In 2022, the group introduced that it might take a break so its members may give attention to solo initiatives and fulfill their nation’s necessary army service over the subsequent two years. But up to now, followers have remained loyal, exhibiting as much as stream, buy, and help that solo work. With seven particular person careers now taking off, it’s doable the fandom may proceed to develop.
Though BTS Army is the biggest in quantity, different Okay-pop fan teams now have interaction in related social and political actions. Jorquera, whose favourite teams are BTS and EXO, emphasizes that Kpopers for Boric was precisely that—a coalition of Okay-pop followers who comply with totally different teams.
The Chileans riffed on what they discovered from different profitable Okay-pop campaigns: the way to create viral social media posts, host occasions to construct neighborhood, and join folks on the premise of a typical curiosity. They additionally used iconography acquainted to Okay-pop fandoms. Every Okay-pop group has a emblem, and each fandom will get a reputation and a particular gentle stick that modifications coloration or shows messages synced to the music through Bluetooth. Some teams even have a chosen coloration (BTS is purple). Kpopers for Boric created a emblem for the politician and adopted inexperienced as his signature hue.
They used pictures of Okay-pop idols in social media campaigns to achieve traction. They despatched an Uber to Boric’s marketing campaign headquarters to ship a cake embellished with the candidate’s face, a “Koya” keychain (that includes an animated koala who represents BTS’s chief RM), and Okay-pop-inspired picture playing cards of Boric, documenting all of it in a TikTok video. The video unfold, incomes 387,000 likes.
As they organized occasions at cafés, printing 200 coffee-cup sleeves with QR codes linked to voter data websites, Boric started incorporating Okay-pop into his marketing campaign movies. The group even organized rides for voters on election day.
In December 2021, with report voter turnout, Boric was elected because the nation’s youngest president. He’d promised to cancel scholar debt, tax the wealthy, decrease health-care prices, revise the nation’s social safety system, and battle local weather change. After the election, Jorquera thought, “Oh my God, we did this.”
It wasn’t solely Okay-poppers, she acknowledges: “Everyone was using what they cared about the most for supporting this campaign.”
In Brazil, the place Okay-pop is extraordinarily widespread, BTS followers used related techniques to achieve apolitical followers. The group Army Help the Planet initially fashioned to battle local weather change however turned its consideration to registering voters forward of the October 2022 presidential election. At the beginning of its voter registration marketing campaign, 16- and 17-year-olds (for whom voting is optionally available, although it’s necessary for many residents 18 and up) had been turning out on the lowest degree in 30 years.