Kim Namjoon has never been afraid of change. Which is good—adaptability is one of the most important qualities of leadership, and he happens to be the leader of the biggest music group in the world. In 2015, BTS released The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Pt. 1, and it symbolized a significant change in the direction of their career. It was significantly different not only from BTS’ prior album era, but also to the mixtape Rap Monster had just put out about a month prior. RM was raw and often abrasive. The next couple of years of his and BTS’ career would continue to bring increasing amounts of change, which Namjoon would observe, analyze, and (of course) write about. By the time he released his next mixtape, mono. in late 2018, he was ready to share with the world how he’d developed both personally and artistically since his last project. Perhaps the most significant example of that growth he’d experienced, was the shift in his mindset from Rap Monster to RM… Real Me.
The persona, as defined by Carl Jung, is the mask that we show to everyone around us. In the graphic above, the persona is right on top of the consciousness, on the border with the real world. When the world looks at us, that’s what the world sees. The persona isn’t our true self, it’s what we allow the world to see, and it can change depending on the role we are playing in our lives. We all have multiple personas: mother, daughter, wife, professional, etc.
In Ask AP529 Episode 7, Leslie gives us a tour and explanation of the ARMY membership options on Weverse, showing us exactly how we can navigate the sign up process. She also takes a deep dive into the (currently) discontinued Merchandise Pack membership options and speculates on whether we might see it return in the future.
We spend our whole lives seeking out who we are. We’re often defined by where we grow up, our careers, the people we surround ourselves with… but is that truly the essence of one’s self? Or is there more to that picture? From 2019 to 2022, Kim Namjoon pondered this question often. As his band, BTS, rose to the heights of superstardom, he found himself yearning to feel the ground beneath his feet again. This week we’ll explore the process by which he navigated his members through unprecedented global upheaval, all while chronicling the latter half of his twenties and searching for himself through the medium of art. This is the journey of RM’s first solo album, 2022’s Indigo.