Academic Article [Beyond Parasocial: ARMY, BTS, & Fan-Artist Relationships](https://ther3journal.com/issue-4/beyond-parasocial-army-bts-fan-artist-relationships/) by Meghan Desjardins and published in the 4th issue of ARMY-led open-access journal, *The Rhizomatic Revolution Review \[20130613\]* aka *The R³ Journal*. A PDF version is also available to download.

The 1st Paragraph…

>If you’re part of a fandom, you may be in the habit of hiding or downplaying how much you love your favorite artist. There is a stigma attached to being *too* much of a fan, and BTS and ARMY are not strangers to this. You can see it in almost every media portrayal, from descriptions of swooning fangirls to “crazy” fans. You can see it in accounts from ARMY who hide their interests from friends and family or who get a cringe reaction when they do tell someone they’re a fan. And yet, these fan-artist relationships have had massively positive impacts on ARMY, like they have on fans of other artists. Such stories are cataloged on social media, in journals like this one, and even in books. In the BTS fandom, we have publications like Revolutionaries Press’s *I Am ARMY* that capture some of the effect of this connection. BTS as artists have spoken directly about the positive impact of fan-artist relationships on their own lives. It is hard to enter the media space without seeing evidence of how world-shifting this connection is for fans and artists alike.

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by marrimar