I wanted to first share that this article was meant to be published yesterday but I was caught up with some things that I somehow forgot this was supposed to be part of yesterday's articles.
As many of us know there is a collaboration that happened with McDonald's and BTS that brought delight to many ARMYs worldwide.
What is the BTS meal?
The BTS meal is a collection of food from the menu that the BTS members enjoyed and want to recommend to their fans. I have also read ARMYs saying that the boys wanted it to be inclusive which shows that they put a lot of thought into what should go with the meal.
BTS meal comes with 10 pickes of Chicken McNuggets with 2 new sauces (Cajun and Sweet Chili), medium fries, and a Coke.
It was made available to the public this June 18, 2021. As expected many people flock to support this collaboration. Of course there are people, not part of the fandom, who ordered it for various reasons.
Online Sensation
A collaboration of this scale is bound to have a lot of online presence which is taken advantage by "clout chasers" as called by ARMYs.
These are people who bought the BTS meal fpr the sake of trying to piss off fans by posting insulting reviews and some even wemt as far as making a joke out of the whole fandom.
Foodies
These are the people who bought the BTS meal because they wanted to try out the sauces. There are those who love Cajun who wanted to try and share their thoughts as well as where people who love the sauce can get them because the McDo Cajun sauce is limited.
There are even thoughtful people who ordered an ordinary 6-piece Chicken McNuggets and just requested the special sauce because they wanted the fans to have the packaging.
Trolls
Of course, everytime something nice happens there will be a group of people trying to rain on someone else's parade. These are people who like to criticize other people's likes and feel entitles to belittle them for having different interests.
Exhibit A:
This was posted on Facebook where it gathered more than 10,000 likes and has been shared multiple times. As you can see they bought a BTS meal then posted the containers of said meal to piss off fans who they know take good care of the container.
Exhibit B:
This one is also posted on the same day. It is pretty evident that they enjoyed doing this.
There are more of these types of posts but I will no longer include them as I do not want to share more of that kind of toxicity. Why is it that people do this kind of things just for the attention? If they did not want the meal then why bother ordering it then showing off pictures of their crumpled packaging?
And their defense of them always throwing their packaging like that is weak because I am pretty sure they never posted a crumpled packaging until the BTS meal came out.
ARMYs
The happiest people that day are the ARMYs. They have been eagerly waiting for it and some (mostly students ARMYs) even set aside part of their allowance to buy it when it came out.
I am not an ARMY myself but my sister is one which prompted me to write it. While a part of me does not understand what exactle was going through her mind when she bought it, I understand the desire to show support to the people one admire. After all, who am I to judge when a few months ago, I wanted to buy Pepsi just so I can keep some cans with BLACKPINK's pictures on it. I ended up not buying it but that is not the point.
The point is that I know the feeljng of wanting to support someone I admire in any way.
This is the BTS meal that my sister ordered. We ordered something for ourselves as well but she was the only one who ordered the BTS meal.
ARMYs proved their creativity when they mamaged to turn this cute packaging into something that they can use. It may be a simple packaging to us, non-ARMYs, but to them, especially to student ARMYs, this packaging is a cute souvenir of BTS. For some ARMYs this is the only "merch" they can afford to buy and I admire them for their creativity to use what they have to show their love for BTS.
Some of them designed it and then framed the packaging. Others used it as a cover for their journals. There were some who made bookmarks and key chains out of it too. Their creativity mever ends and it wss so nice to see what they come up with.
My sister is one of the people who managed to upcycle this packaging. She used the BTS meal cup to make a customized phone case.
How is that for making a statement, eh? She is actually planning to use the paper bag as a paper insert in a tumbler. And she told me that she will use the cover for the sauces as keychains. I am excited to see how it would turn out!
To be honest I actually laughed at her at first because I did not understand why someone wanted to keep a "trash" just because it has the BTS logo. However, when she explained it and showed me her plan, I was amazed and I felt bad for laughing.
This instance hardened my belief that people should be allowed to enjoy things without everyone else trying to bring them down.
I did not understand at first just how deep their love for BTS runs and I judged without trying to understand them which is wrong. Once my sister explained it to me, I was enlightened and I went back to the posts mocking ARMYs for what they are doing and aside from the trolls who keeps repeating some perceived insult to the boys, all I see are ARMYs calmly explaining their side.
I believe that people should not have to defend their choices of supporting people they like in any way they can. Some may argue that if I am all for letting people do what they enjoy then why am I so critical of people who enjoys making fun of people?
To this I will say, bullying is not "something that people enjoy". It literally attacks people just becausr of who they like and who they support.
It is not overreacting to try to defend one's self against an onslaught online harassment just for supporting a group that people do not necessarily support.
If BTS is not your cup of tea, that is okay. What is not okay is attacking their "toxic" fandom and feeling self-righteous while not seeing the irony.
Just let people enjoy things. It does not hurt you if someone says a movie is the best movie for them but for you it is not. You do not need to argue about it, just let it be. It is not like their subjective views have any effect on you.
We have different tastes so if you find people who do not share the same tastes as you, just run along and not say any entitled words. What might be the best thing for you might not be for everyone and that is okay, that does not make their tastes "trash".
This is not only applicable to the BTS and its fandom. It is applicable to everything. It take zero effort to just let people be happy. Why would one put an effort into trying to make them down?
What does one gain trying to make people feel stupid for liking something? Does it make them less miserable? Or are they so miserable that the only thing that gives them a rush of emotions is trying to make someone else feel miserable/frustrated?
Again, this is just my personal opinion on the matter. Feel free to disagree with it, you can share your thoughts as well. Let us all learn from one another.
Did you know anyone who bought the BTS meal yesterday? Did you buy one for yourself? What did you do with the packaging? Let us all share our experiences with one another.
You can find more of my articles by clicking this link: https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/week-1-june-2021-articles-summary-6e15cf71
Feel free to browse through it, you might find something that is to your taste.
Thank you for reading and supporting me, everyone!
