BTS

BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys, is a South Korean boy band formed in 2010 and debuting in 2013 under Big Hit Entertainment. The septet—consisting of members Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jungkook—co-writes and co-produces much of their own material.

Google celebrates Army’s anniversary with BTS street view tour

July 9th marks the ninth birthday of the BTS Army (specifically, the official announcement of its name). As Twitter celebrates the anniversary, Google has released a new street view experiment through its Arts & Culture platform in collaboration with the band. The BTS x Street Galleries exhibition brings viewers on a virtual tour of the group’s favorite artworks.

Each member has curated a virtual gallery, with their selections placed in various public locations that will be highly recognizable to BTS fans. J-Hope decorated the UN General Assembly, where BTS gave an address and shot a music video last year; RM guides fans through Seoul’s Namdaemun, where BTS performed for 2021’s Global Citizen Live festival.

Some BTS members are known art aficionados (including leader RM, who recently discussed his collection on the Art Basel podcast), but others haven’t yet been as public about their tastes. While there are minor glitches here and there, the experience provides an interesting look at each member’s artistic interests mixed with a healthy dose of personality. V describes a photo of a rowboat as “my kind of jam.” “Everyone knows I’m handsome, just like this hunky Adonis,” Jin writes of Antonio Corradini’s Adonis. “I love taking photos of the clouds because each cloud is completely different to the next,” Jungkook comments, which is the most Jungkook remark a person could make.

The Arts & Culture platform includes a number of online tours of famous galleries, as well as other tourist attractions, including the Alhambra and the Pyramids of Giza. As part of the “Experiments” section, where artists can try more eclectic ideas, BTS x Street Galleries looks to be an interesting vision — and potential conversation starter — for the role of art in public space.

BTS ARMY is feeling the love from Google.

In honor of the ninth anniversary of the origin of BTS ARMY — the name of the K-pop superstars’ massive fanbase — on July 9, 2022, Google has launched a pair of new collabs with BTS.

Starting Friday (U.S. time zones), fans who search for “BTS” on Google Search can unlock a secret Easter egg. On the search results page for BTS (on mobile or desktop), users can click on the purple heart icon that appears next to the BTS header on the upper left-hand side. That will unleash a flurry of purple balloons that you can pop with a click or tap; clicking on the balloons with microphones will reveal special audio messages from the band members themselves.

“BTS has such a positive energy, and we wanted to bring a bit of that to Search,” Elissa Wolf, Google’s lead delight features software engineer, said in a statement provided to Variety. “I’m a fan myself, so I was thrilled to be able to work on this project!”

In addition, Google Arts & Culture is celebrating BTS ARMY in a unique collaboration with BTS, “BTS x Street Galleries.” The collaboration takes fans on a Street View tour of the cities and buildings that hold special memories for BTS. In each of the 14 locations, fans can create their own Street Gallery with artworks curated by the band and exclusive photographs and creations by RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, V, Jimin and Jung Kook.

BTS also teamed up with YouTube Shorts to exclusively host the #MyBTStory challenge. The monthlong challenge, which invited ARMY and music fans everywhere to share their most unforgettable BTS memories, wraps today and will conclude with the release of a special ARMY tribute video on BTS’ official YouTube channel next Wednesday, July 13.

BTS officially named their adoring fans ARMY — an acronym that stands for “Adorable Representative MC for Youth” — in 2013.

The K-pop group currently have more than 67 million subscribers on their official YouTube channel, BangtanTV, making them the third most-subscribed music artists on the platform (behind Blackpink and Justin Bieber). To date, the group have earned six music videos in YouTube’s Billion Views Club. The video for “Butter” amassed 108.2 million views in its first 24 hours — holding YouTube’s No. 1 spot on that metric. In second place: BTS’s “Dynamite,” which scored 101.1 million views in the initial 24-hour period.