100+ Signs You May Be a BTS Stan is part of my neverending love letter to kpop boyband, BTS. You can catch my ongoing series about BTS here or just sign up for my newsletter.
In the same vein of my piece, 100+ Things Only BTS Stans Know, here’s a mostly tongue-in-cheek article that may or may not just be me writing things that I do on the daily.
You Might be a BTS Stan if…
1) Everything reminds you of BTS or a BTS member or something they did or said or wore or ate or wrote or sang or rapped or breathed.
2) You tell your friends and family about whatever it reminded you of. In excruciating detail.
3) You sometimes refer to BTS members by their real names as if they were your real friend. (eg: “Well, Yoongi said this the other day…”)
4) You forget that you don’t actually know any of the BTS members in real life.
5) You cry that none of the BTS members are actually your friend in real life.
6) You contemplate endless scenarios and plausible situations where you could become friends with BTS members.
7) No. It does not matter that you are a 41 year old married woman with four children who lives in California.
8) You bend all your energy and free time to thinking about how you could feasibly meet BTS and hang out with them.
9) BTS is the first and last thought of your day.
10) Also, every thought in between.
11) You always list them in fan chant order.
12) You started to learn Korean so you can understand what they’re saying better.
13) And also in case you meet BTS in real life.
14) You learned to read hangul because you wanted to identify BTS member names.
15) You think you can actually understand Korean because you read English subtitles and now you’re fluent.
16) And then cry when they go live and you realize you only recognize 10 words and seven of them are their names.
17) You know what time it is in Korea at all times in relation to your time zone.
18) You fear 6pm KST.
19) You also fear midnight KST.
20) You buy cakes and throw a party for BTS members on their birthday. Even if you’re by yourself.
21) You mis-use the phrase, “Wig snatched.” (Okay. Fine. You don’t mis-use it only in the sense that people who mis-used it changed the meaning. Like how “literally” ended up meaning “figuratively” due to common usage. Let me live.)
22) You constantly watch reaction videos to BTS on YouTube – especially if you can tell the reactor is about to become ARMY.
23) You have more pics of BTS saved on your phone than your real family and friends.
24) You know important BTS-related dates better than those of your own family and friends.
25) You scan crowds for ARMY identifiers like BT21 merch or BTS merch (official and unofficial).
Incidentally, you can identify as a BTS fan by buying BTS related Secret Geek merch from my friend, Pew Pew Lasercraft. Use my code, MANDARINMAMA for free shipping in the US.
I might have purchased the last few of these Smeraldo flower necklaces. Go and check out what other “secret” BTS ARMY things you can buy. You can always DM her for custom orders.
26) Speaking of merch, you buy a lot. Is it BT21? YES. Is it official? YES. Is it fanmade? ALL THE YESSES. Is it remotely overlapping BTS in some minor, super tiny Venn Diagram kind of way? EVEN MORE YES.
27) You plot how to become friends with people you identify as ARMY but don’t want to be weird. You do it anyway.
28) You freak out when you hear BTS songs “in the wild” whether it is from an open car or apartment window or on the radio or in your favorite boba shop.
29) You tirelessly push your ARMY agenda to anyone who will listen.
30) You work BTS related comments into your work, casual conversation, and wedding vows.
31) You orient your week around when Run!BTS or Bon Voyage are broadcasting.
32) You know where and when BTS should be officially at all times.
33) You have watched all their concert and documentary movies multiple times in the theater. Then bought them on DVD or VLive or Weverse.
34) You know what day/era a picture or video was taken based on outfit and hair colors alone.
35) You have a list of favorite hair colors for each member in order of preference.
36) You have purchased things BTS members have worn or own or like.
37) You have shown BTS hair colors and cuts to your stylist to match both the color and or cut.
38) You start thinking in BTS memes.
39) In fact, you have a BTS gif for every situation. And you use it.
40) You have joined and followed way too many ARMY groups, group chats, Discord servers, and fan accounts.
Signs of being FBI or CSI ARMY
Because ARMY is big and worldwide, it’s inevitable that anything and everything BTS do can be discovered and pinpointed with alarming accuracy. Short of sasaeng behavior (which we emphatically do not condone), of course.
Don’t be a stalker.
41) You can identify individual BTS members by their hands.
42) See also: any body part.
43) You can identify individual BTS members even with their faces covered by masks and hats by their clothes, style, and walk.
44) You know what and where to buy the literal shirts off their backs. Confer also: clothing, shoes, books, accessories, toiletries, and snacks.
45) You can triangulate the location of any photo from the background alone.
46) You may or may not follow social media accounts of BTS family members.
47) You may or may not also follow social media accounts of BTS related professionals and friends.
48) You may or may not follow social media accounts of regular people who resemble BTS members.
49) You may or may not also follow “anonymous” social media accounts that seem to be the personal/private accounts of BTS members.
50) You comb through every award performance, tweet, official communication, etc. for clues to the next comeback.
BTS Comeback/AWARD Show Season Problems
51) You fall in love with an album teaser only to despair that you’ll ever hear it again because inevitably, that version is not on the album.
52) You cancel all life activities so that you can stream the title track/track pre-recordings/watch the red carpet/watch the performances live/follow the live translations/watch V Lives/interviews/WHATEVER.
53) You count how many daesangs BTS win and ship AWOONGI FOREVER.
54) You experience Post Concert Depression (PCD).
55) You study up on how YouTube counts streams and make sure you act like a real person instead of a robot. As if real people don’t loop YouTube videos.
56) You learn every tedious detail of how to chart on Billboard and then follow through.
57) You learn how radio play works and counts toward charting.
58) You really do need to own the album in its physical form. In multiple copies.
59) For the photocards. (Which you may or may not buy/sell/trade/store.)
60) Of course, you also need to own a digital version.
COncert behavior
61) Buying concert tickets is a bloodbath. It doesn’t matter whether they’re just one artist of many and performing 1-4 songs or if they’re headlining a show and performing 25+ song sets.
62) You clear the entire morning and enlist the help of your generous friends and family to help you purchase tickets.
63) However you manage it, the little walking man does not move.
64) The resale tickets cost more than buying a small island. You buy them anyway.
65) You sob because they are even more beautiful in person.
66) Your senses are completely overwhelmed during the concert. You don’t know where to look or what to do other than scream incoherently.
67) Your brain immediately forgets everything that just happened.
68) You also immediately experience PCD.
69) You schedule your social life around BTS concerts. In other countries. That you are not attending. But plan to live stream from a potato-quality source.
70) You will also experience PCD from said non-attendance.
Signs You May be a Hard Stan
In case you’re new to any fandom and are unsure of what a hard stan is, it basically means you have zero problems seeing or thinking of whoever you’re stanning in sexual situations (some of which involve you and/or other band members). No kink-shaming here! Personally, I’m a fan of tasteful hentai tentacle stories in general so, um, there’s that.
Also. CONSENT IS SEXY.
Clearly, BTS members are real people and we treat them with the utmost respect and never do this to their face because EW. The following two sections are all in good-natured mature fun. Special thanks to my Thirst Third and Unnis group chats for their contributions.
If it’s not your thing, feel free to skip this section. For sure, this is a CAPSLOCK situation and there is no way to avoid it.
Anyhow, you may be a HARD (heh) stan if you have ever wailed (or texted in a group chat) something similar to the following:
71) STEP ON MY FACE!
72) CHOKE ME!
73) DO THAT TO MY FACE, YOU COWARDS!
74) HOW DARE YOU? WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT?
75) WHY ARE YOU SO LOUD/THICC/BROAD? WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?
76) R.I.P. MEEEEEEEEE!!!
77) I—–
78) PUT YOUR TONGUE BACK INTO YOUR MOUTH. NVM PUT YOUR TONGUE IN MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
79) FUCCBOI HOURS OPEN!!!
80) IS MY LIFE A JOKE TO YOU?
Additional Signs You May be a Hard Stan
81) You can identify an individual BTS member from a zoomed crotch-shot alone.
82) You may or may not have zoomed in on pictures to examine certain areas more closely. For science.
83) You have entire folders on your phone dedicated to photos and gifs of hip thrusts, slut drops, sweat, tongues, throats, hands, foreheads, eyebrows, crotches, thighs, fingers, smirks, water spraying, tattoo edits, long hair edits, shipping edits, shirtless edits, and bondage edits.
84) You know instantly who belongs to the DSL Line or the BD Line. You also don’t need help deciphering that last sentence.
85) You know where all the well-written smut fan fiction is located.
Things You “discovered” Because of BTS
It goes without saying that all these things exist separately from BTS and weren’t waiting for our “discovery” to be awesome. (Confer Columbus “discovering” lands where people already lived just fine, kthx.) However, thanks to BTS, we lucked out and got exposed to these cool things that were new to us.
86) Other Korean and Kpop artists (eg: EPIK HIGH, NELL, IU).
87) Other non-Korean musical artists.
88) Art. Because Art appreciating art.
89) Street wear brands. Luxury name brands. Any brands – even Downey.
90) Korean culture because BTS is basically the best hallyu ambassador ever.
Things you never would have done or Liked
Not to paint us all as sheep, but we basically follow wherever BTS go. Their power.
91) Sign up for a TikTok account as soon as you found out BTS had an account.
92) Sign up for any social media account (including Reddit) specifically for ARMY purposes like voting – usually with a BTS member as a profile pic.
93) Join a KKT (Kakao Talk messaging app) group chat with strangers.
94) Find people chewing (loudly) with their mouths full endearing.
95) Read real person fan fiction.
96) Read Y/N x real person fan fiction.
97) Read slash.
98) Start liking really ugly shoes and street wear.
99) Watch commercials because BTS is in them.
100) Follow a car company and watch their live press release. (I’m looking at you, Hyundai.)
101) Buy a Hyundai Palisade.
102) Go crazy over a sliver of skin.
103) Or a forehead.
104) Listen to Drake. Willingly. And like it (sometimes).
105) Pay more close attention to the details of Jungian psychology than you did in your Psych 101 class. See also: Greek Mythology.
Alright, friends! My brain hurts but if I missed anything, please let me know in the comments! Remember, it was all in good fun and if we can’t poke fun at ourselves, what’s the point?
If you like this and want to read more about my BTS Obsession, then you’ll love these posts:
