Intro for March 5, 2026

Dear Gossips,

I was waiting on Netflix all day yesterday. Tuesday night they announced that “tomorrow” they’d drop the official trailer for BTS THE COMEBACK LIVE | ARIRANG, the band’s comeback show that will be streamed on March 21 from Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul. So, like probably hundreds of thousands of ARMY around the world, I kept hitting the refresh every half an hour, could barely think about anything else.

It finally arrived around dinner where I live. Of course I cried.

 It’s the song, “Mikrokosmos”, from their album Map of the Soul: Persona. It’s the song Jung Kook said was his favourite song during an interview in 2019 with The Hollywood Reporter, a moment I will always remember because he was so adorable when he said it. They also performed it in 2020 when they participated in the Dear Class of 2020 virtual event to celebrate students who weren’t able to observe traditional graduation events because of COVID. I remember it vividly because it was the final song in a three-song set that they put together at the National Museum of Korea, showcasing their first class production value (as usual) at a time when most of the global entertainment industry was struggling to figure out how to operate during restrictions.

Obviously I wasn’t necessarily the target audience for that performance but I was included, not just as one of their longtime fans, but as a human being, confused and frustrated and scared after three months of isolation, separated from our communities, still trying to acclimate to an entirely different way of living. And they were feeling that too! The world stopped for them too! Just as they were about to take their artistry to a whole new level, they were also stopped in their tracks. COVID changed all of us – and it changed RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook in ways we’ll probably never know.

What they’re doing, though, with this comeback is fulfilling a promise, which RM specifically says in this trailer. And by pairing it with this song, “Mikrokosmos”, in particular, they’re attaching layers and layers of meaning to their return. They’re setting it at home, in Korea. The album is titled ARIRANG, after a beloved Korean folk song recognised as the unofficial national anthem. And they’re performing at a national historic site, instantly familiar to every Korean but, at the same time, lighting the path to it for those who might not be familiar but are welcome.

One the indications of that welcome is the sight of all seven of them holding traditional portable lanterns, beautifully lit boxes suspended from sticks that people in old times used to light the path forward. These lanterns exist in varying forms across East Asia and the symbolism varies from region to region but the common themes are sharing and unity and of course hope, in the form of light.

And that too is one of the overarching themes of “Mikrokosmos” – that we are all lights, “shining brightly in our own rooms”, shining in our own different ways. No one way more valuable than the other. Each of our lights is a “big existence” and we all deserve to shine.

RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook are all holding their own lanterns, their own lights, as they way through Gyeongbokgung in the trailer, walking a path to a stage where they will reunite with all the lights who’ve been waiting for them while also illuminating a space for newcomers to join.

Welcome to the BTS Universe.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey