Letter #63: Run BTS

Good morning, Erin.

On Friday, I did something uncharacteristically spontaneous: I found out they were showing the latest Makoto Shinkai-directed (anime) film at the movie theater at the mall, and I just…went. Like, right after work. No planning. No thoughts about what I was going to do about my plan for dinner that night. I wanted to see it, and so I was going to go see it. And I did.

And it was terrible. 

Spontaneity project: failed. Please submit all requests for future casual conversations in writing. Responses may take 3-5 business days. 

…anyway. 

Well, dear Erin, the time has finally arrived. The plunge has been made—and we have fully resurfaced. And don’t think it’s a coincidence that I’m dropping this just as J-hope is off to his military service. (I mean, it totally is, but…don’t think it.)

Which, just to say, the fact that I saw “hobi” trending and knew what that meant should tell you a little something about my experience with this whole Run BTS thing. 

Or maybe it doesn’t. But you know what will? Getting into it. Here we go!

1. I’m going to hold off on revealing who my favorite is, juuuuuust in case you haven’t already made your prediction. I’m sure you have, because I’m sure this letter has been the only thing on your mind for the last two weeks, but…still—you’ve got until #13 to register your final answer!

2. I genuinely don’t think I’d ever even seen a single one of these boys before starting these videos. Just so we’re clear on how unaware of them I was, going in.

2A. And I was serious, in my Love to Hate You letter, about the changing haircuts/colors throwing me off. Of the 10 videos you asked me to watch, it took six episodes to get them all straight—and not until the seventh did I recognize the last of the boys by who he was rather than by who he wasn’t. (That is, if I didn’t recognize him immediately, I knew he was the one I couldn’t recognize.)

3. Episode 51 (at the amusement park (which has been featured in everything I’m watching, lately)) was probably my favorite of what I’ve watched—though, that was probably because it was super-funny even without really knowing who everyone was or what their personalities were like. Just watching the team without theme park-y headwear be so utterly terrible at the swinging pirate ship ride game was worth this whole endeavor. 

4. Relatedly: I bet I’d enjoy the first few things I’d watched more, now that I’ve gotten to know the boys and their personalities a lot better. 

5. …because I quite like them, now. Which I don’t think I’ve said. But, yes, I really had fun watching them just be silly. 

6. My favorite moment, though, came from the carpool karaoke video, when RM was telling James Corden his “I learned English from watching Friends” story—which the boys must have heard a million times by then—and Jin just quietly says, “Y’know, I’ve seen Friends, too.” Hilarious. 

7. No, I didn’t figure out who the “bad guys” were—AT ALL—in the Mafia-style game the boys played in BTS village or whatever.

7A. I was so wrong about it, in fact, that the only prediction I made was that V was not one of the baddies. Because V has no guile about him and, therefore, would not be able to fool me. 

7B. V’s guilelessness is 100% why he was able to fool me. Dammit. 

7C. I did kinda figure out Jin was innocent, though, because of how deflated he was that everyone else said he was guilty. Especially when he finally whimpered that the baddies were Suga, V, and Jimin and then put his head on the table. 

8. Oh—for reference, this is the order in which I realized who was whom:

• V – immediately in the first cooking episode. He just stood out to me, and I thought he was very funny because of how over-serious he came off as.

• RM – the second cooking episode, when I knew him as “the yelling one,” because he seemed the loudest during his team’s section of the game. I thought he was pretty darn funny. 

• J-hope – when his team came up on their first part of the theme park episode, I recognized that he had been the MC for the cooking episodes…because his face always looks like the big smiley emoticon. (:-D)

• Suga – later in the theme part episode, because I kept saying, “Wait, don’t I know him?” which is how I knew it was him. (I recognized him as the one of the team leaders in the cooking episode.)

• Jin – during the mystery game episode, because (as I mentioned above) I really enjoyed watching him be sad about no one believing him.  

• Jimin – during the one where they’re…playing games? They did something with a harmonica and also played the game where one person doesn’t have the word they need to describe and tries to fake knowing what it is. Anyway, that’s the one where I recognized him as “the one who I don’t particularly like.”

• Jungkook – once I figured out who Jimin was, I recognized Jungkook as “the one I don’t know who he is.” It wasn’t until the episode where they were doing the tomato song that I finally knew who he was because of who he was, rather than who he wasn’t. 

9. Speaking of Jungkook, though: that tomato song episode was worth it just to see Jungkook fall over while asleep. 

10. Fun fact: each of the boys’ names is recognized by Microsoft Word as a legit word…except Jin. Because it thinks I mean “Jim.” So BTS has the cultural significance to make it into the accepted Microsoft lexicon…except for poor Jin, who is left in the corner, again. 

11. I went the whole two-part cooking episode without realizing RM was called RM and not Namjoon. It was only when I played the next episode on your list (the theme park one) where I saw him listed as RM and thought, “Wait, who is this RM character? The only one on this team I know is Namjoon, and his name isn’t listed!” But Wikipedia set me straight. Thank goodness. 

11A. I didn’t have as much trouble understanding that Tae-hyung was V. Somehow. 

11B. Forget me remembering that Suga is…is…Yoongi? Something like that. It wasn’t until the Festa episode (which I watched last) that I connected him to that name, which occasionally flashed up on the subtitles.

12. I wasn’t super-keen on the whole cooking show concept—until I realized that, in addition to the “avatar” thing, they were doing it via a mini-game of telephone. And then I was onboard. 

13. Okay, time to reveal my fave—and, further, where I rank everyone else! Last chance to place your bet!

13A. It’s V. He had my vote from the first moments of the first video, and—with the exception of the few minutes where he was tacitly arguing against mint chocolate chip ice cream—I was always ready to punch my V-card. 

13B. …wait, no, that’s not what I—

13C. Jokes aside, though, I thought he was charming and funny from literally the opening seconds of the first video I watched, and that it turned out he was also the one I “knew” going in (because of the “Christmas Tree” song used in Our Beloved Summer) was a neat cherry on top. My opinion never wavered, even as I grew fonder and fonder of the other boys in the group. 

13D. Plus, he’s afraid of heights, which means he’s all but automatically #BestBoy. ‘Cus fear of heights is just sensible. And a sign of wisdom. I’d say it’s probably the best quality a fellow could have. Should be right at the top of every girl’s wish list. And I say that for totally unbiased reasons. Obviously. 

14. My very best internet friend tells me that she assumes Suga is my favorite, because Suga is her favorite, and she can’t imagine that I wouldn’t agree. 

15. So…where does he—and everyone else, of course—fall on my list? Well, the overall list is:

• V

• RM

• Jin

• J-hope/Suga (‘cus I can’t pick one over the other)

• Jungkook

• Jimin

16. Yes, I no longer dislike Jimin. He’s fine. He’s just the one I like least. Still. 

17. Speaking of Jimin, I had no idea there was such a strong discourse among fans about whether he or J-hope is the better dancer. My totally amateur take? Jimin is probably more proficient, but not to the point where it’d much matter—particularly when you take how much J-hope comes alive when he’s dancing into account. (Not that he’s not already full of positive energy all the time, but he seems to absolutely LOVE that he’s dancing, when he dances.)

18. Oh, jumping back to Suga for a moment: he cracked me up during carpool karaoke when I realized just how disinterested he seemed in the whole endeavor. Even when it was his turn to be the focus, he just DID NOT seem to care about any of it, and I think that’s what jumped him into a tie with J-hope. 

19. By the time I had gotten to the Festa episode, I knew the boys well enough to have written in my notes that I thought Jungkook seemed hyper. 

20. The tomato song challenge they did must have been awful to go through. I had an acting teacher who described an exercise he had to do when he was in college, where one person in class was blindfolded and had to be verbally guided through an obstacle course…and they couldn’t go home until the person made it through without bumping into anything. He said they were there for HOURS, were starving, and were angry as f*** by the end. Which is exactly what that game made me think of. 

20A. That said…the boys seemed in good spirits the whole way through, so maybe it wasn’t all that bad. 

21. If nothing else, you making me watch these videos got me to finally listen to “Mic Drop,” which I have been listening to on a loop for the last five days. Like, I literally started going on 45-minute walks, every night, just to have an excuse to listen to it. 

And that’s what makes you beautifu—no, wait, that’s a different boy band. 

…ah—that’s all I have to say about that. That’s what I meant.

But, yeah, this was a surprisingly good time. And proves—yet again—that I should leave all of my decision-making to you, at this point. If you can nail all the entertainment stuff, I assume you’d make better choices for me with food, clothes, investments, career options, romantic entanglements (not that it would be hard for literally anyone to make better choices than I do), and laundry detergent, because I’m just not getting the right bounce out of my freshly-dried towels, it’s really starting to bug me. 

…anyway.

I’m sorry I didn’t get to come by to chat, today—I thought I’d be able to get back out after I finished tallying up my work, but then I saw you leaving the building and realized I’d missed you. Not that I had anything important to talk about, of course, but I was going to ask if you still thought I should move on to Reply 1988 or if you wanted me to check out something else instead. Plus, y’know, it’s just nice to have the chance to chat with you. I mean, we didn’t even get to talk about Easter, and how my mom didn’t get me any egg-shaped Reese’s, this year, and how that makes her the worst mother ever. 

Well…next time, I guess. 

--Daryl