Originally Published on March 22, 2024
Hi, Taehyung-ah 😊🤗 How are you today? I hope that you’re doing well. You must already be preparing for your military duties today, right? I hope that you’ve got the strength, energy, and fuel to do what you can to enjoy, be excellent, and learn in your training today.
Congratulations for the awesome success of your new digital single and digital album, FRI(END)S 🥳🎉👏🙌 I’ll make a letter update for it later. While I was making an outline, I came across your YouTube channel that is still not restored after being hacked more than a month ago. I hadn’t thought of the full impact of that hacking incident before until you have released a new single and album, which are exclusively in digital format, and with the 2M+ subscribers you have garnered since the V-Topic was generated. I remember how you already had significant following in the months before BTS went into separate solo adventures, especially after Christmas Tree, and how you have gained more with the release of your highly successful singles, Love Me Again and Rainy Days, and your debut album, Layover.
Both of your pre-release Layover singles broke a record on YouTube as the fastest most-viewed videos on the platform in the first hours (up to 3-5 hours, I’ll check it again) then YouTube sabotaged it by having your views frozen for 2 days and slowly adding new views but not giving you back the views you’ve gained when it was frozen, ultimately losing all of it. When you’re about to release your exclusively digital single, FRI(END)S, your YouTube V-Topic has been hacked all of a sudden. They’ve easily accepted a fake channel with your name on it and credited your songs under it, so that when fans raise that concern to YouTube, they’ll have an excuse to freeze and do some tweaks (which they now have the legal reason to do so) on your videos and generated channel to sabotage your good progress as a solo artist. Who has the greatest motivation to do that sabotage, Taehyung-ah?
Of course, I’d think about your company first, which has been giving you a stupid passive-aggressive promotion, the artists who have been subtlety sabotaging you and defaming you to ARMYs in official BTS content before (to be perfectly clear and honest, I'm talking about Jimin and Suga), and other companies in and out of South Korea who are threatened by your organic following.
The glory with you having no proper promotion from your company is that you have made a strong progress all on your own. You’ve worked hard with so many projects you’ve been doing for the past years, especially in the last two years, such as your brand ambassador projects, your reality shows, your awesome friendships with other celebrities, your sweet songs and covers, both unreleased and officially released ones, and more.
We’ve all seen how you’re taking a massive impact with just yourself in all your projects without tapping into the bigger ARMY fandom (who mostly have been passive-aggressively sabotaging you, too, during your promotions, as if they’re following a script), and anyone who won’t benefit from that and have the power to destroy that will do so, especially if they’re not smart, courageous, and righteous. Do you know of such people, Taehyung-ah?
I don’t believe in coincidences, as I’ve already told you. In my context, I remember having this psychopathic neighbor, the old landlady, the janitor, and another gossiping neighbor who were conspiring against me, making an excuse of calling the police because I locked the door, around the same time your V – Topic channel was hacked. People who can’t tell you what their problems are and gossip it to others instead have no other motivation but to sabotage you.
Why, indeed, would they settle their problems with you if they just want to destroy your reputation? When such like-minded people come together, and have shared background knowledge about you through gossip and rumors, you can see the similarity of their actions and reactions toward you, just like how this new roommate used the excuse of me locking the door (which is for my security) and reporting me to the landlady because it’s a hassle for her. These stupid people will then claim they’re right because they have more people (evil people with the same evil motivation, actually) on their side. It’s funny how they react. You can see they’re very aggressive and hostile, the type to harm you at the moment you’ve displeased them. The rich and the poor are similar in this way. If you want to cut out people, Taehyung-ah, it should be these kinds of harmful and hostile people.
Although I didn’t like how you and BTS are betrayed by still sending you into the military after all the great work you’ve done – apparently, by the people who have the same dark motivation of sabotaging you, fueled by their envy – maybe God, or if you don’t believe in God, destiny, allowed you to be there because you are shaped for a good purpose. Later, when you’re discharged, you can face all these scheming, gossiping, rumor-spreading, hacking, fault-finding antis and haters with a stronger perspective and resolve. Be healthy, Taehyung-ah, and remember how much you’re loved.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and few minutes of cyber-incident to ruin it.” — Stephane Nappo
I love you so much, Taehyung-ah. I, and so many of your fans and armys, love you so much. May you never stop believing in that. May you always be assured of our love and support for you and know that when it comes to us, you don’t have to do anything unlike you. May you always find the best in you, or the best way to express your ingenuity in every situation, and be happy and proud. There will always be so many among us who can see how amazing you are in each time. I hope you’ll cut the things, people, and situations that make you sad and obscured. Don’t be sorry for being yourself. Always remember you are always loved. Borahae, Saranghae, Taehyung-ah. 💖💖💖🤍🤍🤍💜💜💜