BTS’s Achievements And Massive Global Fan Base Speak Much Louder Than Their Racist Critics

BTS delivered a stirring speech at the 75th UN General Assembly on Wednesday about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Korean pop septet offered a concise, heartfelt message about the need for hope in the face of adversity. 

"COVID-19 was beyond my imagination. Our world tour was totally cancelled, all our plans went away, and I became alone,” RM said. The singer urged fans to “dream about a future when our worlds can break out of our small rooms again” and implored them, “Life goes on. Let’s live on.” 

“If there’s something I can do, if our voices can give strength to people, then that’s what we want and that’s what we’ll keep on doing,” Jungkook added.

It was a message that many fans around the world needed to hear, and it reinforced BTS’s status as not just one of the biggest pop artists in the world, but agents for positive social change. Not everybody was impressed, though. Anne McElvoy, senior editor of The Economist, responded to a tweet about BTS’s “message of hope” with a terse “please no” and received swift backlash from members of the BTS ARMY. McElvoy later deleted her tweet, saying it “was in jest and I’m sorry it was taken the wrong way”—but not before several other journalists and media figures came to her defense, making more snide, discriminatory remarks about the group in the process. 

ITV game show The Chase member Anne Hegerty was perhaps the worst offender, tweeting, “All this about a little Korean boy band that's fundamentally not important?” Meanwhile, Lit Media author Frances Weetman tweeted that “K Pop fans should not be directing vile abuse towards a journalist working for the Economist simply because she made a dismissive comment about their idols,” kicking off a days-long Twitter war and prompting a deluge of criticism that included numerous death and rape threats, some of which Weetman screenshot and retweeted. 

Let me be clear: Death and rape threats are never appropriate responses to criticism or insensitive remarks. As a fellow journalist and recipient of death threats for criticism I’ve written in the past, I empathize with Weetman on that front. But what Weetman, Hegerty and McElvoy all failed to highlight were the myriad thoughtful responses from BTS fans explaining why their comments were hurtful, with many of those fans linking them to examples of discrimination they faced in their own lives.  

These writers’ remarks are just the latest in a string of racist, xenophobic comments levied against BTS over the last several years. In February, Howard Stern Show staffer Salvatore “Sal” Governale claimed BTS and their team were carrying the coronavirus; when Stern called Governale on his racist comments, he doubled down, saying, “These people are traveling, they’re not locals, they’re going from country to country to country. It’s a dangerous situation.” In June of 2019, Australian TV show 20 to One co-hosts Erin Molan and Nick Cody dismissively referred to BTS as “the biggest band you’ve never heard of” and “the South Korean One Direction.” During the same segment, comedian Jimmy Carr said, “When I first heard something Korean had exploded in America, I got worried, so I guess it could have been worse—but not much worse.”

In this context, it’s easy to see why Weetman, Hegerty and McElvoy’s comments rankled BTS fans and were perceived as discriminatory. Even if some of them walked back their statements or insisted they were only joking, their halfhearted apologies rang hollow and disingenuous. This is nobody’s first day on Twitter, and to overlook the racism and xenophobia embedded in their remarks would be an act of willful ignorance.

As professional members of the media, Weetman, Hegerty and McElvoy should have understood this context and known that their comments would be received poorly. Yet white critics often don’t realize the extent to which their insensitive remarks hurt POC artists and fans, because they have the luxury of not having to constantly think about or dodge those microaggressions. And even if they didn’t mean for their BTS comments to hurt fans, they don’t have the right to dictate how fans react to them.

Also implicit in these types of comments—particularly Hegerty’s—is an insidious sexism and ageism. Critics often dismiss BTS’s musical and cultural achievements by arguing that their fan base consists solely of hysterical teenage girls who can’t make informed decisions about music and pop culture. Not only is this faulty logic—teenage girls are arguably the most important demographic among musical tastemakers—but it’s also patently untrue. The BTS ARMY comprises people of all genders, ages, races, ethnicities, career fields and socioeconomic statuses. It’s fine to dislike an artist’s music, but to deny the cultural significance of an artist—especially one that just spoke at the UN General Assembly—just because you dislike them is a fool’s errand.

By any conceivable metric, it’s virtually impossible to deny BTS’s global cultural impact. The group has earned four consecutive No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and just scored its first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Dynamite.” They’ve sold millions of albums around the world, packed stadiums with ease and shattered numerous viewership records on YouTube. They’ve given rousing speeches about self-love and perseverance on global stages, and they’ve given to numerous charitable causes, including $1 million donations to Black Lives Matter and Live Nation’s Crew Nation in June. Far from “the biggest band you’ve never heard of,” BTS is now a global household name. The group still faces racist, xenophobic comments from shortsighted critics, as demonstrated this week—but even then, BTS’s name is still on their lips.

This trend is hardly new. For decades, critics have refused to acknowledge certain artists as cultural phenomena because they didn’t understand their appeal, and instead lashed out at those artists and their fans. But that behavior is rooted in insecurity and ignorance. Just because critics don't recognize the cultural significance of something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. At this point, BTS’s ever-growing list of accolades speaks for itself, and their passionate fans drown out their critics. In the face of baseless criticisms, fans can take solace in RM’s words from the UN General Assembly: “Life goes on. Let’s live on.” 

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