If Jay Z hadn’t already written the line “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man,” the rappers of BTS probably would have. The band’s four-year hiatus — an inevitability, as South Korea requires all men between ages 18 to 35 to temporarily serve in the military — has brought with it nearly unprecedented stakes. Their fervent fanbase is so central to the BTS narrative (and to BTS-related web traffic) that every news story about the band seems written directly, panderingly, and very carefully for fans and fans alone, as if the ARMYs exert a kind of psychic editorial control. BTS is so load-bearing for the K-pop industry that their personal fortunes have caused actual economic fluctuations. After the band’s free(!) comeback concert drew a smaller-than-expected crowd, shares in their label Hybe fell 15.5%, a sell-off that Korean analysts called “baffling and confusing.”
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