PREVIOUSLY ON BTS: JUNE 13-19 7 CANDLES AND THE WISH FOR AN ETERNITY OF LOVE AND MUSIC WITH BANGTAN
7 years ago, our favorite group debuted on the long journey to stardom. Even during their toughest hardships, they never gave up on their dreams and ARMY never gave up on them. With love and music as their universal connection, BTS and ARMY are in a long-term relationship. Let’s find out how much we purpled each other last week.
June 13, 2020 생일 축합니다 BTS!
The 2020 FESTA dinner was released to celebrate their well-earned achievements where BTS recreated their first FESTA dinner from 2014. The video featured lots of laughs, cute decorations with helium balloons, various levels of cooking skills, heartwarming memories and wishes for the future. Need a tissue, ARMY?
The boys then took over social media to celebrate their anniversary in real time. On Weverse, j-hope sent a mirror photo of them rehearsing whereas RM posted a heartfelt and poetic letter to ARMY, ending with a moving “I love you more than love, ARMY”. Another tissue?
On Twitter, Jin posted a selfie. It was followed with a short, full of fun, rehearsal video, along with a photo of a studious moment between the members. All these in lieu of more birthday wishes.
On their Official Instagram Story, we got various glimpses of the boys rehearsing for BANG BANG CON The Live, with photos of them and a hashtag countdown.
Twitter announced the release of nine BTS related emojis in celebration of BTS’ 7th anniversary. Enjoy them until June 30, ARMY!
The members also created a playlist called “BTS at 7” on Apple Music, with 50 songs to celebrate the past seven years with ARMY.
BTS wrapped up their special day all together in a new segment of DJ Suga's Honey FM 06.13. They blew out candles and SUGA revealed the results of the Music Survey released during FESTA. To the members’ surprise, Spring Day ranked first in numerous categories. We are Bulletproof: The Eternal, and Blood Sweat and Tears were also among the 145,520 participants’ favorites. BTS also embodied the characters of “The Wizard of Oz” during Honey FM 06.13’s usual reading segment, giving a unique and hectic touch to the story.
They then captured the moment with two selfies of them holding their BANG BANG CON The Live tickets featuring their nicknames on them. Taehyung’s was “BigHittoWhyAreYouNotGivingMeMyPrizeMoney (for Weverse)” and Jin’s was “BangShiHyuksWife”, both equally hilarious.
BANG BANG CON The Live Day
On June 14, Big Hit dropped a surprise on their Official Facebook account titled “BTS Rolling Paper* from BTS” as a closing ceremony gift for FESTA. The pictures consisted of more profiles and thank you messages written by the members for each other.
A few hours later came the highly anticipated livestream BANG BANG CON The Live. BTS performed twelve songs plus a bit of UGH! and 00:00 (Zero O’Clock), starting with Dope and finishing with Spring Day. In their subunits, they performed Jamais Vu, Respect and Friends. About 756,000 viewers in 107 countries cheered the boys via virtual ARMY Bombs and real time comments that BTS could see. ARMY half-jokingly repeat that they are never ready when it comes to BTS. And it is true that nothing can prepare us for such high quality, surprising, diverse and endlessly renewed content (can we stop for a minute to mention their new version of Boy With Luv?)
Want more, ARMY? Spotify and Apple Music shared the setlist, and the concert set a record for the world's largest global audience ever to have paid for an online concert. If you wait a bit longer, you’ll also be gifted with our full recap soon.
After the concert, Jin, RM ,SUGA and j-hope shared selfies with heartwarming messages for ARMY on Twitter. Jungkook posted a selfie with BTS’ birthday cake on Weverse. We also received a video of the boys taking turns making hearts on Instagram and two post-concert pictures on Twitter.
Post(s)-FESTA
To keep the birthday mood alive, Big Hit posted episode 15 of “Learn Korean with BTS” all about birthdays, cakes and wishes.
On June 15, Jimin sent his love to ARMY on multiple platforms. He posted a touching letter on BTS’ Fancafe and selfies with sweet captions on Weverse and Weibo. He also went live on YouTube the following day to update us with their forthcoming album process and to reaffirm his gratitude and love.
Remember when Big Hit announced that there would be a Bangtan Universe based drama, ARMY? Well, filming starts in September, and it will be titled “Blue Sky”. Auditions are being processed and the drama is expected to air next year.
ARMY knows how much RM likes “namjooning” and we were glad to see him be able to enjoy art galleries again. He celebrated it by posting photos on Twitter with the caption “For the first time in a while”.
Weekly Milestones and collabs
As a birthday present to BTS, ARMY managed to get We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal MV surpass over 10 million views on YouTube, only a day after its release.
On June 14, ON came back at #1 on the Melon charts with all of the MOTS : 7 tracks in the Top 17. Speaking of MOTS: 7, the album has spent the most weeks at #1 ever in Melon Album Chart History and 16 consecutive weeks on Billboard 200 Chart. It has also been ranked one of the best 50 albums of 2020 so far by Rolling Stone and has surpassed 2 billion digital points on Gaon. Last but not least, the album also topped the Japanese Oricon Chart with 429 009 copies sold in the first half of the year, making BTS the first foreign artist in 36 years to do so.
Meanwhile, BANGTANTV surpassed 31M subscribers and BTS’ Official Instagram account reached 26M followers. On top of that, the boys are the only artists in Twitter history to have 31 tweets with 2M or more likes.
The new 2020 “I Seoul U” teaser from Seoul Tourism Organization is out on YouTube. BTS have been the ambassadors for Seoul City since 2017.
The Samsung Galaxy Buds + BTS Edition is now available for preorder on Weverse Shop. They cost $198 and come with a BTS Edition Smart Cover and photocards. If you want to see how they look, check the selfie j-hope posted on Twitter.
Run BTS! and Bangtan Bombs are back
A new episode of Run BTS! aired on June 16. It was all about games and clothing. After hilarious games of musical cushions and darts to determine the order, the boys took turns picking pieces of clothing they would revamp with their best DIY skills. Of course, they’ll have to wear their creations in the next episode.
A new Bangtan Bomb was also released on BANGTANTV, where BTS had fun making impressions during a break from Big Hit artist group photoshoot.
STAY GOLD
On June 19, BTS released their new catchy song Stay Gold from their upcoming fourth Japanese album Map of the Soul: 7 ~ The Journey ~ to be released on July 15. Stay Gold is their first Japanese original song since Lights (released in July 2019) and it is the theme song for the upcoming Japanese drama, "Spiral Labyrinth ~DNA Science Investigation”. It is pure delight for the ears; you can experience the magic here:
What a week! BTS will never stop to amaze us with their art and the content they provide. Until our next blog, we hope that you will be able to fully recover from the 2020 FESTA and that you will enjoy streaming Stay Gold! We purple you!
Written by: Hel.B
Edited by: Alice
Designed by: Judy
*Note: In Korea, the rolling paper is a paper used to write messages to schoolmates at the end of the school year.
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