Fandoms and Fundraising: How BTS Fans Created a Global Charity

Seldom do we say nice things about fandoms in 2020. The “stan” is now equated to the cultist: detached from larger culture, infatuated with the unimportant, incapable of critical thinking; rowdy, shallow, toxic.

The prevalence of pop music fandoms on Twitter, particularly K-pop fandoms, has been greeted with disdain by all manner of cultural analysts. The incessant and off-topic usage by some of “fancams”—clips of artists’ performances, often paired with recruitment-minded captions—do little to quell this resistance.

Yet, particularly as we recognize the power of youth-led, female-skewing, LGBT-friendly subcultures as spaces of sociopolitical development and solidarity, we will do well to also acknowledge the power fandom has for good. Because more and more, we see that this power is not always lost on fans. See: One in an ARMY, the charity organization led by fans of Korean music group BTS.

“It’s not in any way an official organization,” says Erika, an American representative I speak to via phone who handles press and social media work. “It is completely volunteer-led. It’s just ARMYs that decided to come together and do it.”

Since 2013, South Korea’s BTS has grown in popularity exponentially, reaching a point of success so great in the past few years that it has left media, fans and detractors alike in a state of utter confusion. Their release of Map of the Soul: Persona became the highest-selling album in South Korean history months after its release despite its seven-track length. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 (their third album to do so) and has remained on the chart, alongside previous release Love Yourself: Answer which became the first K-pop album to ever remain on the chart for longer than a year. Then, they dropped Map of the Soul: 7 in February, which has already broken the record for the highest-selling Korean album of all time, having sold more than 4.1 million copies just nine days after its release.

The BTS fanbase, ARMY, has been the catalyst for this success #

Their Twitter account boasts 24.5 million followers and several tweets with over 1 million retweets. It is ARMY's activity on social media that not only spreads awareness for the group but disseminates information & organizes chart pushes. When it comes to fandoms investing time and money into empowering their favorite artists, one would be hard-pressed to find one of ARMY’s calibur.

“Around March 2018, we were seeing the fandom’s growth was getting so immense,” Erika tells me. “There was a video for Yoongi’s birthday, and he had a little cat rug in front of his studio when they went to knock on his door, and people found the cat rug and sold it out on the site within minutes. A lot of funny things like that were happening that showed how huge and dedicated to everything BTS the fandom was.”

An astute fan from Brazil named Ana came up with an idea.

“At that time, the news here in Brazil and probably all around the world was about the Syrian civil war,” she tells me via DM. “I didn’t know what I could do since I was just a 15 year-old girl living far away from the conflict. I asked my parents if we could donate and everything but that wasn’t enough.”

Ana sent out a tweet noting ARMY’s power and calling for it to be manifested into helping refugees in Syria. “A lot of people responded—I did,” says Erika. “We started trying to put together some thoughts, collate our thoughts, put in some rules for ourselves—how do we wanna go about this, how can we do it in a way that’s going to be meaningful or impactful?”

The result became One In An ARMY, an ARMY-led, unofficial charity organization that would make use of the frequent engagement in the ARMY Twitter space to lend attention to important causes. While focused on Twitter, the group has created social media accounts on everything from Facebook to Curious Cat.

Through a Discord channel, members of One In An ARMY communicate with each other to establish what will be necessary for each initiative. Then, each month, One In An ARMY partners with a charity organization they select through an intensive vetting process, tweeting out a donation link with each post.

Erika’s job has become to handle social media and PR; others handle functions from graphic design to charity research. Like many other members—the likes of whom hail from nearly every continent—Erika was not actively involved in charity work prior to taking part in the organization, but had long had a desire to give what she could to those less fortunate. Figuring out how to get the process right without any experience was a scary task for the young assemblage.

Their first project was with Medical Teams International.

“I spoke to a lovely lady named Tracy Holland,” says Erika. “I called her and said ‘We don’t really know what we’re doing, but we’re trying to do this… thing.’ And she was really, really great. We actually sent her flowers as a team for being with our first organization and helping us through it. She called me one day and said ‘Oh my God, I made the report this week that our engagement online has gone up 7000%, and I got a standing ovation!’ So that worked out really well.”

Since then, One In An ARMY has conducted one successful campaign after another, as visible on their archive. For their October campaign, a collaboration with an Athenian organization that provides shelter for marginalized refugees, they raised over $6000 USD. A month before, they’d raised nearly $8000 for an organization constructing eco-friendly educational spaces in Guatemala.

“We did thirst relief last year and by the end of the campaign, we had provided water filters to 30 families in Tanzania,” says Erika. “The water filters for each household, they can provide water for up to ten people and they last for 25 years. So now, 30 families for 25 years will have clean drinking water, that won’t have any parasites; they can go to school, they can go to work and not lose their jobs because they’re sick from contaminated water, and ARMY did that.”

One In An ARMY is not the first instance of a fandom pulling together to make a difference #

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Fans of Joss Whedon and his collective works have held conventions for years, of which percentages of proceeds have been donated to charities. Misha Collins, star of the much-stanned TV series Supernatural, has on numerous occasions rallied his supporters to donate to different causes.

Something about One In An ARMY’s story is uniquely harrowing; perhaps it is the group’s starkly visible, tangible positivity within a Twitter landscape (Stan or otherwise) plagued by trauma and discordance. Perhaps it’s the group’s utilization of modern, otherwise derided social media networks to create said tangible change. Perhaps it’s the reality that, without any prompt, fans within a social media environment decided to use their platform for good despite the amount of uncompensated time and energy it would require.

Then again, said ARMYs might argue to you that, in a way, they’d been prompted by their faves after all—if indirectly. Erika, who has never taken part in a fandom before BTS, fell for the group in part for their selfless messages. “Seeing what BTS had said about, ‘if they can improve the life of someone else just a tiny bit, it’s enough,’ that makes it worthwhile,” she says.

Indeed, BTS’ messages and efforts have long been focused on improving the lives of others. Their *Love Yourself *album series was devoted to showcasing the journey in which a person can love others most powerfully through first loving themselves. Through songs and interviews, they often speak out against oppressive sociopolitical forces. Their partnership with UNICEF, and their leader RM’s speech at the United Nations, showcased their initiative to prevent bullying and engender self-love globally.

“It really boils down to the fact that BTS have inspired so many,” says Erika. “From what people tell us, they tell us they’ve never seen a fandom do this before.”

Perhaps these ARMYs will inspire other fandoms to do the same; to utilize these spaces and platforms for good. And if that chain reaction is set in motion, at some point the general public may rewire how we think of fandoms online. But all of these changes start with an action—something that was not prompted, not even considered necessary—by people with the ability to reach others.

With the Internet’s capacity for connecting strangers, this ability is easier to come by than ever. With this power at our fingertips, how can each of us, all users, respond in kind?

Leading illustration by [Bfly](https://www.instagram.com/bfly.art/).