Conversations and Meet & Greet at the MIBF 2025

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Bangtan Herman Notes: From Me to We: On Personal Joy and the Collective and Communal Nature of Fandom

RC Muñoz’s autograph post. Ticketing battles won or lost. Barricade flexes and seated preferences. Again and again, fandom conversations circle back to this: personal joy versus collective care.

On the surface, fandom looks like a string of individual stories: I got lucky, I persevered with my iPhone 16, I saved for years. Social media magnifies this focus on the self, rewarding posts that showcase proximity or possessions. Hyperindividualism at its finest at a time of war, division and uncertainty. It is no surprise that the prevailing mindset becomes: “I’ll celebrate my way, and that’s enough.” It does not help that in a capitalist consumer culture, fandom is too easily reduced to what we buy, what we hold, what we can show.

The artists we stan becomes COMMODITY.

But fandom is not only personal. It is also communal. Lighting the MOA Globe purple, singing in unison at concerts, streaming in circles, organizing cupsleeves events and watch parties. These are not solitary acts; they are rituals of community and belonging. And as Clifford Geertz (1973) reminds us, rituals are texts we interpret. To do a “thick description” of fandom* is to see beyond the surface gesture and into the layered meanings: a light on a globe is not just electricity, it is longing, belonging, a collective claim to space. A cupsleeve is not just paper, it is memory shared over coffee, proof that ARMY is plural.

So why does individualism still prevail? Because it is the language capitalism teaches us. Because “celebrate your way” is easier than asking “who gets left out?” Because envy is deflected by shrinking fandom into personal coping, rather than expanding it into communal and relational accountability.

The challenge is not to erase personal joy, RC’s happiness is hers, barricade victories are theirs. The challenge is to keep joy mindful. Joy is sacred. And in fandom where fangirls are prejudiced, A WOMAN’S JOY IS SACRED. To celebrate with gentleness, knowing others were scammed, excluded, unlucky. To remember that purple is not just a personal color, but a shared one. These all point to connection and community despite individual differences.

Maybe ARMY’s work is to resist fandom being flattened into “me” and recover the “we.” To thicken our descriptions of what it means to be fans not just as consumers, but as companions, co-creators, caretakers. BTS has always reminded us that we never walk alone. That they are more than idols, artists and products of an industry. They are people. And in their art and music, we find humanity. BTS never sang alone, and neither should we.

Apobangpo. Purple and true.

* Geertz defines thick description as a method of interpreting culture by attending not only to observed behavior but also to the context and meaning behind it, like “sorting out the structures of signification” through which people make their actions meaningful (The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973, p. 6).

#BangtanHermanaNotes #ARMYAfterThoughts

Zine Review: Strange Weather in Manila by Alina R. Co

Dear Ali, 

Reading your zine felt like being spoken to by grief itself. The weight of your lines, the tenderness of your laments, I know them. You carry your mother in every syllable, in every stanza and space. It is the same way I carry mine in the lines, spaces and stanzas of every day. She left in October last year, but absence has a way of staying present.

Nostalgia when grieving is both sweet and savory, and yet, it left me aching for things that will never be. You captured this in “Butter” and “Ginataan”, Ali. But I am amazed at myself. How I endured reading your poems because, like you, I do find the weather in Manila strange, not only because of climate change, but in part because of the question you asked in your poem: Will the sky ever be clear again from one horizon to another?

I ask the same question, having lost not just my mother but my mother in law and dear good friends in the children’s book industry one after another. The weather is not only strange. It has totally changed. But  you know what, it will clear up. And it will darken again. And it clears and darkens once more. Like waves swaying. This is grief. And in my case, I just stand there by the shore, breathing with waves as the wind tugs them back and pushes them forward.

Your poems have now become my companions as I hear what Rumi once offered:

“I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out, ‘It tastes sweet, does it not?’ ‘You’ve caught me,’ grief answered, ‘and you’ve ruined my business. How can I sell sorrow, when you know it’s a blessing?’”

It unsettles me, how grief can taste sweet. How sorrow can hold blessing. And yet, this is what your writing teaches me too. That grief is not only loss, but also a strange companionship. A mirror. A bridge.

I return to a poem I wrote on September 3, 2021. Then, it was simply memory. Today, it reads back to me as inheritance. What our mothers and grandmothers passed on, quietly, in kitchens and songs. I offer it to you as a companion piece, one candle beside another. One writer walking alongside each other. 

Nanay Leony

©️zarahgeeh 9.3.21

Garlic, ginger 

Salt and pepper

Onions, of course

 

What Nanay Leony calls

A concoction to ward off

Dis-ease

 

She sings

An ancient tune

Sounding out the words under her breath

While stirring the pot

Of chicken broth

 

The aroma fills the kitchen

It floats over the sala

Out to the veranda

Where I sit watching the neighborhood kids play in the rain

 

The smell, the sounds

They find their way into my heart

She calls for me

And I know it is time

 

To be healed

To be loved

And to live again for one more rainy day

While eating the flavors of earth and air

Grief, your poems remind me, is never just sorrow. It is also this: memory steeped in broth, song folded into silence, healing carried forward in small ways. I walk with you in this, Ali, trusting that somewhere between sorrow and sweetness, we’ll find what remains.

With love and kinship, in the spirit of Women Writing,

Zarah 💜🙏💜

Bangtan Hermana Notes: The Many Ways to "Purple You"

 

Book Review: BTS: A Little Golden Book Biography Part 3: Expanding the Reading Experience (3 of 3)

BTS_bio_Activities by official.sin

Book Review: BTS: A Little Golden Book Biography (2 of 3)

In Part 1 of this series, I reflected on the cultural and emotional weight of BTS: Little Golden Book Biography and how its very existence feels like a milestone in both early literacy and BTS’ legacy.

Now, with the digital review copy from Penguin Random House, I’ve had the joy of reading it cover to cover. What I found was more than just a charming children’s biography. It was a tender, artful retelling of a story ARMY knows by heart, filled with details that speak to both newcomers and long-time fans.

Here are my impressions.

Part 2: My Reading Impressions of BTS: Little Golden Book Biography

The underdog narrative was kept and honored in this book without being judgmental or accusatory. It's told with the tenderness of a story that knows where its heart is: in the long, winding journey from obscurity to the global stage.

ARMYs, believe that "1 is 7; 7 is one." This belief is beautifully presented on the very first page: all seven members in a huddle, with Suga facing away as he always does in these moments. That detail alone made me smile. From there, the book unfolds with each member's origin story, a tale every ARMY knows by heart, yet one that never loses its magic in the retelling.

The illustrations are simply adorable, soft, endearing, and, I suspect, rendered in watercolor. If so, my oh my! All the more reason for me to love this book. The gentle palette and expressive lines make the storytelling even warmer, inviting young readers into BTS' world with ease.

As a school librarian, I find BTS: Little Golden Book Biography worthy of acquisition. Call it my bias if you must but consider this: how many students in your school love K-pop and are fans of BTS? How many readers in your learning community are ARMY? The presence of this book in a school library is not just about fandom; it is a message of representation and a nod to the benefits of learning from pop culture and its influences.

In my next post, I'll share activities you can do in the library or at home using this book as a springboard to expand and extend the reading experience.

Read part 1 of the series here, Kuwentong Bangtan: BTS A Little Golden Book Biography (1 of 3)

As the release date draws near, the celebration goes beyond my own reading joy. In Part 3, I’ll share how the ARMY of Bangtan will mark this milestone through a month-long blog tour along with a guide for parents and school librarians to make the most of BTS: Little Golden Book Biography in nurturing young readers.