BTS’ origins were humble at best; the members have never forgotten despite the success and fame they have gained. ARMY knows this very well, too. The fandom has increased in number a lot as well, illustrating how much BTS has grown. It’s somewhat nostalgic and impressive to look back on when reaching 1 million views on Youtube in 16 hours with I Need U was a big achievement, while now Butter surpassed 100 million views in 21 hours, achieving a total of 113 million views by the end of the first tracking day.
Things are different now. Going through thick and thin means that BTS and ARMY together have learned a few tricks on how to stay afloat in the industry, making a place for us to enjoy each other’s support, instead of being at its mercy.
Growing in the Industry:
1. Entertainment & Music
It’s a well-known fact that Korean TV and reality shows treated BTS unfairly. What was supposed to be a way to expose the group to a bigger audience to get recognition and promotion ended up backfiring for reasons that the organizers of the shows unreasonably thought would justify their behavior. Coming from a small company, BTS had no privileges. This meant little airing time, performing with lights off or their time being cut, participating in subunits, and other aspects of mistreatment. That is how and why “RUN BTS!” was born. To this day, BTS’ channel is the most followed on VLive, and the show is still thriving in the six years since first release in 2015.
ARMY’s favorite activity is updating streaming strategies and step-by-step guides to stream BTS’ music correctly and functionally. The results? The charts speak clearly. Spotify’s tracking, Youtube views, IFPI’s reports all speak one language: BTS keeps breaking records and their numbers get larger day by day, regardless of the industry’s scams and dirty deceptions.
An example? Butter surpassed 20.9 million unfiltered streams on Spotify, which later were knocked to 11 million. But despite all the criticism BTS receives, despite articles saying that “BTS And Their Fan Army Are Rendering The Pop Charts Useless” while not-so-subtly trailing competition songs (says Forbes) the numbers speak volumes. BTS has been awarded the Global Recording Artist of the Year Award for 2020 from IFPI with MAP OF THE SOUL: 7.
Frances Moore, IFPI’s Chief Executive, said: “BTS are a global phenomenon. They have had another outstanding year, releasing three albums, and continually finding creative and engaging ways to share their story with the world. They truly show the power that music has to bring joy and happiness to people the world over.”
2. Business: Company changes and Weverse expansion
Big Hit Entertainment has been expanding its horizons for a while now. They’ve acquired some “smaller but strong talent agencies,” while “investing and developing new projects, as well as “expanding into non-musical businesses,” says South China Morning Post.
Early in 2021, there came some news. Bit Hit Entertainment changed their name to HYBE Corporation, and their logo now states: “starts with music, variates, and expands;” they have a new slogan, too, “we believe in music.” The company moved location and established into a new building, offering insights into the innovations in a 40-minute-long video. Even the intro to their artist’s MV is new, and many fans were sad to see the well-loved old one go.
We could gather all their properties in 2 big groups. The first one being the business branches: HYBE Solutions, which manages the company’s technology projects such as HYBE Edu, and HYBE Platforms to manage Weverse. The second one, then is the musical branches: HYBE Labels to manage music, and artists, and HYBE America, the American branch that merged with Ithaca Holdings, house of many popular Western artists.
Despite these changes, Big Hit Music, the new name of the branch that houses BTS, TXT and Lee Hyun, operates 100% independently.
This development proves how HYBE Corporation keeps up with the growth of the industry and society. However, something that has not changed is that they encourage flexibility and creativity, as well as keeping their mindset set on growth and improvement, both interpersonal and intrapersonal within the company. When they announced these changes in March, Bang Si Hyuk said that by removing “entertainment” from the name shows that their mission is to have “a new, comprehensive image as a general content group.”
As HYBE kept acquiring and merging with new companies, more artists were added to the Weverse platform, showing the latter’s growth along with the company as their only global fan platform at the moment.
Keeping up with the future
All these changes and big numbers are a lot to digest, but watching the glory go to BTS truly is rewarding.
What ARMY can do in these particularly sensitive moments, because of the pandemic and the changes that have been going on (besides HYBE), is to continue to support and cherish BTS and their hard work, just like we always do, while keeping up the wholesome interactions and supporting one another.
DISCLAIMER: We do not own any audio & visual content in this video except for the editing. ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO THE RIGHTFUL OWNERS. No copyright infringement intended.
Written by Antonella
Edited by Mheer
Checked by Aury
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