The K-pop DNA

“I became a BTS fan on Jan. 6, 2017,” said Siti Mariam Sulaiman, a 38-year-old government official from Malaysia. That’s an oddly specific date, but she says every ARMY, an acronym for fans of the K-pop boy group, remembers the exact date of one’s induction into BTS fandom. BTS, or the Bangtan Boys, is a K-pop sensation, breaking the metrics of its predecessors in the global market. Five years after its debut in 2013, the seven-member boy band became the first South Korean band in history to d