Beyond The Story

Chapter 6

MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA MAP OF THE SOUL: 7

When BTS released their new album MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA on April 12, 2019, at 6 P.M., a large part of their Korean audience on the music streaming platform Melon were unable to listen to it right away. Melon's servers had crashed due to the sheer number of simultaneous access attempts.

This was something unimaginable for anyone living in the Republic of Korea. In 2019, 10.28 million Koreans used music streaming services, with Melon boasting 4.1 million active monthly users. For an entire platform of this magnitude to go down because of the demand for just one album was like a pebble being thrown into the ocean displacing all of its water into space.

This had perhaps been foreshadowed about two months before the release of MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA by ARMYPEDIA, a kind of treasure hunt hosted by Big Hit Entertainment as a special treat for ARMY. Jumbotron teasers were shown in Seoul, New York, LA, Tokyo, London, Paris, and Hong Kong, and ARMY around the world looked for 2,080 puzzle pieces scattered across the globe and the Internet to piece together. The number 2,080 refers to the 2,080 days from BTS's debut on June 13, 2013, to February 21, 2019—when ARMYPEDIA was revealed—meaning each piece of the puzzle was a day in the life of BTS itself.

ARMY assembled the pieces with breathtaking swiftness. Each puzzle piece had a QR code. Scanning this QR code brought you to a quiz question about BTS that when answered correctly would fill in a record of the ARMYPEDIA for that day. The ARMY who had answered correctly were free to upload their personal BTS memories in the form of text, photos, and videos. ARMYPEDIA showed that BTS by then had grown into a gigantic phenomenon that would draw a global response through something as humble as an event centered around the memories they shared with their fans.

A few weeks later, two offline ARMYPEDIA afterparties of a sort were held in Seoul. At the time, the Korean media talked of these special events as "BTS events without BTS." While the members of BTS did appear in brief surprise video performances on the large screens set up at the event spaces, they did not attend in person. Still, the ARMY gathered in arena-audience magnitudes, singing along to their songs coming out of the large concert speakers, taking part in the proceedings prepared by BTS and Big Hit Entertainment.

ARMYPEDIA and the events that followed were a preview of what ARMY would show the world once the new album MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA was released. ARMY would now gather in large enough numbers to attract the attention of the media, even without the physical presence of BTS. Which is how, while MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA was a BTS album through and through, it was ARMY who became the star of the album.

MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA begins with a story about "you," that is, ARMY. The concept behind this album was inspired by a recurring thought Jung Kook had as he promoted the LOVE YOURSELF series.

I wondered what life was like for all the people who liked me.