It’s no secret that BTS has been battling against questionable media coverage in the West since they got here - it seems as though either the press doesn’t take them seriously and the interview sounds like a candy-coated fangirl fantasy, or the interviewer has a clear agenda they’re looking to fulfill.
Regrettably, the article we’re going to talk about today had a bit of both.
It’s an unpleasant reality, but there are a number of instances where the agenda is specifically to not take the subject seriously because the statement they want to make is that the subject isn’t of note. A triviality.
We don’t need to remind you of the disastrous Hollywood Reporter article that was published a few weeks ago. Ideally, we would have had this blog out a lot faster, but ultimately the sort of analysis we wanted to do shouldn’t be rushed - not with everything we need to cover here.
And boy howdy is there a lot.
Let’s start with the title. Yes, you read that right - they didn’t even get past the title before we encounter the first problem.
The headline reads “BTS Is Back: Music’s Billion-Dollar Boy Band Takes the Next Step” (emphasis mine). While referring to BTS as a boy band is technically true in the sense that they are all men, and the term generally used isn’t “man band”, there is a distinct connotation to the term “boy band” - at least here in the US. Using the term “boy band” puts the group in a specific place and makes a very clear statement about the quality level this article’s author thinks that BTS has.
There are several other terms they could have chosen which would convey the same thing: power group, Korean megastars, billion-dollar band of brothers (if you simply had to have the alliteration) - any of these could have worked. But no - they chose “boy band.” It is dismissive, diminutive, and a definite downplay on their talents. (See what I did there?)
Unfortunately, however, as most situations do, things only went downhill from here.
The article weirdly vacillates between seemingly solid facts and opinionated phrasing. To show you what we mean, we broke down a couple of sections with color-coded statements: Blue to show statements that were okay and Orange to show statements that were questionable.
While we’d love to break this article down line by line like in these graphics, we could be here until sometime next year discussing all the minutiae of how this article didn’t pass the bar. Instead, we’ll focus on a few overarching topics that put this article distinctly in the “no” pile.
Uninformed, Unreliable Narrator
The man says it himself: “I admit to being a little fuzzy on some of the finer points of BTS history…”
On the surface, this is refreshing honesty. After all, admitting that you know you aren’t an expert on something opens room for growth. Usually.
However, in this particular case...it didn’t.
First, we must discuss his choice of sourced material. He mentions specifically that he had a “pile of BTS books” with him on his trans-Pacific flight, which is somewhat questionable. Many of these BTS books are unofficial, and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it does mean that the sources should be taken with a grain of salt. Depending on who the writers and publishers are, it’s possible these books will be written with the mentality that the audience are just “screaming fangirls,” a label ARMY has been trying to shake off since 2013.
Another issue with this type of source: the information may be outdated and therefore not useful. Case in point: the author incorrectly states that “RM” is short for Rap Monster, when in reality RM used to be short for Rap Monster. Namjoon updated his stage name to be simply “RM” in 2017. A little Googling could have told him that.
When one takes into account how readily information is available in the current news market, it makes it very hard to cut major news sites any slack. It’s doubly difficult to do so when the source itself states they don’t know much about the topic they’re writing about. And then triply so when it becomes apparent that the research done to acquaint themselves with the topic was only surface-level at best.
In the current information landscape, there’s really no excuse not to do as much Googling as possible if you’re going to write about something. Most planes offer Wi-Fi. There’s absolutely no reason not to use it. Though the good interviews with BTS are hard to find, they are out there - and they’d be a pretty good place to start.
Sensationalism
This is one of those things you know when you see it. The shock value. The clickbait. The splashy headlines that make you go “Oh my God!”
All these types of articles have a couple of things in common.
They are trying everything in their power to drag you in to read the article.
They are more often than not filled with a lot of flashy language that distorts the facts in such a way that you as the reader are more likely to be shocked than to stop and wonder if it's all true (and it probably isn't).
In other words, they're emotionally manipulating you.
We can go out on a limb here and say you probably don't tolerate this in your friends, family, and romantic partners - why should you tolerate it in your news sources?
There are a couple of examples of this sort of behavior in The Hollywood Reporter's article, but there's one that is a very low blow. Allow us to call your attention to the image below. These lines, in particular, feel especially cruel in this context.
Note the amount of orange "no-no" highlighting. It's significant. It is also indicative.
While some of the things mentioned are technically true - it is known that some other companies are not very considerate of trainee health - the way it is written here calls to mind splashy faux-exposes from the era of "gotcha journalism,” a time when rumors were displayed as facts.
Yes, the K-Pop lifestyle has things that need improvement. That's inarguable. What really makes this a particularly harsh cut is the reference to SHINee's Jonghyun. His death is a tragedy, its circumstances complex. However, this Hollywood Reporter article distills the young man's death and life into only one facet, when in reality, suicide is never that simple.
While addressing the issues in the industry is important to effecting change, the tone of this reference does not indicate that this is the reason it was included. Listing the diets and social rules would have been sufficient to enumerate the ways Big Hit is different from other agencies. Bringing Junghyun into it (and also not bothering to include his name, which also could have been easily found via Google) reads like a shock value power play.
This is also leaving aside the fact that Jonghyun’s death deeply affected RM for a number of reasons. Deep cut, there, THR. If we may be so bold, this is a disappointing level of tastelessness.
Clear bias
One could argue that this aspect is part of the other two. However, it’s worth addressing on its own. Why? Because this article could conceivably be someone’s first look into K-pop, informing their opinions of the genre and of BTS for the rest of their lives.
Additionally, the bias bleeds through multiple times. Take this section, for example:
The Western-centric bias is clear here. Note in particular the statement that they turn into “Disney animatronic figure[s]” when asked about controversial topics and that a “switch seems to flip in RM’s brain” when asked about whether or not they have reservations returning to America because of political tensions. Later, the author even states that “they have no delusions about TV or movie careers - at least not ones that require them to speak English.” (Yes, this is a direct quote).
The word choice in these two instances is what makes the statements problematic. “Animatronic” implies that they’re programmed to say the things they’re saying, as opposed to acknowledging that they have manners and tact. “Delusions” implies that they would be deceiving themselves to think they could be a part of a television program or movie that would require them to speak English.
Choosing these terms lends the article a scathing tone, especially the quote about them not being interested in acting if it requires them to speak English. It implies not only that they’d be deceiving themselves to think they could, but also that they should never be interested. Both of these would be inaccurate. First, given their proven tenacity, it is highly likely that if they ever chose to participate in English-speaking film or television, they could do so. Second, there is absolutely nothing which dictates they need to be or should be interested in being in English-speaking programs. They are a Korean group and proud of their culture - and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Overall score
As part of this recurring series (check back in two weeks when we look at the recent Rolling Stone interview), we’re going to be ranking the articles we review on a 1-5 scale with an average overall score. We even developed a rubric in order to do this in a quantifiable way, with 1 being the lowest score that an article can receive and 5 being the highest.
Except, once again, this article broke our conventions. So we had to create a new, special rank for it.
This is not a compliment.
Our score:
🖤
This actually puts us in the negatives. Given the bias, sensationalism, and basic inaccuracies, this article is actually detrimental. It has a clear agenda and uses clever brushstrokes to paint a picture with sly disses and scathing remarks. Word choice and tonality play a big part in this rating, but we also can’t forget the fact that just a little more research could have helped clear up some of these issues.
Which begs the question:
Hey, Hollywood Reporter - do you know Google?
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Written By: Anna
Edit By: Janna