K-Pop Fans from Toronto (and the world) celebrate BTS Rapmonster’s birthday

Korean singer's fans mobilize the BTS ARMY for Namjoon's birthday

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December 19, 2017

BTS fans around the world made their way to social media on Sept. 12, wishing Rapmonster a happy 23rd birthday.

Kim Nam-joon, also known as Rap Monster, was the first member recruited into BTS, a seven-member South-Korean boy band. Since debuting in 2013, BTS has gained wild popularity,  made increasingly evident by their fans, dubbed the ARMY.

The day was even trending on Twitter, with the hashtag #HappyNamjoonDay.

BTS fans wished Namjoon a happy birthday in a variety of ways and platforms. One fan from Toronto, who prefers to be known only by the screen name “crescent”, has been a BTS fan since 2013, and contributed to the birthday celebrations.

“First, I greeted him via Twitter to wish him happy birthday,” crescent said in a text message interview.  “I also hashtagged it as #happynamjoon day, and streamed his videos a bit to help reach the 10-million goal that some fans set for his birthday.”

Similar projects seem to have been a thing, which in the end shows how much the BTS army loves their idols.

The result? The streamed video totally hit the mark.

“I feel like Nam-joon’s one of the few genuine artists in the K-Pop industry that truly loves making music and performing,” crescent said. “BTS music is relevant and relatable to youth today, and I feel that their constant efforts to interact with fans help them become influential- it also doesn’t hurt to be good looking and talented.”

Namjoon has the most experience in producing and composing songs, and also boasts an IQ of 148, which he revealed on Mnet’s talk show, Beatles Code 3d. 

As well, on an episode of the New Yang Nam Show, BTS member Jungkook said he agreed to join the group because Rapmonster was in it. BTS army’s most dedicated fans will know these facts and more, and their support is a big part of Rapmonster and BTS’s success. 

BTS is indeed a worldwide sensation. They won this year’s award for Top Social Artist at the Billboard Music Awards. The group has held the chart’s top spot since the week of July 20th (20 weeks as of Dec. 4th). Their first place spot beat popular North American-based artists, such as Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber.

“Change” by Rapmonster and Wale, really resonates with fans. In this song, the rappers are criticizing society and the school system as a whole.

In an interview with TeenVogue, Rapmonster touches on the underlying messages in the song.

“The title is “Change” — in America. They’ve got their situations and we’ve got ours in Seoul, the problems are everywhere and the song is like a prayer for change,” Rapmonster says. “He talks about the police, and problems he’s faced since he was a child. For me, I talked about Korea, my problems, and about those on Twitter who kill people by keyboards.”

All we got is mad teachers and some visible classes, Divided spaces, and forever-lastin’ stresses

― Rap Monster & Wale (Ft. Rap Monster & Wale) – Change


Crescent believes that BTS’s management, company Big Hit Entertainment,  is a large part of the band’s current success.

“I’ve also got to give credit to how their company is marketing them- showing their personalities in ways that fans could relate to. It’s very smart.”

“Namjoon is called the destruction monster because he breaks everything he touches,” crescent says.   GIF courtesy of www.sbs.com.au

Here are some different ways that people celebrated Rapmonster’s birthday.

Even Canada’s own Flare Magazine did a feature covering the star’s fashion sense.

“Dhane” from Aminoapps (a phone application with multiple communities to engage with, including k-pop) said in a text interview that she celebrated Rapmonster’s birthday by making a video tribute, with people around the world wishing him a happy birthday.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k5CForfU4KE&feature=youtu.be

Dhane’s reason for making this video was simple-to express her gratitude to the group for all the hard work they’ve done.

“We can not send him material gifts or expensive gifts, but through this, we can express and say the things we want to tell him,” Dhane says.

There are so many fan projects for Rapmonster, that it would be hard to list them all. Cuddly yoongi, another member of the Aminoapps community, did us a favour by grouping up a good selection of projects.

—✧° Namjoon Birthday : Fan Projects

First off, a very big happy birthday to our dear leader. BTS wouldn’t be here without you and obviously, you deserve a lot of appreciation for your genius musical compositions, rap abilities, beautiful lyrics, aesthetics, stunning intelligence and so much more! ♡

But time after time, I hear the same thing. There are not enough RM fan projects. Which is NOT true. So many fansites have presented Namjoon with some AMAZING fan projects and gifts, please appreciate them more! :’ ❥

═════════════

⋅°✧°.

⌜ projects ⌟

❥ Namjoon fansite, @dreamon0912 donated to WWF for protection of endagered species and their habitats + adopted 5 species of whales :whale2::blue_heart: Apparently WWF allows you to symbolically “adopt” an animal species, and your funds go to conserving that species and their habitat.

zoom to view

:copyright: dreamon0912

___________

❥ Wild and Free Project, organized by BangtanMazao, under which a Polar Bear was adopted on behalf of Jungkook and Namjoon through the World Wildlife Fund! ♡

:copyright: BangtanMazao

__________

⌜ Billboards ⌟

❥ 15 RM billboards were on display at Hongik University Station for 30 days, organised by Baidu_RMbar.

:copyright: Baidu_RMbar

___________

❥ Billboards set up by @dreamon0912, same one who donated to WWF.

:copyright: dreamon0912

════════════

When asked what made them want to create this post, the overall answer can be summed up as a love for the artists and army community.

“We all make posts wishing Namjoon well on his birthday, and those were my first intentions too, but then I thought about making it special by including fan projects, so those who have contributed to the day can be recognized as well,” cuddly yoongi writes.

“We as a fandom, love fan projects and it always gets us united as a family and proud to be a part of this.”

Following the spiritual adoption of the polar bear highlighted in cuddly yoongi’s post, the Brazil-based BTS fan group, Bangtan Mozao, explains why they decided to adopt a polar bear in the name of these two BTS stars.

Marcella Faye made the adoption in the star’s name herself.  The idea came from her love of animals.

“I really like animals and always help causes like the WWF adoptions, and I also know that both Namjoon and Jungkook get many material gifts-I wanted to do something symbolic,” Faye said, in an email interview. 

Marcella Faye’s adoption certificate and gifts. Picture courtesy of Marcella Faye.

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Posted: Dec 19 2017 9:23 am
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