Love Myself

BTS

I clicked onto YouTube’s home page and there, in my recommendations, was “I Need U” by BTS. I was already a K-Pop fan, but this was a totally different experience. Both the song and the video embodied the paralyzing feeling of being at your worst. When I heard lines like, “The sky is so blue, the sun is so bright, so you can see my tears so clear,” I felt like they understood what it felt like to feel defeated. These seven strangers were singing about something I was going through, and though what we were all feeling was bad, I was reassured because I wasn’t the only person who felt this way. The video’s visual symbolism, including Jungkook zoning out in public, Jimin sinking into a tub and Hoseok throwing his medication into a pit of fire, was similarly sad, but it also made me feel less alone. Most of the K-Pop I was listening to at the time was upbeat and happy, so there was something comforting about seeing this kind of vulnerability. And the fact that they were making music about experiences that I shared—and that had been making me feel alienated for years—made curious about who these seven guys even were, as artists and most of all, human beings.