTS - Van Fleet Award speech - KOREA Society 2020 Gala [Video file]. (2020, October 07). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTv9N2V2gMo&t=165s

BTS in trouble in China OVER Korean War comments. (2020, October 13). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54513408

Dong, S. (2020, October 15). What 'bts controversy' says about China's political situation. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2020/10/732_297622.html