The internet made BTS. Arirang asks what comes next.
The first thing BTS ask for on Arirang, the group's long-awaited fifth studio album, is simple: "Put your phone down."
It sounds almost cliché in an era of screen fatigue, but coming from BTS, it lands with a strange kind of dissonance. This is, after all, a group that didn't just benefit from social media but helped define how K-pop stars are expected to exist within it.
For over a decade, BTS have lived not just on the internet, but through it, building a global audience by turning screens into something intimate.