Dear Gossips,

For the second week in a row, BTS’s ARIRANG is #1 on the Billboard 200. While their previous albums have all opened at the top of the albums chart, this is the first time they’ve repeated and it’s also the first time a K-pop record has topped the Billboard 200 in consecutive weeks. It’s a major achievement and certainly a boost as they get closer and closer to the kickoff of the tour on Thursday from Goyang. Final preparations are currently underway with most if not all hotels in the area sold out and local businesses stocking up in anticipation of the ARMY surge, as 130K people are expected to flood the city for BTS over the four day period.

Those who can’t make it to Goyang will be able to livestream the first show on Thursday with an online ticket. And I’m sure I’m not the only person trying to figure out how I can do this and make it to work on time that morning and which device I should be watching it on, since it starts at 6am ET and will likely go for at least three hours and it’ll have to happen during my commute. The concert on Saturday from Goyang will be broadcast in theatres around the world. I bought tickets for this weeks ago and a friend is flying in from New York so we can all go together. Keeping up with BTS is basically a full-time job at this point.

Over the weekend Hot Ones started teasing the guests for their season finale episode. ARMY caught on pretty quickly and the confirmation came yesterday – RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook will all join Sean Evans for wings and conversation.

ARMY has been lobbying for this for years. And it’s not like Hot Ones doesn’t benefit. The likes on that preview are exponentially higher than most of the posts on their social accounts so they understand the draw; the timing of the episode release couldn’t be better either, coinciding with the first show on the tour.

By now we all know that the reason Hot Ones has become so popular isn’t just because we want to watch celebrities overheat, it’s also the quality of the questions. Sean and his team are acclaimed for their comprehensive research, and turning that into thoughtful questions. This means that at this point he’s probably a BTS expert, and probably an ARMY expert. I can’t wait to see how he handles this, and how they handle it. Because the seven of them are unhinged at the best of times. As for the spiciness – the fanbase is well aware that among them, V is the one who doesn’t handle heat well but, also, as Suga has said before… Koreans might have a higher baseline for spicy food than others.

But BTS on Hot Ones is just one of SO MANY promotional activities. The social media drops have been non-stop. Just this morning they released the dance practice video for “2.0”. The official “2.0” video was posted last week and I’ve already written about how much I love the choreo – the choreo and the dance practice videos are what got me into BTS in the first place a decade ago, I live for this kind of content, and the “2.0” routine is already among their best.

That video already has over 500K views in under an hour. And several of the members have been posting their versions of the “2.0” dance challenge. V did his with the Wooga Squad, including Peakboy and popular K-drama actors Park Seo-jun, Choi Woo-shik, and Park Hyung-sik, all of them in the “Swim” training jacket.

You can see a glimpse of Park Hyung-sik’s idol training in that brief clip. That’s where he was focusing before he transitioned into acting. And speaking of, Hyung-sik’s new drama was just confirmed today. He and Park Gyu-young are starring in a new office romance called Fall in! Love! A word on Park Hyung-sik if you are unfamiliar – I watched his last drama, Buried Hearts, which wasn’t great, just because of his hair. This man really needs to come with a warning.

@kisgnuyh Still cuts of Park Hyung-sik as Seo Dong-joo in <Buried Hearts> 🖤 #parkhyungsik #hyungsik #박형식 #형식 #パクヒョンシク #朴炯植 #พัคฮยองชิก #ПакХёнШик #هيونغشيك #BuriedHearts #TreasureIsland #보물섬 #埋もれた心 #寶物島 #CapCut ♬ เสียงต้นฉบับ - ☪️_Sai Sai_🌻 - ☪️ NAB SMNS ชอบเที่ยว

The Wooga Squad often go to concerts together, and I can’t imagine if schedules allow that they won’t at least be at one of the Goyang shows to support Tae and the band. That’ll be another thing to watch out for: how much of the Korean entertainment system will turn up to see the kings.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Photo credits: BIGHIT MUSIC/Netflix

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