on BTS and billboard charts

Welcome back to BTS and Other Things.

Since when has anyone given a flying fuck about a Billboard chart?

These things are not determined by some open-ended metric for artists across the world to compete and build their platform. These charts don’t work for you unless your team is in the US — maybe the UK and Canada with some exceptions. The industry as a whole doesn’t. It is dominated and strangled not by Americans, not by some clearly paved road through which any artist in The West can find success, but by certain companies, certain executives, certain budgets for certain hegemonies.

With that said, your chart now exists for my favorite band’s trophy case. That’s it. It’s a mechanism through which the BTS fandom can give BTS a token of recognition, give onlookers a reminder of this group’s ability, and piss industry people off. Your entertainment establishment status symbol is now a teenager from California’s three-pronged dopamine rush.

Nobody’s going broke from this shit. We literally raise money so people can spend it on this. We mostly have lives. I can’t speak for some of the strange folks I see on the timeline. I hope all of them are well. I’m doing spectacularly, myself.

Stop deflecting from the actual issue. This was never about fans ruining the integrity of the industry through mass…