🥺🥺 Honestly, I'm so glad they're talking about this now, too. I've been feeling for a while that ARMY as a group has become very perfectionistic, to the point where there's no room for error. What I mean is, if you say something that doesn't meet the standard of praise, even with good intentions, you get harshly criticized. I understand the need to protect them, but that doesn't just limit ARMY, it also limits the boys, because all they get is either praise or outright hate; there's no middle ground anymore.
by Yuelize
4 Comments
Yeah, I completely agree.
Hopefully this will make some ARMY realized that it’s ok to voice some negative opinions / constructive criticism. No everything that the boys are going to put out will be perfect and as fans, we should be allowed to say it without fearing that other fans will shut that opinion down.
Really loved his interview, got so many insights.
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ARMY already can voice negative opinions, and have voiced them about Arirang at great length. You can already say “I don’t like this song / album / performance” and talk about autotune or lyrics or whatever it is that you don’t like, and you’ll probably get a lot of people agreeing with you. What gets pushback are critiques that are disrespectful at their core no matter how politely or carefully they’re phrased. You can’t say “they’re Westernized now, their work isn’t Korean enough” in a way that won’t get pushback, because no matter how polite you try to make it on the surface, the substance of that criticism is you trying to tell Korean artists how Korean they should be. The substance is disrespecting their identity. A lot of people say that kind of stuff and try to hide behind “good intentions” or “constructive criticism”, and frankly they should be called out for it.
I’m just tired of the motte-and-bailey crap where people will say something offensive, get rightfully shut down, and then whine about “all I said was I didn’t like the song!”. That’s not all they said. I’ve never seen someone get shouted down when that’s actually all they said. There is room for respectful critique here and in other ARMY spaces – just not for disrespect, and I don’t think we should start tolerating disrespect.
Anyway… All of this is a side conversation, because I don’t think Jimin was talking about the same things we are here. I’ll wait for a better translation of his video interview – the Rolling Stone translations have been a little off – but I thought he was referring to how some fans put them into a “good boy” box and then get all shocked and appalled when they release something unexpected, like Jungkook’s Seven or Jimin’s Set Me Free Pt. 2. They can’t grow as artists if the fans’ expectations box them into a certain type of music or performance and don’t leave room for them to express themselves fully.