The Thought Terminating Cliche

BigBang is back—kind of!

After conquering the globe with their groundbreaking M.A.D.E. tour from 2015-2016, in 2017 oldest member T.O.P. enlisted in the military for his mandatory military service. A few months later he was arrested, charged, convicted of marijuana use, and given a suspended prison sentence. In the middle of the media frenzy, he attempted suicide via overdose and almost died. 

I have visceral memories of that awful time. Getting the news and just sitting in a state of shock, refreshing various new sites for updates and praying desperately that T.O.P. would wake up again. I can’t imagine how it felt for his family and friends. 

For any readers in the Anglosphere or Europe, yes, that was marijuana use—not distribution or smuggling or spiking with some harder drug—use. 

(You can check out my episode with blogger Gusts of Popular Feeling for a discussion on the history of marijuana usage in South Korea. The TL;DR is hemp used to be smoked by older folks in rural areas as folk medicine. It was criminalized in the mid-1970s in Korea because American soldiers were smoking—and selling—more potent strains and both the American and Korean governments wanted to crack down on it. These new laws were then used to do things like arrest, torture, and involuntarily institutionalize anti-authoritarian artists and musicians like the great guitarist Shin Joong-hyun.)

The next year, 2018, BigBang members G-Dragon, Taeyang, and Daesung also enlisted in the military and the supergroup went on extended hiatus after a final farewell single, the aching mid-tempo ballad “Flower Road,” released on March 13, 2018. I can report that I personally listened to it on repeat for weeks afterwards. They did no promotion for the song; it had no accompanying music video or even a performance video. They just dropped it online and peaced out. And yet despite the lack of promo—as well as T.O.P.’s legal problems—the song ranked up at number 17 on Korea’s annual Gaon (now “Circle”) Digital Chart. That’s above almost all the other (and younger) idol groups.*

What happened since then is: 

1) BTS took over the global boy band slot from One Direction and these new fans began entering K-Pop spaces. The new fans were very enthusiastic about BTS while also, simultaneously, refusing to understand the history of the genre and industry they were now participating in.

2) BigBang—being on extended hiatus—was not releasing new music but was in English-language K-Pop media headlines for their legal troubles, all of which were taken up with zero context as part of gross online fan wars. This went into hyperdrive with (now ex-member) Seungri and Burning Sun and has continued through as recently as last year when member G-Dragon was hounded again for drug usage, only to finally be cleared of all charges.

Which means that by right now, 2025, a decade out from ground-breaking M.A.D.E., there is an entire generation of K-Pop (and K-Pop adjacent BTS) fans who only know BigBang as a scandal-plagued group and have no context for them as extremely popular hitmakers and critically acclaimed artists.

Which means that the recent triumphant return of G-Dragon, Taeyang, Daesung, and (now ex-member) T.O.P. to the spotlight has caught them completely off guard and sent K-Pop fan discourse into some wild directions.

Insert Picard face palm meme

Have there always been K-Pop fans who were annoying about oppa? Sure. 

If you listened to my recent episode 84, then you know that a trigger for the infamous G-Dragon/Flo Rida “scandal” (it was not plagiarism) was G-Dragon stans spamming Korean microblogging site Me2day and annoying netizens who didn’t want to hear about Our Lord and Savior G-Dragon 24/7. 

The annoying teens spamming pictures of oppa still exist and are essentially harmless but what’s happened in English-language K-Pop fandom over the past few years is that stan arguments are now being idea-laundered through major media outlets and the academy. Instead of stans bickering in dedicated (and quarantined) forums over who is better: 2PM or BigBang, you get stans (and hacks) writing “reviews” of middling K-Pop albums for legacy publications looking for cheap clickbait. These “reviews” for legacy publications are then used as “proof” of quality and popularity, along with metrics juiced by the company and by organized fan efforts to mimic general popularity. The stans are creating the “proof” in a human centipede of madness.

And the thought terminating fandom cliche—“BTS PAVED THE WAY”—prevents these stans from taking on any outside information. The world sprung into existence when they began paying attention.

Since 2018, in K-Pop spaces, a soap bubble has been formed inside of which BTS is the biggest group in the world and Korea’s National Treasure.

On the outside of that bubble, however, G-Dragon released two new solo songs, one of which has sat on top of Korea’s popular streaming service, MelOn, for over a month now and the other isn’t far behind it. His headscarf fashion point has gone viral and is being widely copied.

Then, Squid Game season 2 was released on Netflix a couple of weeks ago. The highly anticipated show featured a new character—rapper Thanos played by… yes, T.O.P. 

Despite his blacklisting in Korea, T.O.P. was so engaging as Thanos that he quickly began dominating coverage of the show in English language media, soon followed by even more incredulous stories about T.O.P’s recent troubles.

And almost certainly sparked by a viral clip of T.O.P. as Thanos doing what appears to be the “Bang Bang Bang” dance in a scene of Squid Game, “Bang Bang Bang” has returned to the public consciousness as the public remembers how much they loved it.

Global YouTube statistics for BigBang for the week of December 31, 2024, through January 6, 2025.

But the final poke that popped the soap bubble seems to have been an interview given to CNN by Taeyang, in which he discusses both his own and BigBang’s role in bringing K-Pop to the world. His perfectly gracious interview sparked a shitstorm as the Thought Terminating Cliche came up against some major cognitive dissonance. 

The Thought Terminating Cliche in action.

What does it mean to “pave the way”? It depends on the current needs of the fandom to resolve their cognitive dissonance when faced with reality. You cannot reason with people trapped in this kind of thinking and I suspect we’ll be seeing the most extreme stans doubling and tripling down and getting even louder as their soap bubble continues to collapse because BigBang is back, baby!

Let 2025 bring us more T.O.P. (solo album, please!), G-Dragon, Taeyang, and Daesung. 

BigBang winning best global artist at the 2011 European VMAs—paving the way or nah?

(You can also see my previous posts on BigBang, on the new BBC documentary on Burning Sun, my episode on Hip Hop Idols, and the first three podcasts in my M.A.D.E. series covering 1988-2006, 2006-2008, and 2008-2010—work on part 4 covering 2010-2012 is currently in progress and it will be a barn burner.)

* The exceptions were number one SOTY “Love Scenario” by iKon, BlackPink’s Du x 4, Momoland’s “Bboom Bboom”, and Mamamoo’s “Starry Night.”