Global Stars on Local Screens: BTS and Its “Army”

This research note is aimed at exploring the opportunities and challenges faced by teenagers living in an underprivileged region in Romania as fans of an internationally popular K-pop band. We used desk research and netnography to explore similarities and differences between the local and international BTS (Bangtan Sonyeondan) fandom, also called “Army”. Which are the barriers a Hungarian “Army” from Romania encounters when engaging with their idols? What is the role of K-pop in opening up the language and cultural bubble in which Hungarian youth in rural Romania live?1 The innovative element in our empirical research is the focus on family context: we interviewed both BTS fans and their parents in order to assess to what extent is K-pop in general and BTS in particular part of their daily lives. With its limitations as a small-scale qualitative analysis, such research can give insights into fan studies from a comparative perspective.