Season One, Episode Four “Finding Our Community” Welcome back to BFFs and Boybands, where we talk about “Friendship, Fandom, and the Boybands we love”! Carrie loves One Direction and Muse loves BTS and we talk about the things our fandoms share, how they’re different, and why we’re so invested. On this episode: We talk about our favourite part of being in fandom: the community. The boys gave us their music, but they also gave us each other. (Maybe the real boybands were the friends we made along the way?) Boy of the week: Worldwide Handsome Kim Seokjin of BTS!
Season One, Episode Four
“Finding Our Community”
00:46 So a lot’s been happening in both fandoms... and we got concert tickets!
02:48 Let’s talk about the community we’re connecting with at these concerts
03:47 How we ended up in the World’s Greatest Group Chats
06:57 The value of finding people who want to talk Boybands with you... at any time day or night
09:10 The wider community (particularly Bluesky) and how it’s been good for Muse’s mental health
10:51 You think the guys know that they gave us this awesome community?
11:49 The hailstorm at Louis’ Red Rocks concert and how fans came together to help
12:50 How ARMY charts songs to send a message
14:19 Concerts and ticketing and how we help one another
15:06 Fan charity drives
16:17 Smaller fan projects that mean the world – flowers and daily accounts
17:09 The nastier side of social media (and why we avoid Twitter)
19:10 Concert Freebies! What are they?
20:31 The phenomenon photocards and Muse talks about what the heck “boypaper” is
21:28 Concert fits and what we are planning
22:03 Fan projects, Kpop light sticks, and ARMY sign time
24:32 One Direction fan projects and how Carrie participated in one
26:45 How fan projects and freebies make concerts more fun
29:00 Rallying behind streaming and voting for our guys (we are so sunk for these men)
30:15 Boy of the Week: Kim Seokjin!
38:17 Show closing and social media
Additional notes, memes and music:
A short video on what an ARMY bomb (The BTS light stick) looks like:
https://youtube.com/shorts/oUjapFTe1RQ
Here’s the fan project Carrie helped with at Louis’ “Faith in the Future” show in Toronto:
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZS9dmrSvU/
If you’re interested in joining a fan project at Louis’ upcoming tour, we found this listing. Find the show in your area:
ARMY charity drives – you can donate online to local charities for US tour stops here:
https://arirangfoodbankproject.carrd.co/
Watch Jin do his famous “Worldwide Handsome” intro on the Graham Norton show:
https://youtu.be/wBEu2Tmy_L4?si=MOdW6ezA7lpo6j5m&t=42
Here’s Jin’s performance of “The Astronaut” with Coldplay in Buenos Aries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqmYc62HUec
Don’t miss Chris Martin’s beautiful introduction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIQDaeNkVOM
And if you’re curious about Jin’s variety show, here’s Muse’s (current) favourite episode
Songs we mention:
“Aperture” by Harry Styles
“Die for Me” by Zayn Malik
“Nuts” by RM
“Please Don't Change” by Jungkook
“Sunflowers” by Louis Tomlinson
“Saturdays” by Louis Tomlinson
“I Will Come To You” by Jin
“The Astronaut” by Jin
Listen to our Season 1 Playlist
...on Youtube Music here: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9WhMVmTww0BsmXJAZH0FSuXYaeTR1_O9&si=FqHJfIjK4g1tFH2Y
...on Tidal here: https://tidal.com/playlist/bb1a4982-6b7c-48ca-bec0-a09f41851765
...on Apple Music here: https://music.apple.com/ca/playlist/bffs-and-boybands-season-1/pl.u-PDb44KBTkP6LoK
Our Contact Information:
E-mail: bffsandboybands@gmail.com
Bluesky: @bffsandboybands.bsky.social
Show Credits
BFFs and Boybands is brought to you by your hosts: Carrie and Muse
BFFs and Boybands Logo and branding is by Megan Berry and Jeff Leblanc
Our Theme song is “Light Summer Pop” by SingleFX via Audio Jungle
https://audiojungle.net/item/light-summer-pop/57537454
The “Boy of the Week” logo chime is from Universfield, via Pixabay
Special thanks to every single one of you who has listened, offered feedback and support, and generally been kind and generous with your time and your love.
And very special thanks to BTS and One Direction for making our lives better by sharing themselves and their music.
Muse
Welcome to BFFs and Boybands, the show where we talk about...
Carrie
Our friendship,
Muse
Fandom
Carrie
And the boy bands we love. I'm Carrie, I'm One Direction Bestie.
Muse
And I'm Muse, I'm BTS ARMY Bestie.
Carrie
On this episode of BFFs and Boy Bands....
Muse
Finding our community.
Muse
Welcome back, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I think, I think it's been almost two months since we recorded.
Carrie
And I mean, it's not for lack of content because holy sweet Mary.
Muse
There's been a lot! Oh my god!
Carrie
Yeah. At least yours are all in one group.
Muse
Yes, seriously. So I think since the last time we talked, we got tour announcement dates. I got tickets to the tour. So I'm going to see BTS live with my own eyeballs.
Carrie
That is unreal.
Muse
I can't even fathom it. We've had an album announcement date. That's coming out March 20th. We've got a documentary coming on Netflix the week after that. There's so much.
Carrie
Some would say too much. I'm not some, but some would. I've been enjoying every bit of it and I just, it's big dopamine. I just want it all.
Muse
What's been going on for you?
Carrie
I don't remember, had Louis released ‘How Did I Get Here’ when we last chatted?
Muse
I don't think he had.
Carrie
Okay, well that's out now. That came out January, end of January. So there was all the promo with that and he had a one night only in New York that some gracious beings live streamed and I watched and loved. And then Zayn dropped a new song, ‘Die For You’ * with a video. So that was amazing. (Editor's note: she means "Die for Me", it's in the playlist!)
And then Harry had released the single ‘Aperture’ and the video for it. And then his album came out on this past Friday. “Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally”. And he did an ONO on Friday night in Manchester, which is now on Netflix. And I love this album. There's crack in this album.
Muse
The guys are doing their first return concert. It's going to be a big public free concert in the middle of Seoul. That's going to be streamed on Netflix. And that's their big return, their first time on stage, all seven together since the hiatus in 2022. They released a trailer randomly one night Honest to God, I watched that trailer like 11 times. And then I was like, “Okay, I am not going to be okay when this concert is airing.”
Carrie
It's, it's so much. And I, I mean, I already had Louis tickets for the summer and then I managed to score a Harry ticket for Madison Square Garden in October.
Muse
Amazing.
Carrie
And it's, it's surreal. It's like you with them. Like, it's just surreal that I'm going to like see him with my own eyeballs.
Muse
And I think that's a good place to start talking about the amazing community that we have around the guys, because we're going to go there and you're going to be with the Directioners and the Harry fans or the Louis fans, and then I'm going to be with ARMY.
Carrie
Yeah.
Muse
So, Carrie, you said something really interesting. I was editing the last episode. And you said, “it's the community. It's my favourite part of the fandom.”
Carrie
Yeah, definitely.
Muse
And I definitely agree with that.
Carrie
Yeah, it's the way to make it more tangible, I think, and to give you somewhere an outlet to share and talk because you can't call Louis or Harry and just be like, “I just really like your music.” You can't do that. So when you have each other to kind of get excited with and when something drops, you immediately can share that with. It just increases the happiness and the belonging and the just the access it feels like, I guess. I don't know.
Muse
Yeah, Louis doesn't return my calls.
Carrie
He's so rude like that. Classic Louis.
Muse
Okay, so when I first became ARMY and I was first falling down this rabbit hole, I had met some people online, because I was trying to get concert tickets to a different group for my daughter, because she was getting into K-pop. And I met some people online and they were kind of walking me through it. And one of them, I said, “listen, I think I'm ARMY. But I want to find a place online where I can talk to other ARMY that is a space where adults are talking to one another and not teenagers are talking to one another.”
And so this woman that I was speaking to said, “Listen, there's not a lot of like 18+ spaces for ARMY but I know this other person and they’re new ARMY. They're just like, they've been here a couple of months and I would happily hop in a group chat with the two of you and I will answer any questions that you have and you can just enthuse about BTS all day long if you want. And I said, sweet, I'm in.
Carrie
Yeah, absolutely.
Muse
And that group chat, I have talked to probably on some days more than I've talked to my family, every single day from then till now.
And it is incredible. And we don't just talk about the guys. Like we talk about our lives, we talk about stuff that we're doing. We talk about all kinds of things.
Carrie
Yeah, it's beautiful, hey?
Muse
It really is. And I call it the world's greatest group chat.
Carrie
I was kind of bumbling around Twitter and then I'm in a couple of groups on Facebook, sort of for older fans. And then there's an Instagram account called “Directioner in Distress”. And she kind of threw out the idea of making group chats.
And she put all these questions into a Google form and if you wanted to be put in a chat you fill out the Google form and it got a feel for your interests, your age, sort of who your bias is, what things are you not going to want to talk about and she had tons of people.
After a while I got a notification that I was put in a group chat and I thought, “yay!” So then I went in and the first few days when we were kind of all getting to know each other, we clicked instantly.
And they've been like, I call them my friends. I'm like “my friend in Germany, my friend in New York, my friend in Australia, my friend in Ireland.” I have a friend in Scotland.
Muse
Absolutely!
Carrie
And it's true. Like we don't just talk about boy things. We talk about our kids, pets, and supporting each other with stuff at work. Andit's the most amazing thing.
And we'll send each other stuff in the mail. We did a Christmas card exchange. And a few of them have met up to go to concerts already and are going to be to go to concerts.
So I actually, I sent a message to “Directioner in Distress” a while back because she had posted something about, know, some of the groups aren't active and if you want to get active in your group, you have to really, you know, put yourself out there and make some posts. And I wrote to her and I said, “ours is nonstop and it's wonderful and just thank you so much. You did such a good job.”
So she was happy to hear that. I feel like people don't often get told the good things. So I like to, if I see somebody with some negative stuff going on and I've had a good experience, I want to tell them. So that's what I did. And yeah, I definitely talk to them more than I talk to people in my actual physical life.
Muse
I really like that sense of finding the people that you click with and that you can talk about everything with. And where you can share news. Like if I'm sitting one night and like, holy crap, the guys just dropped something. Oh my God, we've got the song track list. Like nobody in my life cares. Like, they're happy that I'm happy.
But they're just like, I don't want to go through the track list with you and figure out what all these things mean or what the writing credits mean. Like, that's for the group chat.
And it's so good. Cause I'm like, this is excellent. You guys are all like vibing with what I'm, with what I'm laying down. And I also have social media. I'm on Bluesky a lot. And there's a really good crowd there.
Carrie
I like the fact that we're all over the world too. Cause I tend to stay up really late, I'm like a night owl. So if something crosses my feed at 1am my time, and I share it with the group, there's somebody in Australia who's maybe on their lunch break and they respond to it. So we're always... sometimes I'll wake up at seven o'clock in the morning and I've missed hundreds of messages and I kind of scroll back and try to get caught up.
Or sometimes I wake up and there's been only maybe three. So it ebbs and flows, but it's just such the most natural feeling and such a respectful group of people who we don't all agree on the same things and we respect that about each other. And it's just been the best thing ever.
Muse
And I think like we're all looking out for one another too. Now there's only four of us, so we don't have the international coverage that your group seems to. But on Sunday, it was Yoongi's birthday. Yoongi being my bias. And usually the guys do a birthday live, but we never know what time they're going to do the birthday live. And of course Korea's like 14 hours off from us or something. So I'm like, “I don't know, I might miss it. And if I miss it, I'm going to be heartbroken”
And so I posted that in the chat. I'm like, “This is my worry today is he's going to go live. I'm going to be asleep and miss it.” And the first message I got back was, “Do you want us to call you on the physical phone if we hear that he goes live?” And I was like “Yes.”
Carrie
They got you.
Muse
Yeah! “What can we do for you? How can we help you?”
Carrie
Yes.
Carrie
Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, it's just, it's the best, honestly. And we, we've done the same. Or if we see something come through... one of the girls in our chat is... her bias is Niall for sure. And we start bombarding the chat with Niall stuff just because we know that she loves him so much.
We're just always thinking of each other, even if we're not sort of presently chatting. It's part of who I am now. And it's just lovely.
Muse
There's a wider community too. Just outside the group chats, are wonderful. One of the things I learned being on Bluesky and how the ARMY community operates there, at least the corner of it that I'm in, is I could not negative self-talk at all.
It's a thing that I do and I know that I do it where I kind of put myself down jokingly. And the minute that I said anything like that, there would be someone in my mentions. I do watercolour paintings. This is a hobby of mine. I don't do it professionally or anything. I’m very beginner.
And so I posted online and I was like, ‘here are my silly watercolour paintings’. And the next thing I got was a comment from someone that was like, “when you don't even know how good you are”
Carrie
Aww.
Muse
Or, y'know, another friend will pop on and be like, “Hey friend, do you think you think Yoongi would want you talking to yourself like that?”
Carrie
Oh. That's fantastic.
Muse
Yeah, I'm just not allowed. And so it made me go, “Oh!...okay.”
Carrie
Isn't that wonderful? That a steady diet of that is actually going to make you in a healthier place about yourself.
Muse
And it has made me healthier mentally. You know, there was a lot of times when my brain would be mean, basically, to me about various things and because of this and because of the guys and how they interact too. I would think, “Wait. I don't think Jimin would like to hear me say that about myself.”
Carrie
Wow.
Muse
And I do it for other people now too.
Carrie
Yeah, it's just a very real connection with people that you're forming, with people that you don't, it's about people you don't know and likely will never meet, but they have brought you to these people in your life that you will meet and you have met and you talk to all the time and are just influence each other for the best. Is that not the most beautiful thing ever?
Muse
It's wonderful. And I think this ripple effect, like I sometimes wonder if the guys know about it. Like it's not you gave us your music and you gave us your time. And your stories, but you also gave us each other.
Carrie
Yeah, know. I know Louis knows about it in ours because he's even at his his ONO in New York there when his album just released. At the end of the night, he said something like, “My management team doesn't know how good they have it with you lot” because he had seen people who... it was their goal to get him to number one and was working together. And so in the UK, so people over here in North America..
We could send them money to buy an album in the UK and then those albums would be distributed to people who couldn't afford to buy albums or mailed out to wherever. And he had seen all that go down and he did hit number one in the UK.
Muse
Oh that's wonderful! Good for him!
Carrie
Yeah. And so he recognizes that the fans are always looking out for each other. Like he did a show at Red Rocks for the last tour, the Faith in the Future tour. And there was a wicked, wicked hailstorm that night. And it kind of came up really fast. And they did try to put it up on the sign or whatever they do on the screen there, like basically find shelter. But it was so fast and so intense that people were actually hurt. Some people got in the hospital, cars were smashed, like windows were smashed out.
Muse
Oh no.
Carrie
And everybody immediately just started working together to try to make sure each other was safe.
Carrie
People like they would get to their car and they would just haul people into their cars who they didn't know but they just were like trying to make sure everybody had somewhere to be. And even in the hospital people were doing like they would set up like little fundraising things to get money to pay for medical expenses and people who were trapped there if their car was wrecked and they couldn't get out again.
They were giving them drives. They were staying at each other's houses they'd never met before.
Muse
Wow.
Carrie
And it really tapped into that community feeling of one of us is in need and we're going to help. It doesn't matter who they are, where they came from or what their story is. We just know them because they're one of us. And he saw that and he commented on that and he felt awful because of course this happened at his show, even though was certainly not something he could control and was like the biggest thing to come from it was seeing how everybody works together like that to help.
Muse
Yeah, that's amazing.
Carrie
Yeah.
Muse
We chart songs as well. ARMY being so huge, we can do a lot of things that I think other groups, fandoms just can't because they just don't have the numbers. And we use it as a way of communicating with the guys too. So when Namjoon got his driver's license back in December.
He hadn't, didn't have it before. And he was like, guys, I'm going to go get my driver's license. And he was telling ARMY about it and he was, you nervous. And, and when he got his driver's license, he came back and was very proud of it. And he posted that he had gotten it. And ARMY was like, “Okay, well, we're going to chart this song of his:, which has the line. “He's a pro rider” but because he's a pro driver.
Carrie
My God. It's perfect.
Muse
And so we charted this song for him and we charted it to number one on iTunes in countries all over the world.
Carrie
It wasn't a new song?
Muse
No, it wasn't a new song.
Carrie
That’s so funny. I love -- He would have seen that!
Muse
Yes! And Jungkook did a live, this was several weeks ago now, and he ended up taking it down, I think because he had kind of shared... he had been drinking and he shared too much of himself. And so he took it down. But ARMY, as a response to that, charted, ‘Please Don't Change’, which is one of his songs off of Golden that came out in 2023.
Carrie
That's Goosebumps.
Muse
But it's our way of saying, ‘We see you.’ And it's our way of communicating back to them and giving a response.
Carrie
That like literally gave me goosebumps. I've not stopped smiling since we started talking because this is just such my favourite thing.
Muse
I love this community. I love our communities.
Carrie
It's funny, one of the girls in my group chat is at a hockey game at Madison Square Garden tonight. And so I said, “Oh find section 104 for me. What's that look like?” Because that's where my ticket is. And she totally did. She went and found it.
Muse
Oh my gosh!
Carrie
She's like, “It's going to be great!”.
Muse
I'm so happy for you. I'm so glad you got a ticket.
Carrie
Yeah, me too. was a bloodbath.
Muse
Well, and one of the things that I saw online for ticketing for the BTS world tour, because of course the tickets are very hard to get and there's all kinds of people vying for them and it's very stressful, but there are also people who will buy in groups, right? And they'll try to sit all together or, you know, the people end up with extra tickets, whatever. ARMY sells to ARMY. So as soon as those tickets were gone. I started seeing things going around like I am going to the Vegas show. I have two extra tickets here is the section. I only want what I paid for them.
Carrie
We do that too.
Muse
And it goes beyond that too, cause there's charity drives.
I know there's a lot of charity drives actually. BTS donated, I believe it was a million dollars to Black Lives Matter. And ARMY matched it. I think within a matter of days.
Carrie
Holy moly.
We have, like for the boys' they'll pick a charity and set up donations specifically in, you know, Louis's name for his birthday and Harry's name for his birthday and raise money that way.
Muse
Yeah, and I love that people do this and it's such a gift to the community . We fundraise a lot now for... Yoongi's set up He donated to a hospital,it is the Min Yoongi Treatment Center for Children with Autism.
Carrie
Oh, wow.
Muse
He set it up, He's making, I think it's $50 million in donations over 10 years. But the minute that that was set up, ARMY was like, “okay, how do we help?”
Carrie
Yeah.
Muse
And so this hospital has a specific donation page for international donations that is only for this treatment center because they only had to set it up because ARMY was like “We want to donate too.”
Carrie
Wow.
That would make the guys feel good too that their fans are willing to do that. We made the right ones famous, but they have great fans.
Muse
It's true. And I love how we all support one another. And people are always contributing to the fandom in ways that seem small, but every little bit makes it this wonderful place to be. Like, for my birthday, you sent me virtual flowers from the One Direction flower account.
Carrie
Yeah.
Muse
On BlueSky and we have one of those for BTS too. You just send them a little request that's like, send this user some flowers. And they send you a tweet or a skeet with some flowers in it and your favourite member and a nice little message
Carrie
Yeah, and it's totally just done by people. There's no monetary gain. There's no fame and fortune with it. It's just because it's fun and it's lovely and it's so appreciated.
Muse
And it's so kind, like, it just makes being in the community... it just makes it a wonderful place to be. I don't know if you guys have daily accounts.
Carrie
Yeah.
Muse
Like every day they'll post a picture of each of the members.
Carrie
Yeah, we have those. Unfortunately, what happens sometimes is I can very much still tell the difference when I'm on Twitter versus BlueSky or Instagram or any of that. I don't know what happens on Twitter, but it just seems to bring out the claws.
Muse
The worst in people.
Carrie
Like, yeah, they just really, they feel free and empowered to say some really odd, sometimes nasty things to each other or about the guys or about the guys...
I drop in there now, I don't spend much time because it can be really damaging for my mental health to sit in there. And I don't want to get in a Twitter fight with somebody who is just, you know, okay, you don't like Harry's album. Cool. You don't have to, but there's no reason to get on and say it's the worst thing you've ever heard in your life. Like that's just not necessary. And it's not kind. So I don't tend to spend much time there anymore because I feel when I come out of there, I feel a little bit negative. And then I go to Bluesky and it's all lovely.
Muse
Yeah, and there's a reason I'm not on Twitter I used to have an account there before I even got into BTS. think I was like, you know what? I think I'm good.
Carrie
Yeah. And I don't know what it is about Twitter that really gives people the courage, I guess, to just let it go.
Muse
I think it's a combination of how the system is built and what the system rewards and puts in your feed.
Carrie
Maybe, yeah.
Muse
Because once you're angry, it keeps you there. It's all about the engagement and how Twitter engages people. So no amount of staying there is going to make it better because that's always going to be the stuff that surfaces through their algorithms. And Bluesky doesn't seem to be that, or at least doesn't seem to be that yet. So I much prefer hanging around over there.
But there, are various and sundry forums too that like some good, some bad. I feel so fortunate that I ended up in this wonderful group chat that was a safe space for me when I was learning so that, you know, I always had someone that would answer a question where I'm like, why did that, why do we say this? What does that even mean? What is this from? And could kind of demystify that for me without me having to be in a forum somewhere, maybe finding some people who would not have been as kind.
Carrie
Yeah.
Muse
Because one of the things I do like about ARMY is that it's such a welcoming space. Speaking of welcoming, one of the things that we do, and I know you guys don't do this because we've talked about it, is concert freebies.
Carrie
Yeah. I think you're starting to introduce it though, by coming with me to my shows.
Muse
So the idea of a concert freebie, for those who are listening and don't know, is that you take things to concerts that you give away for free. They can be like the Swifties have their bracelets that they trade.
Carrie
We've started to do that. Like, Louis show, the “Faith in the Future” shows was big bracelet trading. So we are definitely getting into the bracelet piece, but you guys, a whole new level.
Muse
Yeah, for K-pop concert freebies, people crochet stuff, people make key chains, they make fans, they make all kinds of things, they give out photo cards. And so when we went to Zayn's concert, I was like, well, I have to bring this to this concert. And we made a bunch of freebies. We had a little key fob thing that said Zayn and we had chocolate, a little bit of candy. That almost got us stopped at the door.
Carrie
Right. They were like “Uhh”
Muse
Because we had full candy bars and they were like ‘no outside food’ and then once they saw what they were and they're like “you're just giving these away?” and I was like “yes” they were like “okay but I never hear from you again and nobody else sees these” and I was like “yes ma'am”.
Carrie
Yeah, yes, I do remember that.
Muse
And so now I am in the midst of preparing for, well, I got BTS concerts to go to and we're going to see Louis. We’ve got to make some Louis photo cards.
Carrie
Yes, I'd never seen the photo cards before you brought them and I love them. And you made me some Louis ones before and they still sit in my phone case. And every time I put my phone down, I see Louis and other people are like, “Who's that guy?” So I get to talk about him.
Muse
Photo cards, that's, that's something that we have that you guys don't have. And I think, listen, you guys needs to up your boy paper game.
Carrie
I don't even...boy paper is not even a thing. I don't even know what you mean by that still.
Muse
It is paper with a picture of a boy on it.
Carrie
Oh my god.
Muse
So the photo cards and photo books and, you know, fan art, we have a very active fan art community that draws all kinds of wonderful pictures of the guys, that you can buy stickers, all kinds of things, boy paper. Or girl paper if you're into girl groups. Yeah.
Carrie
I'm excited to get back into bracelet making, I guess.
Muse
Yeah, I got some lemons and I got some sunflowers. So I think we're good for, for Louis.
Carrie
I have to get some disco balls for Harry. I bought a dress for Harry.
Muse
Do you guys do concert fits?
Carrie
Yes! And people are already planning. And I just happened across it when I was scrolling a website. And it's like a sequins kind of a situation with all the multicolour.It's very disco-y. But I really like it.
Muse
I haven't even started thinking about my concert fit yet.
Carrie
With Louis stuff, I just tend to do like jeans and shirts. But with this being a disco Harry era, I need to up my game. Because I'm a sucker for glitter anyway and sparkle. So to wear an entire dress of it is super exciting for me.
Do you guys do fan projects with your stuff? I guess, I mean, the crowds are so big.
Muse
We don't do lights and stuff like you guys do, because we have our light sticks, we have light sticks that we take to the concert and those are controlled by Bluetooth or whatever.
Carrie
Right. So that's like the little bracelets that Taylor had, right? You just wear it and it does things on its own.
Muse
Yeah. We buy them and bring them. They don't give those to us.
Carrie
Wasn't it called a bomb or something?
Muse
Okay, so they're called bombs just for ARMY. It is an ARMY bomb and it kind of looks like a little bomb. Don't call it that in an airport. Call it a light stick if you're travelling, Different groups call theirs different things. So, if you have, a Stray Kids light stick, it's got a compass in it. Cause the broken compass is their symbol. And that's called a Nachimbong. That's called a Nachimbong because Nachimban is compass. And bong is the light stick.
Muse
So we don't have fan projects in that way, but we do have like when we went to see J-Hope last March, they were giving out signs outside the venue and everybody had a little paper sign that had a message for him. And so we have sign time.
Which is when they leave and before they come back for the encore. So when they leave at the end of the main set,that is the time. If you have brought a sign, that is the time to hold it up and they will put you up on the screen. And one of the things that we know is that the guys are backstage watching. So they're getting changed. They're having their hair and makeup redone, resting before they come on for their encores. And they've got a screen set up where they can see the signs.
Carrie
That's amazing. Signs became kind of a big thing at Harry shows near the end of “Love on Tour”, but it was people would hold them up pretty much the whole time. And then he would at some point stop like between songs and stuff. He would kind of pick out a few and read them and have a little dialogue with the person who brought the sign, if it piqued his interest.
It got a little bit... From what I hear, I wasn't there, but if you're in the pit and someone's holding a big sign up in front of you for like two hours, it's kind of irritating. So I like sign time.
Muse
Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that sign time helps us get around is that you don't, you don't have to be there holding up signs the whole time. There is a time for signs and not all groups have that. I was really surprised because I went to see Stray Kids in the summer and they were like, no signs. And I was like, well, what are you, what are you guys going to do for sign time? They don't have sign time. That's not a thing for them.
Carrie
What? No sign time? What kind of racket is this?
Muse
What is wrong with you?
But everyone does it differently, right? So when we were waiting for Stray Kids to come back for the encores, I believe there were quizzes that were on the screen instead. So they did have something for the fans to do while we were waiting, but it wasn't signs.
Carrie
Okay. There was no sign time.
Muse
But we were talking about fan projects. So what do you guys do?
Carrie
Usually it's specific to a song. And people just kind of plan it and then they put it out on social media and hope it gains traction. And they'll say, OK, so when he sings like... Louis, if he sings “Sunflowers”, there's one that's going around that people in the pit and on the floor would hold up a picture of a sunflower, whereas people in like the lower bowl and above or whatever would hold up a blue paper so it would look like a sky. So it would look like a field of sunflowers.
For Faith in the Future, we did rainbow lights a lot. So When I got the ticket to the Louis show in Toronto that I went to, I wanted to go all in. And I had seen that somebody was planning a fan project for that show. So I went into their little group and was like, hey, can I play with you guys?
And I was just in awe of their ability because just what we did was we had coloured tape. So you put it on your phone camera or phone flashlight. And then when you lit it up, depending what section you in was the colour. And that just made like rainbow lights. And we did that for “Saturdays” and...
There was a part where we raised our lights up and down, up and down, up and down. It felt really cohesive at the time because you're part of that community again. But knowing that what went into that, they had little QR codes. So they had a paper with a QR code and the tape, the coloured tape on the other side. And you would scan the QR code and it would tell you when to do things. and when to put the tape on your phone and just, we just passed them out like stickers throughout the whole venue. And then poof, like 15,000 people were holding up rainbow lights. And it was just the coolest thing I'd ever done.
Muse
That's incredible.
Carrie
Yeah, it was so fun. And I even got to, because I think it's cause I'm older. I've passed out the stuff in my section and one of the girls who was meant to do it in another section was running late and it was actually like a closer section to the stage than mine was. So I went down and kind of sweet talked the security just to let me in and pass these out. And I was like, “I just got to pass these out real quick and let's come right back, I promise.” She's like, “okay”. So I was just handing them out willy-nilly, doo-doo-doo, and then I came back and I was like, “okay, thank you so much.”
Muse
I'm glad you were able to sneak in there and help out.
Carrie
I know it's like “I was gonna scoot in real quick, kay?”. And then like, for weeks after I kept, you know, I'd scroll TikTok and I'd see videos from our shows and people commenting on the fan projects. And in the comments of their TikToks, people were like, does the venue organize that? other people were like, “No, just fans.” And I was like, “it was me!” . But I didn't say that because, y’know.
It just even heightened the experience even more than just me going to a Louis concert. It was me going to a Louis concert, having made these friendships, having done this fan project. And after it was all done, we got together for a group photo.
Muse
And that's what the freebies do too. I think the freebies make the experience really fun because one, you have to talk to other people to give them the freebie. So you kind of connect with other fans. But also it just makes people's day.
Carrie
Oh my gosh, when you were passing them out at Zayn, the people were so grateful. They were just so excited to get them and so shocked almost. And just, got giddy. And it was Canadian chocolate bars in there. So a few of them were like, “What is that?” And one of ate her bar right there, if I remember correctly.
Muse
Yeah, yeah. And she was like, where can I get more of these? It was so good. I'm like, well, unfortunately that's a Canadian chocolate bar. Cause we picked the Canadian chocolates because that was, you know, we're from Canada. And I think when, when we went to see TxT in New York City, it was me and my daughter who went and we had so many freebies. I think we made a hundred for that concert.
Carrie
Wow.
Muse
And We were standing in the merch line and that took so long that she just went up and down the merch line, giving them to people. And then as people got their photo cards, they were going up and down the merch line, trading the photo cards for like, “well, like I got Beomgyu, not my bias. Does anyone have a Yeonjun that they're willing to trade?”
Carrie
You encouraged interaction. Look at you guys.
Muse
We did!
Also actually for the upcoming concerts, there are some fan projects, that I know about, As soon as the tour dates went up, people were like, “ARMY, had better be supporting local businesses when you go to these towns that you are not from.”
Carrie
Yeah.
Muse
“You had better give us a good name while you are there.” If you were acting as ARMY, you support local charities, and there are in fact people who are organizing charity drives for like local food banks and things.
Carrie
Amazing.
Muse
The idea is that they're going to give out QR codes and you get a QR code that links you to a local food bank or something, and then you'll be able to donate online. So nobody has to deal with a whole bunch of canned goods, which are also not ideal for the food banks.
Carrie
Yeah, it's definitely a whole new world of concert going. You don't just go to the concert in your town and then go home and be like, “Hey, that was fun.” It's an entire event, months in advance.
It was funny because when Louis got to number one in the UK, he was neck and neck with Megadeth's new album. And I had tickets to Megadeth because I was going with a friend who loves Megadeth. And I got an email from them near the end of the week when it was going to be sort of announced who got number one. And it was like, “come on, guys, we can do this!” And it had a picture of Louis and a picture of Megadeth at the top of it because they were neck and neck like that.
I felt like a double agent! And so I sent that email, a screenshot of it, to one of the bigger accounts, fan accounts And she posted it on her Twitter. She's like, “Look what they're doing! We need to get going. Stream, stream, stream!”
Muse
We do that too, especially because there's lot of contests and stuff in Korea where you can vote online for what's your favourite single this week. So we're always like, “Come on ARMY! Vote for Hobi's new song, vote for Jimin's new song,” Whatever's just out that week. We want it to be at the top of the charts.
Carrie
Yes, I have voted for things for Louis that I couldn't even read the website. I just knew I wanted him to win.
Muse
We're so sunk, Carrie.
Carrie:
I know. It's like, I probably shouldn't say that.
Muse
We’re so sunk for these men. Oh my god.
Muse
Alright, we had a lot to say.
Carrie
Yes, got excited talking about my favourite topic. We can move into boy of the week if you like.
Muse
The boy of the week.
[Boy of the Week Chime sounds]
Carrie
It's your turn.
Muse
It's my turn and we are going back to fanchant order.
Because we, took a little detour to get Yoongi in there. Yoongi is actually third in the order. So, Kim Namjoon was the first and now we are moving on to Kim Seokjin. No relation.
Carrie
Mm-hmm. How many names does this guy have?
Muse
Actually, if you give me a second, I will pull up our little Bluesky...
Carrie
I have become very acquainted with the fact that there are not, indeed, 40,000 members of this band. They just all have many names.
Muse
Okay, Jin is: Jin, Jinnie, Worldwide Handsome, WWH, Car Door Guy and JinSeok
Carrie
Car Door Guy?
Muse
Jin is very handsome. And Jin was recruited because he's handsome.
Carrie
He's the face of the organization?
Muse
Honestly... yes. So because they form these bands like hockey teams, right? He, he was on a bus or he was getting off a bus and somebody from Big Hit Music saw him was basically like, “You're gorgeous. Have you considered being in a K-pop band?” He really is that handsome.
So car door guy was because they were going to an award show and he got out of the car and people who didn't know who he was started trending. “Who is car door guy?”
Carrie
Okay. I need to pay more attention and see this guy.
Muse
The wonderful thing about that and the wonderful thing about opinions being as they are is like, everyone's like, my God, Jin's so handsome. And he is! I don't even think he's the most handsome member of BTS.
Worldwide handsome is because he calls himself Worldwide Handsome. It started as a joke, right?
Carrie
Well yes
Muse
So he would go on award shows. And one of the things that Jin tries to do is break the tension so that he gets people laughing and people aren't so on edge.
They went on the Graham Norton show, for example, he started calling himself Worldwide Handsome before this, think, but they get on the Graham Norton show and they're all introducing themselves and it's an English show. So that's not their first language. They all do speak some, so they all go around introducing themselves and they'll, y’know, ‘Hi, I'm SUGA,” “Hi, I'm V,” and then Jin stands up and he's like,
“Where's the camera?” And he turns and he points at the camera and he blows a kiss and he says, “I'm Jin, I'm worldwide handsome, you know?” And then he sits back down.
Muse
And that's who he is when he is doing an interview. He is that guy who is constantly trying to break the tension because he wants people to laugh. And I think part of that is because he really does feel like he's the not-talented one.
Carrie
Okay.
Muse
He got recruited based on his looks. He knows that.
But he's also, he has a beautiful voice. He's worked very hard to become this incredible vocalist. And so they had a recent interview that they did with GQ and they were answering online questions that they found. And someone was like, “Does Jin know how good his voice is? Did he really not sing ever before he got recruited?” And he says, “Well, I didn't and I'm not. as talented as the other members. And as we spoke of before with the negative self-talk, they jump on that and they're like, “you just did a whole tour,” right? Jin just did a whole solo tour. They're like, “Yes, you're talented.”
Carrie
He was the first one out, right, of the military?
Muse
He was the first one in and the first one out because he is the oldest. So he went in first.
So he was the older brother to all of them and he was kind of the glue that held them together. And he is the jokester and the prankster and he is constantly trying to find the humour in a situation. But there's other interviews sometimes where like the younger members are goofing around and he's like, you know, we got to be professional or someone is talking and he wants to talk. And if he tells someone to shut it, their mouth is shut. Absolutely. And so he walks that line. And I think it's absolutely fascinating.
Carrie
So when he does solo stuff, is it sort of more funny stuff, or does he get serious for his music?
Muse
He continued when he came out of the military, the BTS variety show where they do just a whole bunch of games and jokes. It’s called “Run BTS”. And he started “Run Jin”, which was a variety show that he kind of started and hosted so the tour was actually a continuation of the “Run Jin” variety show.
And so he gets up on stage and he sings these beautiful songs, but he is also there primarily to have fun with ARMY. And he wants to make sure that ARMY is having fun. And so he would do all these challenges. So he would get up on stage and there would be, they would put something on the screen behind him that he couldn't see like a word. And the audience would have to act out what the word was. And he would have to guess.
Carrie
Okay.
Muse
And he didn't guess, depending on how many correct guesses he got, he would have to come out in a costume. And he was always trying to get like one, two or three correct answers, depending on what costume ARMY wanted him to come out wearing.
Carrie
Okay
Muse
And sometimes it's like, you know, those inflatable costumes where like an alien is holding you and holding a person and walking around and you look like you're being held. Like it's that kind of stuff that he's coming out wearing.
Carrie
That's awesome.
Muse
It's incredible and kudos to the staff too for, you know, he goes backstage for like a minute and a half and he has to come back out in whatever outfit they don't know. Because they don't know how many answers he's going to get. So they have to have all three outfits ready.
There was another one where they would have ARMY sing a song. They put the words on the screen. ARMY had to sing and Jin had to guess what song it was of his or of BTS. If he got it wrong, they dropped a big metal pan lid on his head.
Carrie
What? That sounds like a-
Muse
Which is the thing that they do on the Korean variety shows. If you get wrong answers, sometimes they do that.
Carrie
That sounds like a health and safety issue.
Muse
That's one of the world's biggest pop stars. Let's just drop a pan on his head.
Carrie
The pitch meeting for that: “Okay guys, I got a great idea.”
Muse
And then he would have challenges for Armie too. So when he would go off stage to get changed, he would turn a wheel and whatever the wheel landed on was the song that Armie had to sing while he was gone. So there was some karaoke going on there.
Muse
Yeah, so he brings that sense of fun to his concerts.
Carrie
Sounds like it would be a good time.
Muse
I am really sorry I didn't get to go.
Carrie
Yeah. Do you have a favourite song of his that you could recommend?
Muse
I really like, “I Will Come To You”, which is off his first solo album, which is called Happy.
Carrie
Okay.
Muse
He wrote this song when he went into the military. And so it's a very sweet, very simple song about, “I’m missing you, and if you need me, I will come to you. I promise I will come to you”.
Carrie
Aw.
Muse
So that's my answer. But if you want to know what Jin is like, like what kind of songs he sings and what he's like as a performer on stage, the song I would recommend you to look up, so I'm going to do two. This is the second one, is “The Astronaut”, which he collaborated on with Chris Martin of Coldplay.
Carrie
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Muse
There is a wonderful performance online, which I will link in the show notes, where he went to South America to perform it specifically at a Coldplay show. At the time he only had the one song, the one solo song that was out. So he's like, “I can't do a concert”: So he travelled like three days internationally to play one song at a Coldplay concert and then came back
Carrie
Wow.
Muse
The performance is incredible. Chris Martin does a wonderful intro where he talks about what it was like collaborating with BTS and how he and Jin have become such good friends and how Jin called him and said, “I need to make a song before I go into the military. That's about, ‘I'm going to be away for a while, but it's going to be okay.’”
Carrie
Aww
Muse
And they made this song. So I will link that in the show notes and I hope you all enjoy it.
Carrie
Yeah.
Muse
That is our oldest, Worldwide Handsome.
Carrie
Car door guy.
Muse
Car door guy, third from the left.
Muse
And with that, I think we should wrap up.
Carrie
Yeah.
Muse
I want to thank everyone for joining us. If you want to hear more, we will be back next month. If you would like to get in touch with us in the meantime, if you have questions and comments, we would love to hear them.
Carrie
Your email is bffsandboybands.gmail.com and we're also on Bluesky at bffsandboybands.bsky.social.
Muse
And if you want more information on the songs we've discussed, please check the show notes. We have links to our playlists on a whole bunch of different musical platforms that you can listen to the songs that we've talked about today.
Carrie
Yes, this has been so much fun for me. I really enjoyed this chat that we've had. I'm looking forward to even more later with you.
Muse
And I've enjoyed this chat. It has been, Carrie, honestly, far too long. And so I am looking forward to our next chat as well.
Carrie
Wonderful. Well, until next time, this has been BFFs.
Muse
and Boybands!