221230 Sugas Tweet

221230 Suga’s Tweet

태형이 이눔시키 생일 축하혀~ #뷔생일ᄎᄏ #슈가형이야 #새해복많이받으렴

Taehyungie u lil punk happy birthday~ #HappyBdayV #It’sSugaHyung #HappyNewYear

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jimin x wkorea fashion film 01

He has the most elegant hands. Good lord.

Me, myself, and V (behind the scenes)

I find the 'JK posted the Jimin bday thirst trap for ARMY' fandom narrative to be off because yes he could have sent it privately, that's fair enough but in the same vein he could post thirst traps any other day of the year too. Its been a good couple of months since Jimin's bday and I don't see any other sexy selcas or videos being released 'for ARMY'. That was a Jimin related limited edition special event

Absolutely. I think he was trying to have fun with Jimin, and did it very publicly in front of Army because, let’s be honest, part of the joke/teasing nature of it was the spectacle.

This is all my interpretation, so I could be totally off. But I’m trying to stay in the realm of what makes sense, what aligns with what we know about their personalities and relationship. Not to mention that as far as I know every other public birthday wish the guys have made for each other has been assumed to be about the person it was made for. Does the fandom scrutinize every other member’s birthday wishes to each other and try to find hidden agendas? Why is this one suddenly being interpreted differently?

Also I love your phrase “Jimin related limited edition special event” 🤣 JK seems to have a lot of those, doesn’t he? 🤔😁 Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

it was a fila sweater. half of them would have it since they were sponsored. if they were given it to wear on the trip, then yeah the reasoning could be that jimin also put one on after coming back to the place they were staying.

Yeah totally possible!

Do we know they were given it to wear on the trip? If they said that I may have missed it. What I definitely did see is Jimin not wearing it all day while Jung Kook wore it, and then the exact opposite later that night. But you’re right! Could be a coincidence. Either way it isn’t like a make-or-break thing. I think they’re a thing for a myriad of other reasons. It’s just one more sus moment to add to many. But if you don’t think it’s true or it stresses you out for some reason to think that Jimin wore JK’s shirt then just like… don’t think it, I guess? Thanks for stopping by! 👍

Every day I get more certain that there is no real ship. The members and the company let this shipping thing going on all these years because it benefits them, both in terms of money and being free to date who they want. There are more things that prove Jkk, Tkk or any other ships isn't real than the things that have been interpreted, from us shippers, as being real.

I’m super late on this but when you sent this I started on it, and then was promptly very overwhelmed by a large number of asks and kind of shut down. I found it in my drafts so figured I’d finish and post it, if you still care! Lol. Totally understand if you don’t 🤣

I already know I’m going to ramble so let’s get this out of the way — that’s a perfectly fine conclusion to come to. If that’s how you feel, it’s how you feel. I don’t know the inner workings of KPop marketing, so I couldn’t say whether as a whole they tend to “promote” ships (i.e. fanservice and questionable photoshoot concepts/poses, even mv interactions — is that what you mean?) because it makes them money, or if they follow the fans to see what they’re squawking about online and then serve up content to kind of give the people what they want. In other words, I’m not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg. I think we’d need an industry professional in the KPop media landscape, someone who’s followed KPop a lot longer than me, or at least a blogger more observant and analytical than me to tease that out.

On Jikook specifically — I have a few rebuttals to the idea that the relationship (whether it’s romantic or not) so many of us have clued into is some sort of fabricated marketing scheme. At the very least, it’s not only that. Let’s get into them.

#1: Just because something is marketable doesn’t make it fake.

Are their subgroup photoshoots adorable and thick with chemistry? Yep. Do I think for one moment that there was a BH executive behind the camera telling JK to look at Jimin like THAT? With the slow-gaze drop down to his lips (or his ass)? Idk, to me that’s laughable. He just does. Like, I think two things can be true at the same time: Jimin and Jung Kook can look objectively good together and also be a popular pairing within the fandom and so the company can kind of play into that and promote their interactions, and ALSO they can have a naturally affectionate, long-standing close personal relationship that boosts the chemistry of those interactions. Does that make sense? It’s sort of like when celebrities who are love interests in a movie do a press circuit, and they have palpable sexual tension — that’s half the reason they were cast as romantic leads in the first place — and they also get along really well behind the scenes, because they click and also have spent a ton of time together. Of course the Warner Bros executives or whoever’s funding the movie is like hell yeah, play it up, sell those tickets — but that doesn’t invalidate the fact that the co-stars have likely truly become close and truly have a connection. And, often, it’s later revealed that the co-stars have in fact been banging the whole time. Shocker. AND even if they aren’t — they still may have had a very real connection that could have definitely sparked into something more had they chosen to pursue it — for instance, I don’t think for a second that Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake wouldn’t have hooked up during FWB if he wasn’t so obsessed with his now wife (and she might have been in a relationship then too I don’t remember). And it was exactly the case with Tom and Zendaya. AND that’s just for celebrities, who’ve often only been working together for 8-9 months or so, making a movie. Not two guys who are attached at the hip and have been for the last near decade.

Whew. That was a lot of ands. Still with me?

#2: I think you’re seriously overestimating everyone’s acting ability.

Imagine being “on” all the time.

I get that they could turn things on and get purposefully flirty or suggestive during fansigns, or onstage, but BTS are some of the most prolific celebrities out there in terms of “behind the scenes” footage. They have posted hours and hours of what basically amounts to reality show content, spanning years of their lives.

“But reality TV is scripted.” Well, duh. It typically needs to have some sort of narrative, some sort of direction or it will be dull. But as anyone who watches reality TV will tell you, it’s scripted, but also it’s not. That’s what separates it from purely fictional movies and series with actors; it’s real people having, for the most part, real reactions in real time, and it’s what is so fascinating to so many people. You can script an interaction on a reality show, but it’s much harder to script every individual person’s reactions to that interaction, the interpersonal relationships that form, the nonverbal behaviors and cues, the personality traits that are revealed. More often than not, someone’s true character, or at least several facets of it, will come out when they’re on a reality show. It’s how we can confidently say that certain bachelors/bachelorettes are assholes — because even while they aren’t meant to be portrayed as such, and in fact they are actively meant to be seen as desirable, marry-able people — sometimes they just can’t hide their gross true natures. And that’s just for 1-2 seasons. Imagine pretending that well for something like 8 years of behind the scenes content. That’s approaching psychopathic levels of acting ability, and it’s an unrealistic conclusion. Maybe they’re not dating, but I believe they’re absolutely as close, if not closer, than they look. There’s no faking that level of intimacy and comfort, not for that long.

#3: I don’t agree with you that shipping allows the members to date who they want.

I’m not sure how the two things are related actually, except that maybe shippers in the fandom are more likely to dismiss dating rumors because they believe the guys to already be taken? But that’s just the thing — dating rumors have only ever been rumors for them. Nothing’s ever been confirmed, though there has been PLENTY of speculation, for Jimin and Jung Kook both. So I don’t really see how promoting Jikook as a subunit has protected them from any of that? If they were dating other people they’d STILL have to sneak around and keep that shit locked down, regardless of shippers — because regardless of shipping, proof is proof and if a photo of them making out with somebody on a yacht leaks, it really doesn’t matter how many cute selfies they posted with the other members, know what I mean?

#4: I don’t ship/support Jikook because of their contrived interactions.

I support them and believe them to be in a romantic relationship, or at least something that is not strictly platonic, because of their tension, comments, behaviors, and stories they tell of off-screen moments. Sure, maybe some PR person gave them the okay to do that dance cover of Own It, but nobody told them to do it like THAT, in a dark room, alone, with tension so thick it seeps through the screen. Yeah, they got paired up for 2021 seasons greetings, but nobody paused the shoot to remind Jung Kook to fixate on Jimin’s lips as he playfully leaned in. Yeah, they were asked to share how they felt when they heard the news about the Grammy nomination, but do you really think a PR person pulled Jimin to the side beforehand and said “psst, do that thing where you pretend you were with Jung Kook at 3 in the morning, awake for no apparent reason, the fans love that shit.” Nobody told them to take an intimate selfie in a car together and look absolutely pissed off (Jimin) scandalized (JK) and caught off guard (both) when the camera caught them. Emily in Paris isn’t over there spinning outrageous ideas in a board room and telling JK and Jimin to pause reaally awkwardly when they notice the camera in JK’s hotel room, almost like they weren’t expecting it to be there when they entered together — the ONLY members to do so.

Have I made my point? These two are a treasure trove of suspicious moments that add up, and add up, and just keep swirling together until we all kind of collectively go — huh, that doesn’t seem strictly platonic, my dudes 🧐

Idk. It seems like this fandom is very fickle, and constantly erases any and all nuance and realism for these dramatic, black or white, this or that stances that don’t really make sense in the real world. Maybe Jimin and Jung Kook have never had a romantic relationship (and if they haven’t, in my opinion, no one has, because no one else in the group has anything close to their particular cocktail of intimacy, chemistry, and suspicious moments/stories). But even if they haven’t, does that reduce their every interaction to contrived content thought up by men in suits in a conference room? Nah baby. That’s 90% them, their marketing team is just the lucky bastards that get to reap the rewards of an electric duo. Or unlucky, probably, if you ask the poor peons in charge of editing hours of content 🙃

If you made it this far, you’re a trooper. 💜 Would love to hear any other thoughts!