If you're just learning about K-pop / @BTS_twt /ARMY, you may wonder why ARMY claims itself as its own instead of "K-pop fandom", or why publications like @TheR3Journal, @revolt_twt, @BorasaekVision, @Revolution_mag_ etc are focused only on BTS and not K-pop as a whole.

(1/10)

I can't speak for all these publications and all ARMY, but as an ARMY myself and member of @The3Journal, this is the perspective I'll give.
It's simple. @BTS_twt / ARMY are their own category. This may sound like a personal opinion, but it can be objectively explained.

(2/10)

Really, whenever a topic, a group, a thing, anything, is complex enough to be distinguished from its peers, it can be considered autonomous from it. It doesn't have to be hierarchical, it doesn't have to be personal, although it can be.

(3/10)

It's just about one thing having enough particularities that differentiate it from others.

(My academic background is Law so this is how it's easy
for me to visualize it. Hopefully I'm explaining it in a way that others can understand too.)

(4/10)

Law is separated in different fields. They have to be somewhat cohesive, and can communicate and influentiate each other sometimes, but they *need* to be studied separately & have their own separate rules.

(At least in Romano-germanic law systems like my country's)

(5/10)

In legal taxonomy, one Law field may have subfields. For example: Copyrights is a species under the Intellectual Property genre, but it is VERY different from other Intellectual Property species.
Having a common origin does *not* mean all rules from the main genre apply.

(6/10)

Classification separates things to better understand how they work, either alone or altogether. If you put 2 things that have different history, composition, achieve different results etc in the same classification, you'll come to inaccurate conclusions about them.

(7/10)

Back to @BTS_twt / K-pop, you don't really need to love or hate neither to see how they're interconnected yet can definitely be distinguished.
Saying that a subcategory or a related category is its own category does not necessarily equal bashing the other categories.

(8/10)

That said, you can like K-pop and still acknowledge that @BTS_twt transcended it. (I do)
Or you can like only BTS.
It's your right to like whatever.
And, sometimes, a lot of people like it enough for it to become too big & complex to belong in a preexisting category.
(9/10)

What @BTS_twt has done & does (in artform, cultural impact and commercial success), and what ARMY is like & acts like, is different enough to deserve their own category amongst music groups / pop and K-pop fandoms. It's just that.

(10/10)