#sick of hearing about it even when i’ve never had a twt account and never will

[kimtaegis]

Hi, I am Korean (non-army) but I wanted to say, I was so relieved to read your post noticing the toxicity of what some armys have been saying. As someone who migrated back and forth between America and Korea, I grew up with racial trauma and xenophobic statements. I’ve often hear statements belittle South Korea, making stereotypical remarks about the Korean culture “oh they’re so superficial” “oh they’re all brainwashed” and hearing things like it’s nothing compared to Japan and China, etc.

all day yesterday I was sick to my stomach being on Twitter and reading so many twts from armys that were belittling sk. I get that people were shocked, upset, and disappointed with the enlistment news. I get even complaining about the government and the politics behind all this. Voicing their frustrations about that is so understandable. BUT seeing remarks like “Korea has nothing else to offer” “will boycott Korea now/I have koreatown so who needs sk now” “Korea is nothing” “oh korea will now collapse” “Koreans will starve to death” all over twt was so disheartening. Some of them having thousands, even ten thousands of likes. I tried to speak up about the xenophobic statements, racist remarks, fetishizing my country only to kpop..without acknowledging the richness of culture and long history, strength and resiliency of our economic growth…and I kept on encountering different armys who took my defense of my country as an attack of BTS. rather than addressing the issue I was talking about, they proceeded to call the group I stan “flops” “no one gives a f*ck about your country” “you’re just saying this cuz you’re jealous your fav could never” which had nothing to do with the issue I was talking about.

Many were even gaslighting saying, no one’s saying any of that you delusional stupid bitch, liar, whiner, etc. and when I would reply with all the screenshot proof, they said “so? that’s the truth. korea WILL fall and be nothing w/o bts.” I’ve had someone tell me I should be ashamed of my country, someone who said it’s our fault people fetishize and stereotype our country, and people saying they’ll boycott to ruin sk / looking forward to the recession.

The final straw for me was when a big account w/ over 65k followers called me out as a liar for accusing armys of belittling sk. Within the first few minutes, the twt got hundreds of likes and I was publicly harassed by so many army accounts mocking, gaslighting, accusing, and attacking me. I felt the trauma of facing racism, speaking up, and then getting bullied or mocked for it, and had thoughts of sh. I ended up deactivating my account. Another big army account was kind and helpful (so I do acknowledge not all armys are like this) and the person who called me out eventually deleted the post.

I’m sorry this is quite long. But I wanted to share about what it’s like as a Korean to be on the receiving end of those remakes, even if they’re just joking comments or out of anger, that they severely impact many Koreans who read them. Samsung alone has a revenue of nearly 280 trillion a year; this is not even including other globally renowned companies like hyundai or kia. People saying Koreans will go broke/our country will collapse/has nothing else to offer are really undermining the country and it shows how people often reduce it to kpop/kpop lalaland. Once again, thank you for calling out behaviors like that and trying to hold people accountable. I’m not generalizing that all armys do this, as there are good people everywhere. But there was surely a lot of those voices that was spreading yesterday.

reading your message gave me goosebumps and not in the good way. I am so very sorry that this has been happening to you, it’s absolutely disgusting. this is straight up cyber bullying, I can’t believe people have been going this far, but at the same time I do absolutely believe that some completely deranged fans would. those people live in their own deeply delusional internet world, thinking they’re doing bts some kind of favour by spreading these statements. all it does is show how little intelligence they possess and how much hate and aggression is within them. for a fandom that prides itself with being so very diverse and open and kind, a whole lot act like little uneducated racist losers way too many times. They don’t see sk as an actual functioning country, hell how would they, they don’t care for it in the first place. As you said, it’s bts-land and that’s it. It’s okay to not be interested in the culture and industry, no one asked you to, but to be so bold as to say sk is nothing without bts?? Hilarious. As yoongi loves to say, please just go to school. Thank you for providing all these numbers and comparisons, it’s very insightful and puts things once again into perspective. ah I don’t really know what else to say right now. It’s just. shocking. And I’m so sorry. Nothing will ever justify this behaviour. Please please take care of yourself

#kimtaegitalk #< for blacklisting #anon #annie’s mail #tw self-harm #tw racism #tw trauma #long post