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Here are MY thoughts on a few of these points in this “research”. This will be a thread with photos takes from the Google file provided by Emily herself. 1- refunds were offered for tour tickets. If you chose to keep your tickets, they’re not sitting on anything. THEY CANT TOUR
2 - a lot of people INCLUDING MYSELF missed out on the older merch so this was a really nice opportunity to snag some. I chose the things that I wanted. Skipped others. Again CHOICE is the word here.
3- less likely to purchase digital content of BTS themselves over physical merch. Ok that’s a personal choice. I’m ok with that but it brings me directly to 4- what is more related to BTS than BTS CONTENT?! So it’s low to release that merch or you want that merch?
5- this is not true for many North American ARMY. I bought London because I couldn’t be there. A few friends bought it because they were. Your 19 people do not represent all of NA ARMY. And the Hot100 merch while not as popular was still well received.
6- Back to the content. They release a HUGE variety to suit a HUGE fandom. It’s impossible to please everyone so they are releasing a widely varied choice oh items.
7- WE ARE IN A PANDEMIC AND THEY CANNOT TOUR. How exactly are they supposed to make money? You know the stuff they need to create albums and the ever changing goalpost of merch you lot need?
I am mad about this. But also I don’t care. It’s ridiculous and irrelevant but also unfortunate that THIS was the thing the WSJ went for. As I said, choice is given and it’s up to each of us to purchase or not. Buying more or less has no impact on being ARMY. Supporting the guys+
does. If you are supporting them in whatever way you are comfortable with , that is more than enough. My biggest issue here is nothing was considered as to the true size & diversity of this fandom. This “research” isn’t representative of anything more than Emily & her 19 friends.
For comparison- Nike has released so many shoes in the 4 months of 2021 that I stopped counting at 63 different pairs of shoes. Companies need to make money to keep people employed and customers happy. If BH didn’t release any or less merch people would still complain. +
I remember a time in the not too distant past when it was hard to get BTS merch outside of Korea. I didn’t even get my WINGS shirt until it was released at Hot Topic! I understand it can be overwhelming & it’s fine to look into the process but be honest about it at least.
DO NOT GO INTO ANYONES MENTIONS BEING MEAN. We are allowed our opinions and these are mine. The unfortunate part is this ended up in the WSJ furthering the narrative that we are misguided, irresponsible, crazy fan girls.
