Technically BTS was making headlines all day yesterday but since I went home in the afternoon and tried to sleep off my cold/flu for the rest of the night and only looked at all the footage this morning when I woke on, On My Birthday, I’m claiming this for today. Does it really matter? BTS dominated New York City. We all win. 

BTS became the first K-pop group to address the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. Their remarks, led by RM, were much more warmly received than, you know, the guy who spoke on Tuesday. They were there to speak to youth empowerment and engagement, to encourage self-confidence and the message they’ve been spreading with their Love Yourself albums. I read a great article about the success of BTS by TK Park and Youngdae Kim for Vulture yesterday about their band identity that’s a great complement to the speech they delivered. Because, as Park and Kim have noted, BTS has been able to break through specifically by embracing Korean tradition, loving THEMselves, confident that how they present themselves will be embraced by those around the world who may not be familiar with their culture and the things that are familiar to them, where they are from – despite the fact that North American mainstream radio continues to ignore their songs; they’ve blown up in spite of that. And, well, for those who are still trying to ignore them, how much longer can they hold out? 

BTS was on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon last night. It ended up being a social media takeover. BTS did NBC and Fallon a favour. It’s hard to understand then why all media wouldn’t want in on that. Especially since they delivered such good TV. This is good TV: 

And this is GREAT TV:

 

Can someone please start a BTS dance class? I would buy a membership. 

Here they are at the UNGA: