Open Collections

Wise, Kathleen M.

University of British Columbia

On May 20, 2021, the K-Pop group BTS’s music video for their second English-language single “Butter” broke the YouTube record for most views in 24 hours with 108.2 million hits. The success of this video illustrates the devotion that BTS’s diverse fanbase has for the seven-member group. Though the intimacy that fans feel with the young men of BTS is experienced from a distance, the South Korean group has inspired profound emotional attachments among their fans despite the mediation of the Internet. BTS’s proficient use of social networking sites, and the feeling of hope that emanates from their work, have attracted a passionate following and intensified parasocial relationships beyond what have historically been experienced. Using a queer hermeneutics of hope proposed by scholars like Eve Sedgwick and José Esteban Muñoz, this thesis brings together the disciplines of authenticity, celebrity, social media, and queer studies to examine the role BTS as a public persona plays in contemporary constructions of online personalities. It chronicles BTS’s history of direct engagement with fans via various social media platforms and considers how BTS’s former image as an industry underdog has supported readings of the group as authentic. Through an analysis of BTS’s content, the dichotomy of ‘extraordinary’ talent and ‘ordinary’ person is also elucidated. Additionally, this thesis identifies the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as an impetus for the current shifts in the relationship between audience and celebrity. While COVID has fostered a sense of disillusionment regarding famous figures, BTS has managed to retain their image of authenticity, encouraging the parasocial relationships felt by their fans to become heightened. By positioning BTS’s art as an antidote to the isolation and hopelessness caused by the pandemic (and the general state of our world), this thesis argues that Millennial and Gen Z fans are employing BTS as a tool for visualizing a more queer and optimistic future.

Text

2022-04-25

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/81376

Cinema and Media Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/