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novi + didi nerd talk transcription
in the morning i remember i was tucking into bed and people wee tagging me cause apparently this emily person tweeted about he research from a burner account, but at that point i was too sleepy to actually give a full response
in the morning i remember i was tucking into bed and people wee tagging me cause apparently this emily person tweeted about he research from a burner account, but at that point i was too sleepy to actually give a full response
and when i woke up it was already, i'd seen everyone else give their takes
novi introduction time: hi i'm novi i've done an insane amount of ethnographic research, and within ethnographic research instead of quantity, you go for breadth of reseach rather than quantity. so you (emily) kind of failed on multiple fronts, and i can talk about that
specifically and how that failed to encompass the breadth of the army spectum.
first things first: one thing that i noticed is that, it feels like thee is a complaint about the quality of the product, and 2. i dont know if this correclates with the quality of the product, but they wanted thee to be more/ participation/hand-made/ involvement from the members
this mech discourse is fascinating to me because it frames the company where theyre pushing for you to buy the item, but in truth theres a constant market demand, and theres no evil in saying "ok people WOULD like this shirt" and they have a vey strong IP in multiple dimensions
but to fame is as "this is dirty lowdown tactic: to create mech" as a designer you constantly think about the user as the customer, "does this person derive emotional aesthetic joy from this poduct and oftentimes the answer is yes
for a lot of bts mech it serves an emotional need. especially in this paper is focused on "bighit is greedy why do they keep pumping out this merchandise"
1) as a fandom with people who can spend money on their interest. how is it exploitation of the fanbase when the user base
1) as a fandom with people who can spend money on their interest. how is it exploitation of the fanbase when the user base
constantly expresses desire you can of course have you own gripes about the design of the products, but there's no systemic problem with the merch, its more of a "you problem"
for example, the water bottles: if you look at it from a holistic design experience, you can look for example at a concert ticket, you can have regular white tickets o you can have glossy, purple BTS tickets; you can have normal walls o you can have *BTS WALLS* and the
water bottles make sense in the context. understanding why the bottles wee made and its emotional context.
in opposition to the argument that the merch is impersonal, we had the map of the soul merch having the members handwriting on it and there was trouble regarding one of the members handwriting not being included where for a designer thats like.. forgetting to turn on one layer
(didi substitute teacher)
i've done a lot of research in the past but from a stan twt point of view: my biggest thing is that it reads so much like a manti manifesto
i just feel ike i've read something along those lines on stan twt
i've done a lot of research in the past but from a stan twt point of view: my biggest thing is that it reads so much like a manti manifesto
i just feel ike i've read something along those lines on stan twt
(technical difficulties, novi got sent to jail by twitter spaces)
(continuning on the topic of handwriting)
one of the final points is, in the psychology of bein a fan, how do you take part in being a fan. for some its fanart, for some its edits, and for some its listening to the music, and for *some* its doing research
one of the final points is, in the psychology of bein a fan, how do you take part in being a fan. for some its fanart, for some its edits, and for some its listening to the music, and for *some* its doing research
and the problem is when you solely being to research the fandom, you own research is going to be laughable because what you're doing is putting and confirming you own personal biases and your argument will fall apart like wet tissue
the most surprising part, well i'm shocked and not shocked at all, at how all these researches circled around and defended emily. and you know that researchers have their circles
the insistence that it's cancel culture shows how it's separated from academia and its still within
the insistence that it's cancel culture shows how it's separated from academia and its still within
a fan space because in academica you have to be able to have a spine and *defend* your research
fingers hurty, novi tweet screenshot that she was reading off of here
didi asking: do you think the criticism that has poured in the past few days, censors academic discourse
the term "peer review" exists for a reason, peers being, here, people who would understand the context in which the research was done.
the whole "Cancel culture fame" shows that if that's the only argument you can bring, youve been on stan twt just too long. you need to
the whole "Cancel culture fame" shows that if that's the only argument you can bring, youve been on stan twt just too long. you need to
take a deep dive and recognise just how many biases have infiltrated your process
the illusion of a capitalist critique; the fan experience is not an economic entity.
marie the loml speaking: if the community you base you ethnographic research on disagrees with the findings, then you've done the research wrong. because the community is the peer review and they should hold the same weight as whatever board you'd present
the argument to. you do not need to have 10 yeas of research under you belt to know something went wrong here. its elitism
you understand inherently what is wrong. for example as a female dominated fanbase, this paper has just reinforced the stigma that we just move back and forth like a mindless school of fish
context: this is the tweet we're unpacking https://twitter.com/tbaudinette/status/1385747279252918273?s=20
this is one of the fist instances, where we've encountered army academics and thee is a sot of culture clash. of course its not a recent development, but theyre often times kind of detatched form he fandom experience
back again to an ethnographic study: ethnographic research wont take the direction of a scientific study. this problem here is that emily started with a hypothesis, and your'e not supposed to. you just watch. you don't interact and most importantly
you dont influence the behaviour of people, and then you ask. but with emily you kind of snowball, the snowball you reaches is not a healthy one because it dragged you into a biased, unhealthy group of people who ae not rerpesentative of a global fanbase
(neoliveson being one of the people she follows)
it got the point where it was published. and they considered this something that can be used for army and representative of army, internally it was already wrong and bringing it to an outside audience is even more harmful
oftentimes in ethnography, you're not part of the group you're researching. and if youre going to call yourself an army you have to understand that the army experience cannot be summed so neatly, especially when it comes to criticism from merch as an axis
marie: my issue with the research can be branched into 2 things: methods and research (methods)
1) there was a mismatch between the research question and the methodology. they wanted to determine what dove purchasing in the fandom (price quality/emotional/social determinants)
1) there was a mismatch between the research question and the methodology. they wanted to determine what dove purchasing in the fandom (price quality/emotional/social determinants)
i am of a personal opinion that an ethnographic study is not sufficient or rathe the WAY they conducted that study was not sufficient and it led to disastrous results.
19 people is completely fine as a number, but the demographic itself was the problem
19 people is completely fine as a number, but the demographic itself was the problem
(i) believe they should have interviewed baby armys
presentation of their results: if you've read the transcripts of their presentation, what i noted is when they presented the results, there was a complete lack of neutrality. but there was an overemphasis
presentation of their results: if you've read the transcripts of their presentation, what i noted is when they presented the results, there was a complete lack of neutrality. but there was an overemphasis
of the negatives. all the positive aspects, which there were, were relegated into after thoughts. so obviously in the way it was presented, there's an agenda there.
as a researcher, you shouldn't be peddling you insights if theyre not airtight. this paper was a working paper/ work in progress paper.
you dont offer up those insights; you don't offer up half baked source material
you dont offer up those insights; you don't offer up half baked source material
it shouldn't be too much to ask on our part that they treat us with respect
novi: there was an oversight before, where doing this type of research in the general circle (ex. nicole w/ researchbts) their field is infographics and data visulisation and the type of account she runs is more for fun and for army spaces
you need to understand that when you wok is done for passion, you can brush off critique. but if your work is done for *consumption* you have to understand the audience reaction.
ultimately when it comes down to this type of research, yes they have a ight to do so, but as an audience can you sense *respect* in this research, and you do feel disrespected by the conclusions dawn because they paint you in a negative light
(marie) it feels like this group of 19 friends just went on a big public rant and then they published it! they did what we're doing, on spaces chatting, and then wrote it out in formal language and then said "ok! publish it!" its annoying
(novi) in light of louis Vuitton etc etc. there's this belief that bts as band ambassadors are complicit in any ethical ramifications of that brand and its manufacture and it's a myopic view from *you* as a viewer because you don't know what is in their contract and
the difference in which a *brand* and a *company* conducts itself
marie's response to: https://twitter.com/tealcalm/status/1386025168615710723?s=20
personally: yes. i don't know how wsj approached emily, even if they did twist emily's words, but the way they made it look was that it was a super professional study that went though 3 blind peer reviews
especially if this was done for school, it was oversold basically, and it still would have been a problem
think of someone bringing a science fair project to a publication and saying "this is what the scientific community is currently working on"
think of someone bringing a science fair project to a publication and saying "this is what the scientific community is currently working on"
(novi) just getting this research published, as marie said, it's preliminary; does it benefit the researcher at all?
if you look at the rest of "kpop" research, you're likely to find the same lazy, unprofessional practices and we don't make a habit of combing through academic papers for research fallacies, but maybe we *should* and that idea scares these researches
(didi) armys are vey concerned with how we're represented. do you think this level of scrutiny is deserved, even from a non research point of view?
(didi) i personally think this level of scrutiny is necessary and honestly we don't scrunitise them ENOUGH.
when you ty to research us and when you try to write about us, its fair to say "of course i can never write something that's representative of everyone" but knowing that, why do you make assumptions KNOWING that it's not how everyone else will perceive it
(novi) army it he most pure grassroots organisation on the plant fullstop, and its defined both by how we use money and movement, in a way that isn't focused around bts. its very fascinating sociologically, because thee isn't a single thing that connects us except bts whose
focus is music. it cyclical in terms of the different cultural practices and waves that come though the fandoms like the Great Funding Accounts
they don't look at he holistic systems, the types of accounts, how people interacts, the practice of copy paste hashtags: ok lets talk about psychologically, why you find this effective and what is comforting practice
(novi) do not worry, because weirdos find every corner of the internet like the tony stark solo stans or genshin twt (shudder)
(didi) i was asked a question by someone who i think is a baby army asking "are solos a large part of armys?" and my answer from the 3 years ive been on here is no, and it's largely dependent on who you follow and who you trust to not put such content on the timeline
i think they (solos) need help, but i am not an army rehabilitation center
didi is now requesting to hear reina gamer girl voice
(reina) one of the things i have a problem with Emily's study, thee (in two ways) you have to have a healthy sense of skepticism when approaching these huge publications and as an army, i feel like you SHOULD have a huge amount of skepticism when people
ae asking about army from a business standpoint. and this particular journalist, i know we've had issues with him before and other fandoms have had issues with him before
if i were emily, id ask what exactly what they're planning on doing before because its *wsj* you know
if i were emily, id ask what exactly what they're planning on doing before because its *wsj* you know
i feel like you do have to have skepticism and approaching it on both sides with how people ae going to fame that argument. we're walking into a power dynamic where these journalists have the power of authority and readers are going to expect them
to be an authority (her kim possible ringtone just went off)
this is a male researcher, and you are a female fan from a female dominated fandom, and you should expect you words to be minimalised in such a way that it's often done
(didi) you'd want to do the due diligence of combing though the audience and choose the publication that would represent you research well, unless they were the only ones to approach emily in which case its a different scenario
(novi) sol's tweet regading power
(marie) to expand towards novi's point of treating our clicks as currency, if we have actual ground to stand on when we say these articles misrepresent us/or when we say these methodologies are wrong, then i dont care about calling these people out for being wrong
(novi) we have multiple facets with how we interact with news media, lets say with levels of credibility. the idea of how your own credibility can be easily undermined by news media and how we're represented but its also comforting to know that this (article)
is not going to be in wide enough circles where this will be people's fist impression of armys. it's armys reading this because we're interested, and i think in general armys are vey media literate.
i dont think the fear should be that this is the fist insight an audience is going to have of us, it's still our niche. but its still harmful when we're the intended audience
(reina) i know i've been grilling emily for a while, but there's two prongs in this problem in that emily was misrepresented and she was approached with bad intentions
i feel like something big has to change (the conversation) but i dont know what it will be
(novi) this circles around to the oftentimes comparison of bts army to beatlemania, the way i view directioners before becoming an army was how armys are viewed now and its like "oh shit"
it comes back to controlling the narrative now when we still have the chance; if we never truly capture a moment then that moment is lost and its only ever in our experience and part of that should be the role of academia: its both historical work and fandom work
(didi, the beatles fan) i remember when the beatles comparisons started, there was a very large backlash from westerners going "you're insane to compare this global phenomenon to this *phase*" except that in my experience you're just wrong
i remember in 1985 when beatles came to america, the band performed to such a loud audience that they couldnt quite hear themselves and it was such a cultural phenomenon, and when you transplant that to the 21st century, but that's where the comparison stops
when you talk about the band or the discography, its a very shoddy, lazy comparison because youre trying to equate white british brand with a group of asians.
while the beatles certainly did struggle to breakthrough and become respectable musicians in their own right, that such struggles were never comparable to the bts struggles. one thing you have to understand is that the beatles shied away from the teenage bop image
and they worked towards this idea of "how do we impress white male critics"
(novi) you cant compare them to bts especially in comparison to contemporary musical groups; at best you have a grudging acceptance of a large female audience which is why we have this beef with 5s*s
(novi) you cant compare them to bts especially in comparison to contemporary musical groups; at best you have a grudging acceptance of a large female audience which is why we have this beef with 5s*s
and with this feeling of bts its reciprocal; this feeling that you can be respected by the artist as a fan
(novi) i introduced a vey cursed concept the other day, imagine the purple whale but you have to roll for it; i'm just saying, we could be having a much spicier time
(maie) i had some thoughts about the merch concept and how proximity to the fandom might be amplifying that *need* to own, because its one thing i wish emily had looked into in the paper, which she didnt because of the limited demographics
me, personally ive never wanted any merch in previous fandoms until i joined stan twt, and its not necessarily a bad thing but there is a point where the community you're in influences your wants and needs
(didi) you need to recognise when its fomo (fear o missing out) versus your own personal need
(novi) its the theory of belonging, and understanding whether the acquisition would be fulfilling for you. like if you bought it and didnt share (on social media), would it have the same level of satisfaction in the act of acquisition without publication
(marie) they've -- emily and co. --made the personal problem of fomo and merch stressors into a problem with the fandom space as a whole
(everyone together)
it's a YOU problem
(everyone together)
it's a YOU problem
(marie) and then you pile up the moral dilemmas of capitalism and about how consumerism is unethical and now this is community wide problem we should be raging against instead of buying evil evil merch
(didi) when you make it a communal problem, i wonder if its truly a communal problem or whether you cannot hold yourself accountable for your personal feelings
(novi) if you dont take it as a corporate push, and theyre shoving things down your throats, and since for some people you seek a sense of belonging, that belonging can come through ownership and it can come from a negative emotional sense where youve based
your sense of solidarity on the criticism of a company and the merch and the people who buy it or don't buy it, and you aren't able to take the stance of "people can/do make their own choices" that possibility just isn't on the table
(marie) i was hoping to jump on reinas point about companies pushing the buying, and the example here is sm and leesooman.
what sm does is, there is a purposeful scarcity and, from my understanding, their album printings run out and that emphasises fomo so there
what sm does is, there is a purposeful scarcity and, from my understanding, their album printings run out and that emphasises fomo so there
are some companies that do this, that induce scarcity and manipulate the market in ways that would make more money or them. that's why I don't understand this whole viewpoint of bighit is evil and capitalist when they're just putting merch out there for people who want it
didi brings up this tweet https://twitter.com/piripiper/status/1386041393370615813?s=20
(novi) lets posit a situation in which bts leaves hybe. they've lost not only their management team, they've lost their label support, lost the support of the production team, merch designers, merch distributors, you've lost a team that has strong understanding of your ip
you have lost your records. its not like they're trapped, its an avenue that is advantageous for them to choose and their resouces ae all in the bighit basket, that's the way it is
(marie) yeah they're not shackled to bighit, they have leverage in their company. they're not sticking with hybe out of necessity, they're sticking there if they want to. because they have other resources and could very well pull a daniel and make their own company
(im really sorry yall i cant catch everything ;-;)
(novi, in regards to the quantity of content that bts are expected to pump out at such a fast rate) if you look at the timescale between her and tear and answer and its "oh wow" because when they accelerate they really accelerate
they dont rest on their laurels but its understood that what they produce is going to be good, so what's wrong with slowing down and letting yourself enjoy
(reina) they have their albums and then they have their japanese albums and then they have the translated songs into japanese and that pace is just not sustainable, and when i think about all the big artists that have been taking up the conversation
i do think that it will and can bring them to increase their music production
we have this feature culture where everyone's on a feature and everyone's doing collabs its just a trend we're seeing. what all the huge artists are doing lately is that they're also
we have this feature culture where everyone's on a feature and everyone's doing collabs its just a trend we're seeing. what all the huge artists are doing lately is that they're also
dropping back to back projects, like ariana had no teas left to cry and then we had thank u next immediately after.
(didi) i see a lot of new fans sometimes get angsty saying "where's the album" such and such and you know, you can enter a fandom and expect thee to be a pattern and such but with bts, they're constantly evolving so you have to sort of see the pattern before and look at the
current pattern and see. as a 2018 army, getting into bts there was just so much content coming at me. i got "idol" and then the many many appearances that came out of it and then thee was mono and the award shows and by the end of the year i was so exhausted
but as the time goes on i see the atmosphere changes with the band themselves and i can see clearly that the band itself sets the tone of the fandom and the direction they're going with and ive seen that its never truly dictated by what the fans want but by
what (bts) want to say in that time.
(reina) i think its crazy how we talk about 2019 like it was a huge drought but there was even a large amount of music during that time
(novi) theres this idea of what you have to expect and because you expect it you automatically assume that its what you deserve, but the fault lies in yourself for having such unrealistic expectations rather than the group or the company
as we can see bts break more and more away from all of those industry structures, they themselves have come to 1) accept that they are idols but reject the idol mindset
and bts never really had the mindset of the idol industry because they we "sns idols" and didn't have the support of the industry. if you create original content and loyalty in you fanbase because from day 1 you understand that those avenues ae available to you without any
alternatives and that's where innovation comes from
if you're going to have another successful boy group arrive, you cant have them be a bts clone because the formula comes through things like connect bts that are novel and not expected, once something has been done before the impact of the action is no longer the same
bts just does that,, its encoded into their dna that they evolve as they evolve
(marie) on one hand i agree with everything novi said, there's an actual economic framework where tht push bighit needed to overturn the historical advantage was innovation. but there are some fans that are just incompatible with the evolving experience
they just want to experience what 2016, 2017 armys experienced and they don't understand that you just cannot have that anymore because 2021 bts and army are different and the context is different
(didi) i remember people expected to get a comeback map for BE and were disappointed when we didnt, but when the comeback amp first came out for 7, people were angry because they felt it was spoiling the comeback and ruining the surprise
something new will be released and there will always be pushback but once the audience becomes used to it they'll go "hey! i want that back" but they won't be getting it back because the creator has moved on onto new content and innovation
(marie) the thing thats unique about bts is how dynamic their music is. all their albums are products of experiences they are currently having as well as the state of the world, so its partly responsive but its also partly for themselves which is something not
a lot of contemporaries can say, which is why there's some predictability and in terms of bts, sometimes you just have to go along with the ride and we cant predict what they do because what they do is in the moment, so i think the best thing for fans is just to take it as it is
(didi) if at some point, I can no longer connect to their art, I will hop off the wagon instead of saying "you should have done this just like so and so back then" and if that's something your not capable of doing, I feel like it'd be a much healthier experience
-- not to be patronising -- if people can just recognise the point where they no longer connect with an artist and just gracefully move along. thatd be a much healthier fan experience
(marie) to do that, i feel like they need to be firm in the idea that "i'm stanning just for bts" but its difficult for people to do that because of, along with the music, they've fallen into the fan culture of bts and their social circles are rooted into the identity of an army
(novi) if bts outgrow you, you can't blame them for living very full well lived lives, its ok for you to go and come back when you *can* resonate with their music depending on your life experience
we have solo spaces in which people have their identity *become* the members and their relationship becomes very unhealthy very fast and it creates a certain aggressive stance because you view everything as a personal attack rather than an attack on your interest
(reina) with solo stans its just a bad relationship you walk into where you identify with said members so much, if that member does something you personally wouldn't do in a given situation, they don't like that and lash out, and at that point it becomes "where did all that
love talk go" where you're going against the member you supposedly devote everything to
(novi) recently there was this thing about the hallmarks of abusive relationships and its abusive to themselves as well in that its not just "I only like the one" but "everyone else hates them" and its built upon the saviour complex where you're the only one who can save them
it becomes an idea of "how do you perceive what love is," for example in recent drama you have [redacted] solos celebrating his exploitation because it validates the idea that this member is in need of saving
(marie) do you think this solo stanning is adjacent to kin culture we've seen on tumblr
(novi) oh my god MARIE this is a red hot take
(novi) oh my god MARIE this is a red hot take
i do agree it shares similarities in that you've tied your identity to this person and similar aspects of when they do something you don't like, that dissonance is cause for well distress and secondly, there's some people who participate solely in army as a fandom
and on the flipside of that there are people who solely stan with the idea of bts like people who are on the fic side, it requires a flattening or interpretation of the members rather than the consumption of them, where you think this understanding of this person
can be ever complete
people who've recently joined in 2020-2021 the content they see bts through is through run bts and videos and its very different from seeing them on stage and being unpredictable even through a 144p livestream
people who've recently joined in 2020-2021 the content they see bts through is through run bts and videos and its very different from seeing them on stage and being unpredictable even through a 144p livestream
the lack of real life interactions detracts from their humanity and i wonder if this whole aspect of 2020 army twt is going to be resolved when armys see them in real life again, that's just my own hypothesis of whether it will come to fruition again
its important to recognise that this person has been transformed by both the artists biases and the medium by which they are portrayed
(didi) especially in terms of real person fiction, i was a bit iffy, but I have to constantly remind myself that this is a fictional portrayal and its very difficult especially when the author includes details that are "canon" like for example, yoongi and tangerines
(novi) how many lenses of fiction are you viewing members through even in real life; if you're a shipper, if you hate bighit, if you're a solo, those are 3 separate rose lenses through which someone is viewing bts and its frustrating because
you cant educate someone you're arguing with
(reina, on the topic of the members evolving and changing as people in contrast to stagnant assigned personality tropes) can you imagine if we all based current jk on middle school jk
(novi) the way bts approaches their growth doesn't put shame on their past, like when you go form a teenager to a young adult, your music changes of course but you can track that growth in being self referential and bts are constantly self referential
and owning your past is the same as owning your future
(marie) i think a lot of artists are not as self referential as bts is because they were not as involved in their own music from day 1, as bts were, and that's why they understand why, how and what they're referring to
(didi) i think this surrounds bts as a whole their whole approach to song writing: them being self referential adds a depth to their discography and just as marie and novi said, how many artists can *afford* to be self referential
after a period of time, you can say "in retrospect" or "this was something i lived by but its no longer applicable' and in yoongi's case the most obvious line is the "big house, big cars big rings" and its changed in time because he now already has it
(novi) its almost like bts reads like the script of a shounen anime where there's constant callbacks to previous hurdles like "this time you're going to fight leesoman, and this time you're going to fight the entire western music industry" and its such a beautiful metric
to measure their success by. the way yoongi constantly uses it and goes "let's see where we are now!"
(novi) bangpd, this man understands how to evoke emotions the same way a shounen anime does, this idea of poignant drama, like run and inu, and the story telling in the txt universe, it has such an emotional acknowledgement and story beats present in the txt and bts universe
are more in line with anime than western media and story arcs and thats my hot take
didi and novi are now auctioning me off for one corn chip :/
(novi) we ran the gambit of fan studies and research methods in general and just unpacking what it means to be an army, this has been novi and this was really fun
(marie) and thank you for didi and novi for letting me jump in
(marie) and thank you for didi and novi for letting me jump in
(didi) sometimes people can interrupt each other and it disrupts the flow of conversation but this is nice with fewer speakers and its like a podcast which is something novi and i have been talking about
(novi) i hate audio editing this is just the lazy mans podcast
(novi) i hate audio editing this is just the lazy mans podcast
(marie) next time we should talk about media consumption. the bears have this habitual discussion about new vs old fandom dynamics
(novi) we generally have this type of conversation often this is just with an audience
(novi) we generally have this type of conversation often this is just with an audience
this is diana signing off, this is marie signing off, this is novi signing off, thank you everyone who stayed! byebye
