I'm sort of past the point of caring if people get mad at me or drag me for this, so if you have nothing nice to say, please just move on. But I'd like if at least some people could hear me out and understand where I'm coming from.

I got into BTS in 2013, with the release of Boy in Luv, and I was into them hardcore. Bought all their CDs, got a shitload of posters, even started dedicatedly streaming which was something I'd never done before. Probably important to note that I'm a multi and always have been, so while I considered myself an Army and BTS was one of my top 3 groups at the time, I was also an avid listener of EXO, Infinite, B1A4, and other groups. I remember how much fun the fandom was when it was small, a lot of the tumblr-army knew each other, and I remember desperately wishing that more people knew about this group and stanned this group because God damn it they DESERVED it.

Then BTS blew up with I Need U. I was still having fun. This is around the time that I got my BTS tattoo, which I still have and get compliments on all the time. It fucking rocks. No regrets.

Around 2016-2017 is the time that I started to get fandom fatigue from the Army in my life. People got more militant with streaming. People in my circles started insisting that if you streamed or monetarily supported other artists, you were a Bad Army. Anything not explicitly pro-BTS was anti-BTS. Anyone who didn't like BTS was a racist somehow, even if they liked other kpop. I had to distance myself from a lot of self-righteous friends during this time, and I got attacked by some people who had been in the fandom for only a year or two because they didn't believe that I was a "real Army". This is the first time that people started weaponizing my love of other groups against me.

When BTS started picking up momentum in the west, there came a mindset that "every kpop stan must support BTS in the west so that BTS can become popular in America" and "if you don't like BTS' changing musical style then you are xenophobic and/or not a true fan". Lost one of my best friends primarily due to this mindset. Distanced myself completely from the fandom.

Now in 2023, as BTS are releasing their solo music, I'm still tuning in and excited to see what the members are doing, but I have no online spaces to share honest opinions or feelings about what used to be one of my favorite groups. I loved Hope World but wasn't a huge fan of Arson and expressed that I hoped he would revisit his old style, which apparently makes me a hater. I despised the autotune on Jimin's solo work, which also makes me a bad person (I also had someone go through my post history and threaten to doxx me because I argued with them that Jimin doesn't own the word Face and they have no right to be upset with Key for using it for his album AGES ago). I'm really vibing with Tae's solo stuff but I've seen some nasty Army on Twitter getting upset that his numbers aren't high enough and it's caused me to just mute his name. On r/kpopthoughts and r/kpoprants you literally can't express any discontent with BTS or Army as a whole without getting downvoted and harassed and spammed with Reddit Cares messages. Even if you say "some army are doing x on Twitter" you get flooded with "NOT ALL ARMY!" or my favorite "those aren't real Army!". I've got bad news for you, a fandom with a lot of toxic members is a toxic fandom, and whether you consider the toxic fans to be "real" is irrelevant.

I honestly just miss the unity and the good vibes of 2013/2014 Army fandom. Back when you could say "I didn't really vibe with No More Dream" and people wouldn't drag you to hell and back and try to revoke your fan card. It's not fun to interact with a group of people who don't let you have opinions, and I wish I knew a group of Army who were okay with me NOT thinking everything BTS does is high art. Some of their shit is amazing, other songs are just okay or even not to my taste but it's not me trying to hate on or diminish the group... that's just how subjective taste works!!

Anyway this is my tester to see if this is actually an uncensored subreddit... interested to hear other opinions 😂