In 2022, the group introduced that it will take a break so its members may concentrate on solo initiatives and fulfill their nation’s necessary army service over the following two years. However thus far, followers have remained loyal, exhibiting as much as stream, buy, and help that solo work. With seven particular person careers now taking off, it’s doable the fandom may proceed to develop.
Although BTS Military is the biggest in quantity, different Ok-pop fan teams now have interaction in comparable social and political actions. Jorquera, whose favourite teams are BTS and EXO, emphasizes that Kpopers for Boric was precisely that—a coalition of Ok-pop followers who comply with totally different teams.
The Chileans riffed on what they realized from different profitable Ok-pop campaigns: create viral social media posts, host occasions to construct neighborhood, and join individuals on the idea of a standard curiosity. Additionally they used iconography acquainted to Ok-pop fandoms. Each Ok-pop group has a emblem, and each fandom will get a reputation and a particular mild stick that modifications shade or shows messages synced to the music through Bluetooth. Some teams even have a chosen shade (BTS is purple). Kpopers for Boric created a emblem for the politician and adopted inexperienced as his signature hue.
They used photographs of Ok-pop idols in social media campaigns to realize traction. They despatched an Uber to Boric’s marketing campaign headquarters to ship a cake embellished with the candidate’s face, a “Koya” keychain (that includes an animated koala who represents BTS’s chief RM), and Ok-pop-inspired picture playing cards of Boric, documenting all of it in a TikTok video. The video unfold, incomes 387,000 likes.
As they organized occasions at cafés, printing 200 coffee-cup sleeves with QR codes linked to voter data websites, Boric started incorporating Ok-pop into his marketing campaign movies. The group even organized rides for voters on election day.
In December 2021, with report voter turnout, Boric was elected because the nation’s youngest president. He’d promised to cancel scholar debt, tax the wealthy, decrease health-care prices, revise the nation’s social safety system, and battle local weather change. After the election, Jorquera thought, “Oh my God, we did this.”
It wasn’t solely Ok-poppers, she acknowledges: “Everybody was utilizing what they cared about probably the most for supporting this marketing campaign.”
In Brazil, the place Ok-pop is extraordinarily well-liked, BTS followers used comparable ways to achieve apolitical followers. The group Military Assist the Planet initially shaped to battle local weather change however turned its consideration to registering voters forward of the October 2022 presidential election. At the beginning of its voter registration marketing campaign, 16- and 17-year-olds (for whom voting is non-obligatory, although it’s necessary for many residents 18 and up) have been turning out on the lowest degree in 30 years.
