TK x SWIMSIDE x CRISIS

On March 23 of this year, I was privileged to be able to attend the SPOTIFY X BTS: SWIMSIDE event. It was a surreal experience for a number of reasons.

🚨TRIGGER WARNING: existential dread encompassing many topics at the end...🚨

To set clear expectations because I NEVER want you to feel like you wasted time..

My YouTube video will mainly be about all components of my existential crisis in depth- including relevant event details - in video format.

This post is about the event details on a more snapshot/surface level. Throughout this post, labeled & linked accordingly, are snippets from my Instagram where I made short videos about specific experiences.

You're welcome to check out whatever you want, but choose your adventure accordingly.

ABSOLUTELY no offense taken if you don't consume everything.
Guard your time the way you want. Live your best life.

BUT ALSO - I am deeply uninterested in shallow hot takes or snap judgments - if you haven't bothered to read/watch it all.

You protect your peace. I will protect mine. Also I swear sometimes - even the f word😳🫣😜

First, the fun stuff: HOW? WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN?

HOW WAS I ABLE TO ATTEND?
One of my followers-turned mutuals-turned ARMY friend was very kind to invite me to the SWIMSIDE event last minute. Talking about this with her permission - she had a +1 she was unsure she could fill with just anyone, so she wound up having to wait for confirmation from Spotify to be able to extend the invite. When she finally heard back, it was the day before the event (3/22/26) and she reached out to me, out of her generous and kind heart, because among likely tons of deserving ARMY friends, she knew I was already based in NY (thus most likely to be able to make it in time with short notice) and would sincerely appreciate the spot.

WHO DID I GO WITH?
Other than the lovely individual that invited me, of course, I met up with our other mutual friends - friends made from threads and instagram leading up to the RUN JIN TOUR in Newark, NJ. A combination of earned spots (as top listeners) and grateful +1s.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO GO?
I will only speak for myself.

In broad strokes, it was surreal - but more on that aspect in a bit.

Overall, I waited in a queue for 6-7 hours (around 10:something am until 5:30pm) when we were admitted "in" to the event (outdoors) that continued on the rooftop at Pier 17. There, the event itself started at 7 or 7:30pm and lasted either up to or less than 2 hours total. It rained nearly all day, sometimes just drizzling, sometimes heavily - but 100% of the day was spent soggy. No easily accessible bathrooms until the doors opened (~5:30pm).

Spotify handed out 2 packets of disposable hand warmers and disposable ponchos to those in line. The line wrapped around the venue and through the neighborhood. My foiled paper signs, backside, and some of my elbow made it on to Korean National news 😏. More on that here.

THE OPENING DJ
Starting from 5:30pm until the start of the main event (Suki Waterhouse would interview BTS on stage followed by a live performance of SWIM, 2.0, and Normal), Spotify had a young DJ spin some repetitive bullshit for the entire time. I hope she learns to read the room. Great DJ's, among other things, are masterful manipulators of ambience in the best way - using soundscapes to induce euphoria, foster connections, paint the auditory backdrop of incredible memories. Shit DJs are punchlines... that are not funny. Further, getting a SHIT DJ to open for THE BTS made me feel a lot of things. When I say shit dj, I don't mean 'amateur' or 'young' or 'trying but struggling to get it quite right' - I mean she was inattentive, self-absorbed, and disconnected. More on that coming up in my existential crisis YouTube...

THE VENUE
I'll talk about the queueing experience on my YouTube but once we ARRIVED "inside" the rooftop venue, it was cool. The escalators leading up to the roof had screens on all sides with "SWIMSIDE" animations playing on loop.

After waiting outside in the cold, the brief ride up these escalators were the only few seconds many of us were back "indoors" before ultimately walking out onto the open rooftop back into the cold and wet.

The space was huge - there were probably quite a few things to check out and there was a giant SWIMSIDE display for taking pictures. But nearly everyone shared the same goal: get to the stage. As soon as people made it on the roof, they headed straight in front of the stage. There I stood, huddled amidst ARMY - wet, freezing, grateful, tired, excited, and energized ...until this dj slowly drained my life away with her f*ckass mmtss mmtss set for TWO STRAIGHT FCKNG HOURSJGKLD:FJG. I digress.

THE STAGE
I was about this far from the stage.

This photo looks, at once, too close and too far from how it felt to be standing in front of them. I'm not the greatest with proprioception but it felt like we were maybe ~5meters/15feet in front of them.

There they were.. all seven of them. STUNNING, stylish, charming...
But seeing them that close in this context - because they didn't perform right away... I imagine if the night's programming began with their stage performance, that may have shaped my experience quite differently. The loud music, the impeccable choreography, the professional stage presence - that would've been what first oriented my view of them this close.

But it wasn't...

They walked out and all of a sudden my mind went numb because... I didn't see 'BTS.' I saw seven Korean dongsengs 🧐🧐🧐... and HEAR ME WHEN I SAY, I wasn't trying to see them that way. I just did. 7 lil guys.. on stage.. in the cold..

All thoughts converge at once.

BTS. IDOLS. right there.. I just watched an AYS2 episode last night..and now they're right there..Jimin lost so much weight.. his hair grew so long.. ..dongsengs...JK is the only one that doesn't have a jacket... what is that material? It doesn't look like it can block out the wind. Why didn't they give him a jacket? Who is Suki Waterhouse? I like her fluffy green sweater situation. I wonder if that's warm. Oh my gosh.. I'm still so cold. Did I crinkle my sign? Where'd it go? I hope these people put their phones down soon. I'll try to get one good photo of each of them and then put my phone away. They're so close. I don't want them to think I only want proof for later. But I also don't want to be perceived maybe I should keep my phone over my face. I am so ugly. They're so beautiful. They look cold. I'm so cold. My photos.

Yes -those were powerful heat lamps behind them.
Yes -they've likely performed/filmed/danced/etc. in worse or more challenging conditions FOR SURE. At the very least, they've all gone through the Korean military training - this is nothing. But somehow, their finitude and humanity rang through my brain so clearly.. and I was shook.

To be clear, when I say they looked small/tiny, I'm not talking about their weight or how buff they were, they were all perfect in that regard. I'm just talking about the fact that, through my phone and on my screens - they loom so large. They're celebrities and role models and professionals. Of course they maintained all those things that night as well, but up close... getting their bearings on stage as they sat, as Suki got her bearings, as the useless af "translator" got his bearings, their vulnerability felt so palpable. If I'd felt some form of theoretical, distant protectiveness before, it became more visceral that night. More on this coming on my YouTube.

ANYWAY, then they crushed it. Charmed the pants off the crowd with their answers and antics and performance. I saw the JEON JUNG KOOK sing on stage with my real eyeballs. MY eyeballs. Oh to behold such talent! Soggy northface who?

THE "TRANSLATOR"
Okay - I want to be so clear. I'm not a professional live translator. I've done it less than a whole handful of times in academic settings because of issues mainly having to do with lack of budget to hire a real one. Live translations - especially for more than one person - are really challenging. It doesn't matter how fluent you are in both languages.

I mean you've watched a live before. Members speak over each other, start and stop sentences they never finish, mumble and fumble thoughts, jump from topics every 12 seconds, and joke - sometimes in deep inside jokes and sometimes in idioms.

So FULLY acknowledging how incredibly challenging it can be to capture the 'essence' of what is being spoken, making REAL TIME decisions on what to include/disregard/smooth over/change so that the audience is not only accurately informed but remain connected ...for ANYONE... THIS GUY... was NOT THE ONE.

I'd even go so far as to say, I'm pretty confident he was not a professional translator. My guess is actually that it was perhaps just one of their most bilingualish staffers? Perhaps the real one was delayed or derailed by the awful weather. If he was not a professional translator and just trying his best - that would actually kinda make PERFECT sense. Deeply overwhelmed, unprepared, just thrown on stage, trying his best - watching the interview unfold until 'OH YEA I should translate' shocked him back into this dimension where he'd toss out some words. I'd hate that for him and for everyone who missed out on so much of what they said that night but at the very least, logically, THAT I could at least understand.

However, if THAT GUY was, in fact, the actual DEDICATED PROFESSIONAL translator, then oh 100% I feel so justified in judging this man -

This man barely remembered he was there. He translated all of maybe 7-10% of the evening with RM doing the heavy lifting. Again.

Did it take every ounce of willpower not to rush the stage and suggest that I could help? Yes, yes it did. On the one hand, I'm THE most obedient rule follower by nature - and would never want to actually jeopardize my own access to future events or mar the reputation of my gracious ARMY friend that invited me as her plus one. But OH HOW it pained me to watch them... visibly anticipate the translator to step in.. and the translator was tuned out, off to the side, hesitant, and at best - spoke in a very low, almost inaudible voice - delivering flat translations. More on this coming on my YouTube. Anyway, many people around me were peeved at this.

WHERE?
How exactly did I know where to be when Spotify never shared the venue until HOURS before the event would start? More here.

WHEN?
This brings me to my YouTube.

This event happened on March 23, 2026.

Leading up to that day, through March, many ARMY held the excitement and anticipation for the new BTS comeback ARIRANG album and their first performance back in America in one hand AND in the other hand, the grief/disorientation/shock/anger/confusion stemming from the horrifying landscape of immigration "reform" taking place around our country and military conflicts involving the US, Israel, and Iran with all of the geopolitical and economic chaos (threats to oil, rising gas prices, energy concerns, IS THERE GOING TO BE A DRAFT???, disruption of shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, increased military spending) and oh is AI coming for all of us and are data centers melting the world even faster now!?

THE CRASHOUT

So without boring you with all of that here, I'll break it down [below and in the description on my YouTube video, once I post it] - I will be covering these topics, listed before I finish the video so I'm not sure in what order I'll be covering them at the moment but here we go:

• ON BTS IS REAL: HOW? wtf. is. life.
• ON PRIVILEGE: I'm SO motherfckng cold. oh shit. the world's on fire. dare I utter a complaint about this predicament I chose for myself? one that I could easily walk away from if I was truly so uncomfortable?
• ON INHERENT VALUE/WORTH: am I allowed to be here? i'm accomplishing nothing to put out one of the many fires.. is it okay to want to be here? can I lean into this moment and just enjoy it? is that a luxury I cannot afford when times look like this? i don't know..
• ON BEAUTY: I never want to meet them because I am too ugly to be seen...
  [this is not fishing for compliments because anyone that's ever felt this way knows -it's not about what others say. ..it's about how you feel about yourself. when I feel beautiful, IDGAFFF what anyone says about me. if they're mean, they can eat a BAG of dicks and choke. i am a princess. gtfo. when I feel ugly, nothing anyone says can pull me out of the worthlessness I feel]. I don't always feel this way.. but when it hits, it's ugly. pun intended 😏
• ON AI TECH: AI art was always an issue because of intellectual property theft - but seeing them up close makes me want to commit arson against anyone that generates a likeness of these real people to manipulate to their whims...
• ON BEING KOREAN-AMERICAN: I wish Koreans would accept me as a Korean/I wish Americans would accept me as an American...
• ON HUMAN POTENTIAL/RESPONSIBILITY: That DJ being terrible infuriated me in a way that triggered disproportionate rage.. we've gotten too comfortable with mediocre effort wrapped in shiny new packaging... as someone in marketing/design, how can we show up in that space more thoughtfully?

These are not thoughts I neatly 'resolve' by the end. That may be deeply frustrating for you. So again, choose your own journey but if any of this? all of this? resonates with you to some extent ...then please come crash out with me.

I'd love to know there are others that care deeply, that practice self-regulation, that want to live life in a way that inspires curiosity and positive change, that find themselves with THOUSANDS of questions, like 3 answers, a caffeine headache, and a fidget spinner, AND YET refuses to give up. Trying to learn more, grow stronger, reach further - with the goal of trying to help mitigate the bad and reminding yourself and others to preciously behold the beautiful - even if only in small doses.

For those that made it this far, I do not take your curiosity for granted. Thank you so much for reading.

I've filmed everything... and I'm in the process of paring it down and editing because I'm a firm believer in putting forward my best if I'm going to do anything. Whether 1 person views it or a few dozen people view it - I still want to be as concise as possible without 'editing out' my sense of honesty/vulnerability/the crisis. If you think you'd be interested to watch, please consider checking out my tiny youtube, subscribing and pressing all the relevant buttons so you'll be notified when it's posted. Noooo offense taken if not! 💜

Thank you!
사랑해!
TK