Hello, I’m someone who’s been living in the East for 6 years and I’m a high schooler.

I’ve only been living in the East part of US and only came to the Western part for vacation!..

I’ve been living in New Jersey for all the past 6 years and I’ve moved twice.

At first, the place where I stayed had a lot of Koreans but at that time, Bangtan were not popular at all.

Then, I moved to a new place with almost no Koreans around when I was in middle school and I’ve been living here ever since.

I moved in ’14 and to be honest, at that time, only Asians knew about K-pop. (When I’m saying “Asians”, I don’t mean those who were born in the US, it’s kids like me who moved from Korea ㅠ )

It was around 2016 when BTS released Run/Fire that the Asians who were born in America started to know about K-pop too.

Also, since Bangtan went on Billboards, my local American friends have also started to know about K-pop as a music genre.

I found it amazing since there were even people who knew nothing about K-pop but knew about BTS.

There were also people who knew never heard BTS’ music but still knew who they were? It made me feel quite proud.

Also there is a bunch of kids here who think that BTS = K-pop.

Just 2 years ago, if I was watching BTS or any K-pop group and that my American friends were around me, they would go “who’s that? Why do they all look gay and wear makeup?” but now, they go “they are BTS right?” and if it was another group, they would be like “they are not BTS right?”. It seriously makes me proud ㅠㅠ

Also, the land here is pretty vast so if you go to the West side, there are even more American kids who know about BTS.

The people at my school know about BTS but there are no kids who listen to their songs and like them. But overall, there are a lot of kids who saw BTS’ achievements in the US and who like them. There are only 4.8% of Asians in the US and white people take up to 72.4% (T/n: not sure how accurate the numbers are).

ㅎㅎ I’m not sure how I can end this post but I feel like people would ask me for proofs of living in the US so here it is.

post response:

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ㅇㅇ | 2018.07.24 11:15 신고하기 But I really feel like BTS’s popularity in the East side in the US is a bit different. It’s kinda depending on where you live? Rather than being a popular K-pop singer, I feel like they are more recognized as being a popular boy group? 추천 98 반대 4



ㅇㅇ | 2018.07.24 11:49 신고하기 Oh, my friend has been living in the western side. She doesn’t care about the other singers but she knows about BTS ㅋㅋㅋ she said that people around her are going crazy over them too ㅋㅋㅋ 추천 68 반대 2



ㅇㅇ | 2018.07.24 10:08 신고하기 Who else is popular in the US except BTS? (T/N: replies to this comment were mentioning Monsta X, Got7, Super Junior an Black Pink) 추천 33 반대 6



ㅇㅇ | 2018.07.24 19:46 신고하기 No but Hobie released a dancing challenge on Twitter and there were so many news in the US about him… their albums are also sold at Target and their songs are played on local radios. If you go to bookstores, you can see a little section about them in news magazines. They are just a phenomenon now.

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