I know this is going to upset some people, but I need to say this because the outrage surrounding BTS lately has honestly become a lot. And perhaps the timing makes it even more frustrating to me because BTS are currently in the middle of one of the biggest tours of their career, playing sold-out stadiums around the world and breaking attendance records along the way. They are out there performing for hundreds of thousands of people, reconnecting with ARMY after years apart, and yet so much of the conversation surrounding them seems to be consumed by controversy, criticism, boycotts and arguments over every decision they make.

After I published my post yesterday, a few people reached out to me privately. What struck me was how many of them weren’t even angry anymore. They were stressed. They were exhausted. They told me they are tired of constantly seeing BTS criticized, fandom arguments everywhere, and one controversy after another becoming the center of everything.

And honestly, I understand it.

There is a difference between caring about something and allowing it to consume you. There is a difference between holding people accountable and living in a constant state of outrage. At some point, I think we need to ask ourselves whether all of this criticism and drama is actually helping anyone.

First, I am not putting BTS on a pedestal, and I am not saying everything they do is automatically okay. I can and will criticize BTS when I believe criticism is warranted. I don’t blindly agree with everything they say, do or endorse just because I love them. And I am not saying RM and J-Hope attending the Usher and Chris Brown concert, enjoying the show or posting about it is something I personally agree with. They are adults. They made a personal choice. I don’t control their lives, and honestly, who am I to sit here and act like I am morally superior enough to judge every decision they make?

That is really what is bothering me right now.

It isn’t that people are angry. People are allowed to be angry. It isn’t that people are uncomfortable. People are allowed to be uncomfortable. It is the hypocrisy, the selective outrage and, at times, the self-righteousness that makes the whole situation worse.

I also want to be very careful here because I know some people are speaking from deeply personal experiences. If you are a survivor of domestic violence or violence against women, or if you are a parent who feels protective of your daughters because of Chris Brown’s history, I understand why this situation may hit differently for you. If seeing RM and Hobi attend the concert or seeing Hobi tag Chris Brown made you angry, hurt or disappointed, I am not going to tell you that you shouldn’t feel that way. Your feelings are yours. Your experiences are yours. And they deserve to be respected. I support survivors. I support accountability. I support the Violence Against Women Act and the protections and services it was created to strengthen. I believe violence against women should be taken seriously, and I am not interested in minimizing Chris Brown’s history. 

But I also don’t believe that supporting survivors means everyone has to arrive at the exact same conclusion about RM and Hobi. You can be hurt by what happened and decide you don’t want to support BTS anymore. That is your choice. You can be angry. You can walk away. You can boycott them. I respect your right to do that. What I don’t think is fair is telling everyone else that they must make the same choice or that disagreeing with you makes them less compassionate toward survivors. 

And I especially don’t think Rihanna should be used as a measuring stick for how survivors are supposed to feel. Rihanna has made her own choices about her life and how she has moved forward. That is her right. But her decision does not mean every survivor has to forgive, move on or feel the same way she does. Every survivor gets to decide what healing looks like for them. 

In the same way, someone else’s decision to continue listening to BTS doesn’t mean they don’t care about women. We have to leave room for people to process complicated situations differently.

Right now, BTS is being heavily criticized over Gemini, while RM and J-Hope are being condemned for attending the Usher and Chris Brown concert. I understand why people are questioning those things. But if we are going to start measuring BTS against a strict moral standard, then I think we also need to be honest about how inconsistent that standard can become.

Where was this same level of outrage when BTS partnered with McDonald’s? What about Coca-Cola and other major global brands that have faced boycotts, controversy or criticism over their business practices and perceived connections to Israel and Palestine?

And I am including myself in this.

I have eaten at McDonald’s. I have had Coca-Cola. I have bought things from companies that, if I looked closely enough, I could probably find something about their business practices that I disagree with. Most of us have. We live in a world where we don’t have complete control over every company and brand around us. We work for them, shop from them, eat their food, drink their products, use their services and depend on them because they are simply part of everyday life. Many of us probably work for or interact with companies whose practices we don’t completely agree with. That doesn’t automatically mean we support everything those companies do. 

Life is complicated.

You can care deeply about human rights. You can oppose war. You can support survivors. You can believe in accountability. You can boycott something because you genuinely believe it is the right thing to do. I respect that. What I don’t respect is acting as though your personal choices somehow make you morally superior to everyone else. None of us live perfectly ethical lives. None of us can realistically remove ourselves from every company, person, system or product that has something we disagree with. We all make compromises. We all participate in systems we don’t completely control. We all have contradictions.

That includes me.

And this is one of the reasons “NORMAL” has been on my mind. 

BTS wrote a song about what it means to live with fame, scrutiny, expectations, love, hate and the constant push and pull of public opinion. RM talked about the strange reality of being loved one day and turned against the next, and what “normal” even means when you’re living as BTS. There is something about that song that feels especially relevant right now. Sometimes people seem to want BTS to be everything at once. Be human, but never make mistakes. Be relatable, but never make a choice we disagree with. Be role models, but somehow always live according to millions of individual moral standards.

That’s impossible.

There are seven actual human beings behind BTS. Seven people who have grown up in front of the world, who have their own friendships, interests, opinions and lives. We don’t know everything about them, and we don’t know what every choice means to them.

I am not defending every choice BTS makes. I am defending their right to make choices without being treated like they belong to us. And yes, BTS are influential. I agree with that. Their words, actions and choices can have an impact because millions of people watch and listen to them. That is exactly why their actions can be discussed and questioned. But being influential does not mean they lose the right to make personal choices, nor does it mean we automatically know what they intended by those choices. We can acknowledge their influence while still respecting their autonomy.

Their influence does not make them the property of their fandom.

If something BTS does crosses a line you cannot accept, boycott them. That is your choice, and I respect your right to make it. If you don’t want to listen to their music, buy their albums, attend their concerts or support them financially, that’s your decision. But don’t tell me that your decision makes you a better person than the person standing next to you who made a different choice. And don’t expect BTS to live according to every moral standard that millions of people around the world have decided they should follow. There is a difference between accountability and control. There is a difference between having standards and demanding perfection from someone else while ignoring your own contradictions. There is a difference between boycotting something because it genuinely matters to you and using a boycott as a way to publicly prove how morally superior you are.

Maybe that is what bothers me most.

We can criticize BTS. We can question them. We can disagree with them. We can even walk away from them. But let’s stop pretending that any of us have lived a perfectly consistent, perfectly ethical life. Before we condemn someone else’s choices, maybe we should look at some of our own.

And to the people who reached out to me yesterday because you’re exhausted by all of this: you are allowed to step away from the noise. You don’t have to fight every argument. You don’t have to defend BTS every time someone criticizes them. You don’t have to participate in every boycott conversation. You don’t have to prove what kind of ARMY you are. You are allowed to simply love the music, enjoy the memories, go to the concert, watch the performances and have your own relationship with BTS without letting every controversy take that joy away from you.

I don’t need BTS to be perfect to love them. I don’t need to agree with everything they do. And I certainly don’t need to pretend that I am morally above them. I just want a little consistency, a little humility and a little room for people to be human.

And if you’re truly done with BTS and serious about your boycott, please DM me. I’d love to buy your Bulacan, Malaysia, or LA Day 1 & Day 2 tickets. Keep your word. I’ll happily take those tickets off your hands.