Introduction
BTS is a K-pop group that debuted on June 13, 2013. I've been stanning them since around 2015, when I was just 14 or 15 years old – a teenage girl who loved to dance. At that time, I didn't have any real friends. The people I tried to be friends with ignored me and didn't want to include me. That's when BTS became something more than just a music group to me.
The group has seven members: RM (leader, rapper), Jin (visual, vocalist), Suga (rapper), J-Hope (rapper, dancer), Jimin (vocalist, dancer), V (vocalist), and Jungkook (vocalist, dancer, and the youngest, or maknae). My bias is Jungkook – his passion, talent, and hard work inspired me deeply. Through BTS's music and messages, I found comfort, strength, and a sense of belonging when I felt completely alone. Being an ARMY gave me hope and helped me believe in myself again.
How it all started.
I don't remember the exact year, but it was sometime around 2015 or 2016 when I first became an ARMY. At that time, K-pop was still a new world to me, and everything started by accident, one quiet evening at my neighbor's house.
My uncle would often charge his Android phone at our neighbor's place. Back then, not many people had Android phones—especially not us. At home, we only had a TV, and my dad's phone wasn't Android, so the idea of watching videos on a phone felt like a luxury. Every evening, my siblings, cousin, and I would sneak into the living room while my uncle was busy, eagerly watching the phone screen as we discovered something that would change everything for us: BTS music videos.
We would secretly watch BTS's MVs on his phone, and it became our little ritual. My uncle never knew, but we were all so drawn to the music, the performances, and the energy of BTS. We loved how they made us feel, and before we knew it, BTS had a special place in our hearts.
My neighbor's house had two boys—siblings. As we watched more MVs, our interest in K-pop only grew. Soon, we started liking other groups like BLACKPINK, EXO, GOT7, Red Velvet, and TWICE. But no matter how much we enjoyed EXO, BTS always held the top spot in our hearts. We'd watch BTS more than anything else.
One night, our secret was out. My uncle walked in to see all of us crowded around his phone, eyes glued to the screen. He wasn't happy about it, and from then on, he never let us use his phone to watch anything. But that didn't stop us. We found a way—soon, we started watching BTS on the TV instead, and our love for them only grew stronger.
Around that time, I also love too dancing. I'd perform at every local event in my hometown, and I spent hours learning K-pop dances from BTS, BLACKPINK, and other groups. I would practice their choreographies over and over, but I never performed their songs on stage. I never felt confident enough to do it perfectly. Instead, I stuck to performing English songs that I could manage better.
Then, one day, we got a tablet at home, and that was when everything changed. With the tablet, we could watch even more K-pop and K-dramas, from all over the world—C-dramas, Thai series, and of course, more K-pop. We spent hours on that tablet, diving deeper into the world of K-pop. We were obsessed, and K-pop became an inseparable part of our lives.
Looking back, those were the days that started it all—the days when I fell in love with BTS, and K-pop became my world.