How BTS Cares

New research on BTS and the Ethics of Care

Hi ARMY! It’s been a while. I hope you are doing well. This edition of The BTS Effect newsletter covers some of my new research, TikTok adventures, and a quick BTS round-up! Thank you so much for being a subscriber, and feel free to let me know what you’d like to see.

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BTS and the Ethics of Care

My most recent journal article, “Culture of Care: Understanding Ethics of Care through BTS and ARMY” was published in the journal Fandom | Cultures | Research. This was more than a year in the making, and I’m so excited (and relieved) to finally have it out there.

My paper draws on the concept of the ethics of care, delving into how BTS embodies care and how ARMY reflects those expressions of care. Through a detailed analysis of BTS’s content and public actions, this paper shows how BTS use their lyrics, livestreams, social media, and behind-the-scenes video content to provide care to each other, ARMY, and the world. Similarly, ARMY’s care is directed back to BTS via support for their music, as well as toward other members of ARMY by providing services to the fandom. The ethics of care acts as a lens for better understanding both BTS’s success and ARMY’s practices, showing us how fandoms can be valuable spaces for nurturing caring relationships, helping fans improve their own community, and creating opportunities to contribute to the betterment of society.

New Book Chapter

I also had a chapter published last year in Bangtan Remixed: A Critical BTS Reader. This chapter covers ethics of care as applied to Bangtan Scholars! It was the first deeper exploration I made into the topic, and it was nice to finally see it released too (I submitted it back in 2022).

Both the journal article and the book chapter grew out of my initial conference presentation, which you can watch here:

BTS Happenings

• Yoongi was just in the news for an amazing project to help children with autism. Together with Severance Hospital, he established the Min Yoongi Treatment Center and committed to donating $3.8 million USD to help fund it.

• Hoseok wrapped up his solo tour and individual promotions in Korea, then headed to the Louis Vuitton show at Men’s Fashion Week in Paris.

• Seokjin is gearing up for his own tour, starting in just three days. Here he is in a recent behind-the-scenes video.

• Namjoon is namjooning more than ever with his appointment as Samsung Art TV Ambassador. Here he is in a talk at Art Basel.

• Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook have been mostly quiet for now—enjoy these throwbacks in the meantime.

BTS Effect on TikTok

I finally made a TikTok…

Earlier this year, I created my account on TT as I got increasingly fed up with Twitter. If you’ve been around on ARMY social media, you know that Twitter is where we were always the strongest, most visible, and most organized. I hate that we’ve lost a lot of that community. Honestly, I don’t know that we’ve ended up congregating in one place more so than another, but TT seemed like a logical place to go. So, I’ll be sharing most of my content there, as well as on Instagram. If you’re still around on Twitter, no worries. I’m staying for now, but it’s certainly not as fun as it used to be.

What’s Next?

• Upcoming book chapters: I just submitted revisions on a book chapter about the Bangtan Universe! I’ll share more about this when I can. I’m going into drafting mode again for a different chapter that covers BTS and healing through story.

• Video essays: I’m brainstorming a few for The BTS Effect YouTube, but I also welcome your ideas! (You can always respond to newsletters or leave comments with suggestions.) I love sharing research, but I know that audience is small; I’d like to make it interesting for more ARMY.

• New content: I’m thinking about how to expand my BU content/resources and potentially Learn Korean with BTS, which ended when the book series did.

Thank you for joining me in my online journey. It’s been difficult to create anything since my mom passed; even though it’s been two years now, I still feel so much internal resistance to creative work. But, I keep trying =)

The rest of my research work planned for the year is actually gaming related! I still love writing about BTS, but I’m excited to also honor this other part of myself for the first time in a long time.

See you soon,

Courtney