BTS and their Army

Someone I know (who wishes to remain anonymous, but is very close to me); let's just say, a "friend of a friend," has recently become mega-obsessed with BTS. Now, I get it. They have mass appeal. I mean, anyone who had a McDonald's meal named after them must have something going for them, right?

Now, I knew BTS was a huge band, but I didn't realize how big of a scene there was for people to make reaction videos to their performances. My friend of a friend showed me some videos of dozens of men reacting to (and falling in love with) V, who is apparently like, the most famous guy from the band. She also showed me two other videos.

The first was Jung Kook's appearance on Jimmy Fallon, which I'll be honest, really helped me to see the appeal to these guys. The other was a live performance of their song Butter, which was pretty badass to be honest. It featured a James Bond style aesthetic; at one point, the guys were making their way through a matrix of lasers like a classic spy movie. It would have been cool to see this in person.

The Verdict

Now, the question remains; after being exposed to this band and basking in the glory, charisma, and swagger of their aesthetic and persona, will I, a humble serf, become a convert to this noble cult? Well, I have to say, I have a newfound appreciation for BTS, but my inner hipster is a bit strong still to become a part of a fandom as large and mainstream as the army.

For many people, this is their first exposure to Korean culture. However, my mom made sure to force upon me several Korean soaps and dramas, including Bad Guys, which was a pretty cool show. Personally, I liked that show better than BTS, because I'm more of a TV show kind of person than a boy-band stan.

To the extent that the obsession with this band develops in some, I am glad that people are finding hobbies and things to bring joy to their life, but it is disconcerting to see how close to worshipping and idolizing certain members of this group the Army is. I would be hesitant to pledge so much allegiance to anyone besides God.

Wikipedia, Ed Witten, and Predictive Science

I also wanted to share some other random things.

Firstly, Wikipedia has an interesting list of two and three character links; for instance [[gay]] links to their LGBTQ2IAP+ (wow, what a mouthful; why not just call it MOGAI, which is more inclusive anyway?) page.

Secondly, I read a provocative article about an interview with Ed Witten, the grand dragon of string theory. Witten himself is a figure that many teeter on idolizing, and so it is nice to read a more critical interview that centers more on Witten himself rather than the cliché about string theory being untestable.

This brings me to my last topic; a YouTube channel called The Last Theory recently published a video on why good science need not make predictions. "The most revolutionary scientists," he says, in a critique of the scientific method, "simply make stuff up." He brings up an excellent point: relativity, heralded as an experimentally sound and grounded piece of the physics canon, in contrast to string theory, did align itself with experiment. But, Einstein himself did not explicitly make any predictions; the Eddington "experiment" was more or less happenstance - a byproduct of a brilliant man's wild imagination. Dirac, as well, was fond of playing with math for the sake of discovering beautiful equations; the famous Dirac equation just "fell out" of the math; it was not a case of a man trying to predict some phenomenon.