Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-12-2023

Publication Title

UNLV Community Engagement Expo

Publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Publisher Location

Las Vegas (Nev.)

Abstract

ARMY, fans of the widely popular music group BTS, has become one of the largest and most influential fan communities in popular culture. Music fans have long been misunderstood and dismissed, yet fandoms like ARMY have reshaped that narrative by demonstrating remarkable capacity for global collective action, teaching us important lessons in grassroots mobilization, social movements, and activism. Drawing on the fandom's impact and key strategies such as empowerment messaging, resource deployment, and leveraging media platforms, this poster presentation from the 2023 UNLV Community Engagement Expo details examples of how ARMY's power and strategies can be applied in a real-world context, both online and locally in person. To show this, I worked in collaboration with a local nonprofit, the Las Vegas Chapter of OCA - Asian Pacific American Advocates (OCA Las Vegas). First, in response to the #StopAsianHate movement during COVID-19, OCA Las Vegas and I leveraged the reach of the ARMY fandom and shared with them resources on how to support the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community during this time, resulting in over one million impressions on these materials. Second, I collaborated with OCA Las Vegas on their youth mentorship program to bring BTS ARMY's lessons to life. We built relevant curriculum to support professional and leadership development of high school and college students around the theme: Learning Advocacy Through BTS.

Keywords

BTS ARMY; Fandom; Activism; OCA Las Vegas; AAPI; Youth Mentorship; Social Movement; Social Media; Mobilization; Collective Action; StopAsianHate; Community Engagement

Disciplines

Asian Studies | Social Influence and Political Communication | Social Media

File Format

PDF

File Size

784 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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