Netflix Under Fire For Describing BTS As On “Hiatus” And Comparing It To One Direction And Destiny’s Child
It has been an extremely eventful month for the members of BTS and ARMYs. While the group was celebrating their anniversary, BTS had their annual FESTA Dinner, where all the members sat down and got real about their careers and the future.
During the video, BTS admitted that they were currently in an “Off-season” and would be focusing more on individual projects when it came to their musical ventures.
Anyways, we’ve now entered an off season… Should we talk about why we’re not doing the FESTA or making content? Should we get into that? Yeah, we have to talk about the direction we’re taking since the topic of our direction came up.
— Suga
The members even got emotional talking about the future and RM even got real about the exhaustion he’d suffered and the desire to take some time out to find his own identity again to help BTS get even better.
Yet, due to a mistranslation and some media outlets describing it as a “hiatus” which has private connotations, the members and HYBE came out with statements refuting that.
They explained that the group will continue doing schedules together but their musical focus will be individual. Jungkook even had a live broadcast to clear up any misconceptions.
I’ll say this again but we have no desire to disband. We still have a lot of group activities left, and there will continually be more in the future.
— Jungkook
Yet, it seems that even after the members and HYBE made statements that it isn’t a “hiatus,” big outlets have been using that word and raising anger amongst netizens. The most recent company to come under fire for their actions on social media is Netflix.
In their latest tweet, the account posted a scene from the Umbrella Academy and the subtitles read, “The only thing we really have in common is childhood trauma.”
Although the image itself was fine, combined with the caption, it angered fans as the tweet likened the current state of BTS to the likes of Destiny’s Child and One Direction as being on “hiatus.”
Destiny’s Child went on hiatus in 2001 to pursue solo careers and only reunited two years later for the release of their fifth and final studio album.
One Direction announced their hiatus back in 2015 and have not done any group activities and show no sign of coming back together any time soon. The two situations are vastly different to BTS’s current state as they are already filming Run BTS!, and doing much more.
Of course, the main issue was that they had explicitly referred to the state of BTS as being in a “hiatus” and although they used quotation marks, it was the same phrase and format used for the other two groups.
In particular, the idea that BTS’s situation was similar to One Direction and Destiny’s Child angered them as the group is still doing activities.
Another reason is defining BTS fans as “Generation Alpha” which are people born in 2010 and later.
It has been an ongoing narrative in Western media to refer to K-Pop fans as “young girls” and give them an immature description. For many fans, using the term was seen as disrespectful, especially as most ARMYs are much older.
The last issue was on the topic of “Trauma” as it is not a word to be used lightly and has many sensitive connotations. For users, the fact that they used the issue of “Childhood Trauma” and used it in the context of musical artists taking a break seemed wrong.
For many ARMYs, it was an unnecessary tweet that involved a lack of research into BTS’s current state but also the need to use the group, alongside other historical groups, to grab the attention of users.
You can read about Jungkook’s statement about BTS not being on a “hiatus” below.
