Bangtan Remixed delves into the cultural impact of celebrated K-Pop boy band BTS, exploring their history, aesthetics, fan culture, and capitalist moment. The collection’s contributors—who include artists, scholars, journalists, activists, and fans—approach BTS through inventive and wide-ranging transnational perspectives. From tracing BTS’s hip hop genealogy to analyzing how the band’s mid-2020 album reflects the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrating how Baroque art history influences BTS’s music videos, the contributors investigate BTS’s aesthetic heritage. They also explore the political and technological dimensions of BTS’s popularity with essays on K-Pop and BTS’s fan culture as frontiers of digital technology, the complex relationship between BTS and Blackness, the impact of anti-Asian racism on BTS’s fandom, and the challenges BTS poses to conservative norms of gender and sexuality. Bangtan Remixed shows how one band can inspire millions of fans and provide a broad range of insights into contemporary social and political life.
Contributors. Andrea Acosta, Patty Ahn, Carolina Alves, Inez Amihan Anderson, Allison Anne Gray Atis, Kaina “Kai” Bernal, Mutlu Binark, Jheanelle Brown, Sophia Cai, Michelle Cho, Mariam Elba, Ameena Fareeda, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, Rosanna Hall, Dal Yong Jin, JIN Youngsun, Despina Kakoudaki, Yuni Kartika, Alptekin Keskin, Rachel Kuo, Marci Kwon, Courtney Lazore, Regina Yung Lee, S. Heijin Lee, Wonseok Lee, Amanda Lovely, Melody Lynch-Kimery, Maria Mison, Noel Sajid I. Murad, Sara Murphy, UyenThi Tran Myhre, Rani Neutill, Johnny Huy Nguyễn, Mimi Thi Nguyen, Karlina Octaviany, Nykeah Parham, Stefania Piccialli, Raymond San Diego, Hannah Ruth L. Sison, Prerna Subramanian, Havannah Tran, Andrew Ty, Gracelynne West, Yutian Wong, Jaclyn Zhou
- Cover
- Contents
- Note on Terminology and Romanization
- Acknowledgments
- Intro · On Bangtan Remixed: A Critical BTS Reader
- I: “You Can Call Me Artist, You Can Call Me IDOL!”
- 01· Tradition, Transition, and Trends: Contextualizing BTS’s Gugak-Inspired Performance of “IDOL”
- 02· Hustlin’ until Dope: How BTS’s Rap Line Cultivated Their Hip-Hop Identities
- 03· “Life Goes On”: Social and Musical Space in BTS’s Midpandemic Album BE
- 04· Blood, Sweat, and Tears: BTS, Bruegel, and the Baroque
- 05· Martha and the Swans: BTS, “Black Swan,” and Cold War Dance History
- II: “Mikrokosmos”
- 06· The Platformization of K-Pop: From Weverse to NFTs
- 07· Under the Same Sky: Synchronicity in BTS Media, Online and Offline
- 08· Bridging the Senses: Medium and Materiality from Music Videos to Graphic Lyrics
- 09· Sweet Chili and Cajun: Tasting the Power of Language with the BTS McDonald’s Meal
- 10· Fragmentary Redemptions: ARMY, RPF, and the AU at the Heart of the Bangtan Universe
- 11· “Black Guy Reacts to BTS for the First Time”: Provocations from a Black ARMY
- 12· “Your Story Becomes Our Universe”: Fan Edits, Shitposts, and the BTS Database
- 13· Jung Kook’s Button, or the GIF That Keeps on Giving
- III: “Not Today”
- 14· Empire Goes On: Transpacific Circuits of Care Work
- 15· Like a Criminal Undercover: Love, Hate, and the Performance of Inclusion
- 16· Recoding the Bot: ARMY and Digital Transgression
- 17· Break the Structure: BTS ARMY Digital Activism and State Surveillance in Indonesia’s Omnibus Law Protest
- 18· From Purple to Pink: The Filipino ARMY for Leni and the Fight for Good Governance
- 19· “Yoongi, Can You Hear Me?”: Demanding Justice for #Melisa and ARMY Activism in Turkey
- 20 · “Spring Day”: Nostalgia, Pop Mediation, and Public Mourning
- Interlude· “Magic Shop”: So Show Me, I’ll Show You (My Fanart)
- Plate 1. My Universe —Rosanna Hall
- Plate 2. Crimson Blooming —Carolina Alves
- Plate 3. <Archive for Bangtan Universe—YET TO COME> —JIN Youngsun
- Plate 4. “Spring Day” —Yuni Kartika
- Plate 5. Diary of Youth: “Justice” —Maria Mison
- Plate 6. Cultural Rebellion Pt. 1 —Kaina “Kai” Bernal
- Plate 7. Minority without a Model —Johnny Huy Nguyễn
- Plate 8. BTS Stands for Bisexuals, Trans Folks, & Sapphics —Havannah Tran
- Plate 9. Namjooning —Ameena Fareeda
- Plate 10. Namjoon and the Sirens —Amanda Lovely
- Plate 11. Being cute / Pays mah bills —Prerna Subramanian
- Plate 12. Learning Radical Love through BTS —Gracelynne West
- Plate 13. BFFs (Butter Friends Forever) —Sophia Cai
- Plate 14. Light It Up Like Dynamite —Inez Amihan Anderson and Mimi Thi Nguyen
- Plate 15. Gifts —Yutian Wong
- IV: “You Never Walk Alone”
- 21· The Skinship Diaries
- 22· “Gender DOES NOT Exist Outside of Patriarchy”: Flower Boys, Gender Envy, and the Radical Possibilities of JIMIN GENDER
- 23· Permission to Desire
- 24· Fifty Shades of Butter: Consensual Nonconsent in BTS Fan Fiction
- 25· Bangtan Scholars and the Ethics of Care
- 26· Sincerely Yours, ARMY: Exploring Fandom as Curatorial Methodology
- 27· The Digital ARMY-Ummah: Faith and Community among Muslim BTS Fans
- 28· “Let Us Light Up the Night”: BTS and Abolitionist Possibilities at the End of the World
- Outro · For Youth
- Bangtan Glossary
- Contributors
- Index
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