Which course BTS should have taken when they had the world under its thumbs at late 2021? 4
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Abandon Korea, incorporate at somewhere else, and continue to do Korea-less tours (1) 25%
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Run tours with the younger members, dragging it as long as possible (0) 0%
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Form a 3 member unit of Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook, to prevent Taylor Swift's resurgence (0) 0%
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The current course, which led MHJ and Ador and everyone else walking over BTS like a used rug (2) 50%
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Attack and destroy IU, aespa and IVE, to kill any dissents in Korea (1) 25%
Seokjin returns to the world, now largely having forgotten BTS as a one time fad, and Ador and New Jeans openly mocking it along with other idols.
The very fact that Kim Minjung and Ning Yizhuo marched into the Hybe HQ and stepped over everyone else in Hybe shows the state where Hybe and BTS find themselves.
Some say hindsight is 20/20. However , having watched KPop for a quite long time, I saw what would happen long before 2022, as those who were driven out from power by BTS would reassemble to wrack havoc to KPop's global dominance.
Around 2022, Korea consisted about 5% of BTS' total youtube views.
Which meant, Korea was relevant for about 5% of BTS' business.
As a comparison, about 50% of total views of Lee Jieun, the most viewed artist in Korea (over BTS , of course), came from Korea.
In other words, BTS would have lost NOTHING if it abandoned Korea, as the younger people had already migrated to txt, SKZ and other younger acts.
Yet Bang, eager to keep the investment money from Korea and also to play a mogul there along with people like the owners of Samsung and Hyundai, basically gave up world domination for short term admiration in Korea, which has turned into a complete disdain of him in there where no one respects him and his cohorts in Hybe anymore.
It had 5 options back in late 2021
1 Abandon Korea, let the Koreans balk, and run worldwide concerts (of course no Korean concerts ever) , suppressing all enemies and making the whining Koreans complete fools of themselves
2; Run tours as long as possible, only sending back members who cannot defer any more, and run tours with the remaining members, and no silly solo projects which basically all failed except JK's.
3. Send the older 4 to the military, and let the younger 3 perform as a unit, which would still have been strong enough to deny Taylor Swift the biggest tour in history and the Person of the Year Status
4. If everything else fails, stay in Korea, and destroy IU, aespa and IVE, killing any chance of opposition. With all opposition destroyed, the crazed Korean incels would have been silent since they would have no other alternative. With that kind of power, MHJ would have thought twice before planning to rebel.
The current option proved to be the worst of all options.
Pandering to Korean opinion proved to be in vain. Completely useless.
The crazed incels might have been silenced, but that has been much more than upset by the many enemies of Hybe created by MHJJ.
I don't know why they are holding the festa in Korea. They should hold absolutely ZERO events in Korea for BTS anymore, since the Koreans showed, twice (I use this word often today - no pun intended for the group using that word), that it rejected BTS by voting IU and New Jeans as the most viewed singers in 2022 and 2023 , and by voting New Jeans as the #1 singer and song at the Gallup Korea polls in 2023.
I don't know what brought an inferiority complex to Bang, whose desire to be recognized in Korea trumped every single sense in the book. If I were Bang I would have held the Festa in Japan, as a f you to Korea and also to steal any blitz the NewJeans Tokyo Dome fan meeting might generate. I don't even think there are any Korean Armies remaining, since if there were such thing as Korean Army, they would not have stayed still while MHJ, New Jeans and now other acts are all walking over Hybe and BTS.
Taylor Swift has now built an insurmountable wall over everyone else, since it is unlikely that any singer will become the Person of the Year in the foreseeable future. She has entered the pantheon of history, something robbed from BTS by Mr. Bang Sihyuk.
BTS has lost most of its world empire, and coalitions have been formed to make a quick move to destroy any new attempts of BTS.
The chief argument the Korean incels used to send BTS to the military was the 'longer career' argument. Yes, the longer career, going around cities not too many people have heard about,like Bruno Mars and Sam Smith going to Seoul, to collect maybe $100m / year . I have said about 30 times that such argument only comes from those who had failed arithmetic at grade school.
And , with the victory of MHJ, it has become certain that BTS won't continue as we know it beyond 2027.
So, out of the options, the worst choice was made and I don't think BTS will rise above Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Morgan Wallen and other stars who have firmly regained all of their positions and now are vowing to crush any attempt by BTS to regain power.
