The Power of Purple: A Special Fourth Anniversary Post

Image description: The purple heart emoji on a purple background. For today's anniversary post, there is truly no better image. Keep reading to find out why.

 

I’ve had the privilege of celebrating a lot of milestones on the blog, from yearly anniversaries to my recent 100th post. Today, I’m celebrating my fourth anniversary of blogging as the Asexual Geek, and I’m so honored to have reached this milestone. Back when I started this blog in February of 2020, I had no idea what course of events were going to come next, both in the world and in my own life. It’s been a lot of ups and downs, as I’ve recorded in various posts here, but I’ve been so grateful for the blog and the ways I’ve been able to keep discussing topics that are near and dear to my heart.

To that end, I’m sure some of you know that today not only marks the fourth anniversary of my blog, but it marks the fourth anniversary of when I became a fan of the seven-member Korean group BTS, another important thing in my life that I celebrate whenever possible. I love discussing both BTS and my aspec journey; although I’ve been identifying as aspec a lot longer than I’ve been a BTS fan, discovering them and their music has been extremely valuable to me on that journey and has given me comfort that many other things simply cannot.

If you’ve read my posts lately, you know I’m really struggling with my fandom life and have largely sworn off of many fandom related activities due to detrimental effect they’ve had on my mental health as an aspec person in largely hostile territory. However, despite my gripes with fandom as a concept, and my belief that even a fandom as beautiful as ARMY (BTS’s fanbase) has toxic elements, there are some things I really do love about ARMY as a concept and how most of us relate to BTS.

Today, I wanted to explore why the unique beauty of that bond speaks to me as an aromantic asexual fan through my own aspec lens. As I often do on my anniversary, I’m excited to explore the ways these two big parts of my life intersect, focusing today on one very specific element that pertains to both and has been a huge part of me for a long time – purple. If that sounds a bit confusing, I hope you’ll join me today so I can tell you all about what I mean and why the color purple actually represents a powerful sentiment that I think deserves to be explored and expressed.

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I have loved the color purple pretty much my entire life. Although I can’t remember when I decided that purple was my favorite color, it’s certainly held that status as long as I can remember; growing up, I even had light purple walls and carpeting in my bedroom. Although I no longer lean quite that heavily into surrounding myself with it, I still have purple accents everywhere and many people I know have come to associate the color with me.

Naturally, my love of purple is quite fortuitous when you consider that the asexual pride flag features purple as one of its four colors. Obviously as a proud aspec person, I would have adopted the iconography of the asexual flag regardless of its colors, but the fact that purple is a prominent part of that has made it even easier for me to happily incorporate the flag into my spaces and my day-to-day life in things like jewelry, pins, scarves, and even hair ties.

If having the asexual flag feature my favorite color wasn’t serendipitous enough, however, something extraordinary happened when I started diving into the world of BTS four years ago. As I explored, I quickly started getting exposed to the phrase “I purple you” and started to see that purple seemed to be the adopted color of BTS, with the symbol of the purple heart representing the concept. Curious, I did a little digging to find what this phrase meant and why it was ubiquitous in most of the fandom spaces dedicated to ARMY. On the surface, the idea of it seems to be an ARMY-specific way to convey love and support to BTS, but it goes much deeper than that in ways I find fascinating. Obviously the origin of “I purple you” was before my time, but luckily there are plenty of people online who have kept its history alive. I won’t go into great detail here, but the set-up is actually quite sweet and I believe adds even more context to what I want to discuss later – the specialness of purple’s meaning.

It begins in 2016 with the release of the song “2! 3!”, the band’s first official song for their fans, based at least in part on BTS’s signature Korean greeting “2, 3! Hello, we’re Bangtan Sonyeondan”. Amid a lot of hatred and discrimination BTS suffered during this time, the song was meant to express thanks to their fans and offer them comfort, telling them to erase their bad memories, smile, and be happy with BTS on the count of three.

It also discusses the fact that, although the members of the group know that telling their fans it’s all going to be easy and carefree moving forward would be a lie, they still hope there are better days ahead. The opening line of the song confesses that they can’t say empty platitudes such as “let’s only walk on flower paths,” but ARMY, moved by the song’s message of comfort, wanted to give BTS a flower path of their own when they performed “2! 3!” at an upcoming fan concert. Their idea was to do this with their lightsticks, choosing the color purple to represent flowers that the boys could see from the stage.

For those unfamiliar with them, it’s an accepted part of K-Pop concerts and shows for fans of a group to have a special lightstick. For BTS, who was still relatively new at that time, their lightstick – the ARMY Bomb – was still in its early days. If you go to a BTS concert now, you’ll see thousands of ARMY Bombs that can sync to the music and respond accordingly, engaging in controlled flashes and color changes. Back in 2016, the ARMY Bomb couldn’t do any of that. So, for ARMY to create this flower path for BTS, they were given colored bags to put over their lit ARMY Bombs, which they could hold up during the performance of the song.

When the song was performed, the group found themselves looking out over the sea of lightsticks lit up purple. Seeing this, one of the members – Taehyung, known by his stage name V – expressed admiration for the color, noting that purple is the last color to fade from a rainbow. With this thought in mind, he asserted his belief that purple as a color therefore signified lasting love and trust, which he expressed towards the fans with the hope that they would likewise love and trust BTS for a long time. Moved by this description, BTS’s Korean fans began to coin the term “borahae,” a portmanteau of the Korean for “purple” (borasaek) and “I love you” (saranghae).

Adopting this philosophy, ARMY began to use borahae as a way to affirm their love and trust in BTS. The fact that this occurred during these difficult times for both the band and the fandom alike made the notion even more special and cemented its place in our shared history. Obviously fans – myself included – still often use “I love you” or “saranghae” to describe their feelings towards BTS and its members; but the prominent use of borahae from the members to ARMY, from ARMY to the members, and from ARMY to other ARMY is actually quite amazing, chiefly because of its inherently platonic nature.

Image description: An example of the "purple ocean." Photo taken by me during the 2021 Permission to Dance on Stage in LA concert.

As my disengagement from fandom spaces probably makes clear, it’s of course true that not everyone who listens to BTS shares this platonic attachment. In fact, it has always been common to see people sexualize BTS, and there are plenty of people who ship the members with other idols or with each other. But setting these facts aside, the idea that platonic love and non-sexual attachment are baked into BTS’s fandom is nevertheless incredible to me. As I believe the story of borahae’s origins proves, the relationship between BTS and ARMY is unique, forged through hardships and adversity both in their lives and in our own.

For me, BTS’s music and the philosophy of their members has changed my life many times over, and they have often articulated concepts, ideas, and emotions that I myself have struggled to reconcile. As it’s become more and more difficult to love myself and express my true emotions over the years, for instance, BTS’s message has been there to support me. As I struggle with the idea of if my voice has any worth or value, they remind me of the inherent worth I have and the valuable nature of speaking myself. When all of these messages are accompanied by the sentiment of “I purple you,” I believe they become even stronger.

In my opinion, part of what makes BTS’s message of self-love different from many others you might hear or see in media is in fact that platonic nature. Oftentimes, I feel media’s idea of self-love is inherently tied to other people finding romantic and/or sexual worth in you – and, to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that method of self-love. For many people, it may indeed be true that they can’t love themselves until someone sees that worth in them, and that can be beautiful. But since that approach has always been incongruous with my own life, it’s seemed like self-love would just be out of reach for me. This is why BTS’s platonic version of this concept changed my life so deeply.

When BTS tell ARMY to love themselves or when they discuss how ARMY has encouraged their own self-love journey, I love knowing that it’s all accomplished without sex or romance, but rather through sheer selfless love and devotion. For years, ARMY has supported, encouraged, defended, lauded, and promoted BTS, and has done a great many things to make the members happy. As an example, it’s not uncommon for ARMY to organize charity events in BTS’s name, donating to causes that are dear to the members’ hearts. This is done to celebrate the members’ lives and work, and to do good in their name – all because of this unconditional love. That, to me, is the power of purple.

But that power is also smaller and more personalized too. While there is nothing like seeing a stadium full of purple ARMY Bombs or hearing BTS utter the now iconic phrase of “I purple you,” the philosophy of borahae also lives closer to home. Again, as an aspec ARMY, I walk a difficult road, and I’ve encountered many fans online who are dismissive at best and downright cruel at worst when faced with opinions such as my own. However, by contrast, I’ve had the pleasure to encounter many other ARMYs – both online and in real life – who are wonderful, and when we interact, we mark that interaction with a purple heart or the endearment of “borahae” to wish each other well.

I once went to see one of BTS’s documentary movies in theaters; when I arrived, an ARMY stopped to give me a photocard of my favorite member. When I went to see BTS in concert in 2021, I received both photocards and beaded bracelets made by fellow ARMYs who brought these items along for the express purpose of giving them out to people, a common staple of any BTS concert. On my way to that same concert, I made a friend at the airport who saw me wearing a BTS shirt and started chatting with me. On another flight at an unrelated time, the girl sitting next to me saw me watching BTS content on my phone and we started talking about the deep impact the band had on our lives. I had a similar conversation at work one day with a woman who got excited when I recognized the BTS buttons on her bag. She then reached into said bag to fetch me a BTS sticker she had made.

These are just a few of my own stories about how BTS and ARMY are bound together by what my mother just recently and aptly referred to as purple magic. This powerful purple force is best experienced in person because it’s there that the synergy of loving BTS can really be felt. I’m an introvert by nature, so it’s not often easy for me to make friends or overcome my social anxieties; but with BTS as my ice breaker, I become a more confident person and fellow ARMY seem to do likewise.

I think one of my most amazing personal purple magic stories comes from the 2021 concert again, during the disorganized chaos of trying to leave the stadium. While I was looking for the bus back to my hotel (and failing), another ARMY around my age who was also attending the concert solo asked me if she could wait with me because she was by herself and starting to get a little freaked out by not being able to find her way out of the stadium. Naturally, I said yes, and we searched for a way back to our hotels together. It turned out that this ARMY was from Bangkok, Thailand, and had traveled to Los Angeles just to see BTS; we later shared a taxi with a middle-aged ARMY from Scotland who had done the same.

I love that story for a number of reasons – the way it proves the diversity of ARMY, the way it demonstrates how far we’ll go as ARMY to love and support BTS, and above all, that it demonstrates the borahae spirit so clearly. Even over two years later, I’m still honored to know that the ARMY from Thailand saw me and knew she could trust me, just based on our shared love for BTS. Although I wouldn’t change my introvert tendencies for the world (love myself), as an introvert, I don’t often feel approachable to people or comfortable being approached by them, so having it happen in such a situation feels all the more appropriate.

And, of course, given I talk about platonic connection, friendship, and other basic relationships a great deal on the blog, it’s wonderful to know that BTS – a group that has helped me so much as an aspec person – also fosters those types of relationships among their fans. This is a wonderful thing, and it makes it all the more frustrating when other people don’t see that or ignore this fact in favor of uniformly painting ARMY as shrieking obsessive fangirls. ARMY has been trying to fight this stereotype for a long time, and it's definitely one I’ve encountered a great deal in my own life.

Beyond that, however, I as an AroAce ARMY find myself especially angered by the stereotype that ARMY’s love for BTS is only because they’re good-looking. While there is of course nothing wrong with finding the members attractive (and even I can admit they’re stunning), this piece of criticism overlooks the purple heart that beats at the core of the fandom. ARMY does things for BTS that I can’t imagine anyone would do just because they find a singer cute; the way this fandom protects and supports BTS must point to something deeper, and this is why borahae is so wonderful.

Image description: From left to right - RM, Jungkook, J-Hope, V, Jimin, Suga, and Jin of BTS, appropriately pictured in front of a purple background with their logo prominently displayed behind them.

Even some of the members think that saying they “love” their fans doesn’t do their feelings justice. For instance, the group’s leader RM – who, if you’ve read my other anniversary posts, you know means a great deal to me – once famously told ARMY at a concert “I love you more than love,” as well as expressing his wish that there was a better word than “love” to convey that emotion. This is a sentiment I share, both in my day-to-day life and my life as an ARMY. Although love, of course, doesn’t only convey romance, sexuality, or even familial relationships, we tend to associate love very heavily with those concepts. So how can BTS and ARMY express their feelings in a way free of those typical associations? It is for that reason that I’m immensely grateful for “I purple you” as a concept, and why it feels perfect to have purple be the thing that unites us all.

When it comes to purple and its associations for me as an asexual person, it becomes even more appropriate, since the purple in the asexual flag is meant to represent community, and I feel the same thing is true with purple in the BTS fandom. When asexual people use the asexual flag or when ARMY adopts purple as a representation of the fandom, it may be easy to see them as just symbols. But as someone who has benefitted from the power of these purples in my own life, and has seen how they go hand in hand with each other, they’re so much more. For that reason, I will forever be grateful for the way my life is saturated in purple (or, as we say as ARMYs, bora-fied or bora-coded) and the amazing lessons that has given me.

And so, I wish everyone reading this a wonderful Valentine’s Day, full of love of all kinds. When I write these posts, I too wish I had a better word than love to express my gratitude and how deeply moved I am that I speak myself on this blog and people listen. Thank you for being on this journey with me.

With platonic love/borahae,

Rachel, aka The Asexual Geek