did you see BTS’s bag? (spoiler alert - there’s hella trophies and it’s hella thicc) — a thread of BTS’s achievements, influence, and impact

BTS have been described as "easily the biggest and most successful name in K-pop in the world" that can "do things no other name in their genre can".

Billboard Senior Vice President Silvio Pietroluongo said that BTS are comparable and as influential to the Beatles.

So let’s get it straight, BTS are the biggest band in the world right now.

As of January 2020, BTS have won 244 awards from 359 worldwide music award nominations.

BTS have scored three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart in less than a year and are the first band to do so since The Beatles.

In addition, only six K-Pop albums have charted for a full year in the US, and they’re all by BTS.

BTS has racked up over 9.3 billion streams on Spotify. That is more than the global population.
In 2020 alone, they have had 1.4 billion Spotify streams.

It is also of note that Spotify is not domestically available in South Korea, all these streams come from outside of where they are based, making this achievement all the more impressive.

As the first non-English speaking artist to make the Global Artist Chart in 2018, BTS had the second and third best-selling albums worldwide and were the second best-selling artists worldwide in terms of physical, digital, and streaming platforms.

At the 2019 Melon Music Awards, BTS became the first group to win all daesangs at a year-end award show with their sixth EP Map of the Soul: Persona and lead single "Boy with Luv" (2019).

The group also won all four daesangs at the 2019 Mnet Asian Music Awards, making them the artist with the most daesang wins in Mnet Asian Music Awards history.

BTS have attained eleven Guinness World Records primarily for digital engagement, including one for the most viewed video/music video on YouTube in 24 hours and for being the most tweeted about celebrities.

BTS have consecutively won Billboard's Top Social Artist award since 2017, and are the only K-pop group to win the Top Duo/Group award at the Billboard Music Awards.

BTS are also the only K-pop group to win the Favorite Duo or Group – Pop/Rock and Favorite Social Artist awards at the American Music Awards.

Their 2020 Map of the Soul: 7 album resulted in it being the most pre-ordered South Korean album of all time (4.02 million units). With 347,000 actual copies sold, MOTS:7 marks the biggest sales week for any album in 2020.

The feat is especially impressive since BTS accomplished it without the help of album redemption offers or merchandise/album bundles. BTS have also sold more traditional albums than any other artist in 2020.

Following the album's release, the Korean Hanteo Chart announced BTS sold 3,378,633 copies of MOTS:7 in a week, making it the highest first-week sales in Hanteo chart history.

BTS shattered expectations when "ON," debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming their third top 10 entry (after "Fake Love" and "Boy With Luv," which hit No. 10 and No. 8 respectively).

This is made even more impressive when factoring in no radio play or bundles, common tactics used for artists to boost their rankings.

BTS has received many awards and honors including 24 Mnet Asian Music Awards, 23 Melon Music Awards, 20 Golden Disc Awards, 14 Seoul Music Awards, 13 Gaon Chart Music Awards, 4 Billboard Music Awards, 4 Korean Music Awards, 4 American Music Awards, and 2 MTV Video Music Awards.

Having sold over 20.3 million albums on the Gaonp Music Chart, BTS are the best-selling artist in South Korean history.

As the first Korean group to receive an RIAA certification, BTS has one Platinum album, three Platinum singles, two Gold singles, and one Gold album in the United States.

In South Korea, BTS hold four Multi-Million albums and three Platinum streaming singles.

In Japan, BTS is the first male foreign act to receive a Million certification for a single; they also have two Multi-Platinum singles, one Multi-Platinum album, one Platinum album and four Gold albums.

BTS are also the first Korean group to receive certifications in the United Kingdom, with one Silver single certification for "Boy With Luv" and three Silver album certifications for Love Yourself: Tear, Love Yourself: Answer and Map of the Soul: Persona.

Their impact is unmatched.

As the first non-English speaking artist to make the Global Artist Chart in 2018, BTS had the second and third best-selling albums worldwide and were the second best-selling artists worldwide in terms of physical, digital, and streaming platforms, coming second only to Drake.

In 2019, BTS were again named as one of the top 10 Global Recording Artists of the year by IFPI, for a second time, ranking #7. They were the only non-English speaking act on that list.

In the US, BTS accounted for 72.7 percent of the album consumption units generated by K-pop acts in 2018 out of a total of 17 acts. In SK, BTS accounted for 41.9 percent of album sales in the first half of 2019, up from their market share of 25.3 percent the previous year.

In November 2019, Billboard ranked BTS at #4 on their Top Social Artist of the 2010s list, making them the highest group on the list. They are the highest-ranked Asian act on the list as well as the only non-English speaking act.

BTS appeared in Bloomberg Market's 50 most influential in 2018, and Forbes Korea named them the fifth most influential celebrities of Korea in 2017, and the most influential celebrities of Korea in 2018.

In 2019, BTS ranked 43rd on Forbes' annual list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities with earnings of $57 million.

BTS ranked first on the list of 'Top Rank Global Sustainable Future Leaders' during an announcement from the UN-sponsored SDG association at the United Nations HQ, while BTS' fanclub, ARMY, were noted as the 'Top Rank Sustainable Global group'.

Other notable people included in this list were Malala Yousafzai and Bill Gates.

Kang Soojung, exhibition manager at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, said that while preparing the 50th anniversary exhibition called “Square,” she was greatly influenced by BTS's hidden track “Sea".

This is representative of BTS’s own altruistic artistic aspirations as reflected by their desire to use their fame to give smaller artists exposure and opportunity, as exemplified by their #ConnectBTS art curation project.

As a brand, BTS are extremely valuable. BTS is worth over 4.65 billion in USD to the South Korean economy which makes them as valuable as giant, multinational corporations such as Samsung and Hyundai.

As of 2019, BTS are purportedly worth more than $4.65 billion to South Korea's economy each year, or 0.3 percent of the country's GDP. If that wasn’t enough, researchers estimate that BTS will generate an economic value of $37 billion over the next decade.

800,000 visitors visited South Korea because of BTS, which is more than 70% of the country’s annual tourists. BTS attracted one in every 13 foreign tourists that visited South Korea in 2018.

BTS were also cited as one of the key acts boosting global music sales to $19 billion in 2018.

During their most recent world tour, BTS made 196.4 million dollars from ticket sales around the globe. These concerts were attended by 2,019,800 fans.

During their Love Yourself Tour, BTS became the first Asian and first non-English speaking act to headline and sell out Wembley Stadium (tickets for 2 nights were gone in 90 minutes!); and broke the record for the single highest-grossing engagement in Rose Bowl Stadium history.

BTS's fanbase is the size of a small nation and as influential as one too.

BTS boasts over 28.4 million followers on Twitter. They have won awards for their digital engagement as the most tweeted-about celebrities in the world as from January 2013 to December 2019 there were 2,199,192,809 (2+ billion) mentions of BTS.

This is around 1/4th of the global population (7.8 billion in 2020). This engagement averages to 1,004,197 mentions daily.

At the 2017 BBMAs BTS received 136.4 million fan votes, a specifically American award. By comparison Justin Beiber received 14.5M votes which broke is 6-year-long winning streak.

During BangBangCon (BTS Room Concert), a 12 hour digital concert event, BTS amassed over 50 million live views, with over 2 million people attending concurrently in 162 different countries.

What makes this even more impressive is that in many of the countries besides South Korea where BTS has a huge fanbase, it was the middle of the night. After the event, BTS’s entire Korean albums discography re-entered the US iTunes chart.

BTS are incredibly popular globally, but also have a lot of exposure in the US. America actually has the strongest BTS ARMY – at least in social data – with 17% of social traffic coming from here. South Korea is second with their social data, at 13%.

BTS have started twice respectively on Jimmy Fallon and James Corden’s late night shows, been on Good Morning America multiple times, been guests on Stephen Colbert’s late night show, and appeared and performed on the classic US show Saturday Night Live.

They have presented and performed at the Grammys. They have performed at New Year’s Rockin Eve twice and are on billboards in Times Square in NYC. They have performed on America’s Got Talent and the Voice.

They have attended (and won) awards at the American Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards.

If you don’t believe that they don’t have exposure in the US, you aren’t paying attention.

Featured on Time's international cover as "Next Generation Leaders", BTS has appeared in the magazine's 25 most influential people on the internet (2017–2019) and Time's 100 most influential people in the world (2019), with the outlet giving them the nickname "Princes of Pop".

They are members of the Recording Academy, are the youngest ever recipients of the South Korean Order of Cultural Merit, have spoken at the United Nations General Assembly, and raised over 2 million USD with UNICEF.

Oh and their songs will be played on the NASA spaceship during their 2024 mission.

BTS has been praised for "speak[ing] honestly about topics they deem important, even in a conservative society" by Jeff Benjamin in Fuse magazine.

. South Korean president Moon Jae-in, in a letter to BTS, recognized their sincerity and inclusion of diversity as key to their success, writing,...

"Each of the seven members sings in a way that is true to himself and the life he wants to live. Their melody and lyrics transcend regional borders, language, culture, and institutions."

So yeah, if you're gonna call BTS flops, you better have the data and numbers of your faves to back it up.

All of these achievements come from a band that doesn’t sing or speak English often but dominate an English-speaking market, who writes 90% of their own lyrics, and does the majority of their own production.

BTS have crossed barriers into non-Korean speaking countries and amassed astronomical global popularity with all ages, genders, and nationalities. which is unheard of for non-English music and artists to be more successful than popular white, English-speaking artists.

And they’re humble about it to boot.

[End of thread.]

You can find all my sources at the bottom of the document here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19BWmcU-tPSVGDVPxJ2iO5p8osdROPE_Ie9Euav3u-MY/edit

(credit to @randomsplashes)