A News Article About BTS UNGA 76 Attendance

    Hello, my dear readers. It is been a while since the last time I posted on the blog. Life has been such a roller coaster for me, thankfully it is slowly settling back after my uni graduation. Here, I would like to share a sample of a news article that I wrote in English for Journalism subject as one of the projects. I collaborated with two of my classmates to write this, Galuh and Emil. Hopefully, it can be useful. Happy reading!

 No. 1 Boy Band, BTS, Stole World’s Attention at UNGA 76

It’s the boys’ 3rd visit including the online address

(BTS delivering their speech at the 76th UN General Assembly)

Source: YouTube Channel United Nation

 

PURWOKERTO - From zero to hero, BTS once again made an astonishing history for the K-pop industry as they were invited to be the special Presidential Envoys for Future Generations and Culture at the 76th United Nations General Assembly on September 20th, 2021.  

Countless purple hearts flooded the live chat of the 76th UN General Assembly YouTube channel and all eyes are on the seven members of the K-pop boy band BTS, this is not their first time making an appearance at the UN. BTS has been appointed as special Presidential Envoys for Future Generations and Culture by the President of The Republic of Korea, Moon Jae-In at the 76th UN General Assembly to discuss SDGs. They were there at the event to support important issues and use their influence to spread a good impact to all young generations. The boys delivered a speech addressing three main issues; climate action, SDGs, and Covid-19 Vaccination. Some people might be wondering about the appearance of the band at the event for they are known as singers rather than politicians. Moreover, the UN General Assembly is typically attended by policymakers and politicians around the world. High-profile celebrities might often make appearances to deliver speeches, but the attention driven by BTS was uniquely intense. Suga(28), one of the group rappers, then explained in their Vlive broadcast that: “At first, people were like, ‘Aren’t you a singer? Why would you go there? What would you do? We are aware of that, and we came for that role. We are here to support SDG (Sustainable Development Goals). We came here to do that as special envoys.” President Moon also emphasized the powerful influence of the band by proudly introducing BTS as “The artist that is most loved by the people around the world.” Indeed, tens of millions of fans all over the world responded with pride and appreciation for their powerful speech, and social media reactions trended with BTS at the 76^th UN General Assembly in numerous countries.

In the interview with the UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communication Melissa Fleming and the President of the Republic of Korea, Moon Jae-in, RM (27), the leader of the group explained why SDGs are important to them. He asserted that: “Well, like this pandemic, we’re faced with a variety of challenges and difficulties that we need to surmount so we understand the SDGs can be goals that we can work together globally, locally, in civil society 17 goals that we need to meet together.  So why, you asked, do we feel that they are important? We are today’s generation as well as the future generations, we still have our lives ahead of us. Therefore, the SDGs strike a balance between today’s generation and tomorrow’s generation in order to achieve equal benefits for all. Since we are part of today’s generation and tomorrow’s generation we understand the importance of SDGs and we feel a great responsibility. As special presidential envoys, one of the SDGs is about racism and hate speech, so we have already spoken through our social media to raise awareness of its importance as well.” On the other hand, one of the members, Jimin (26), shared his impression of attending the 76th UN General Assembly. He said: “I believe this is our second visit. Including our online address, this is our third visit to the UN. But, you know, this is not the first time here but I’m very nervous. I’ve got the shakes. But it was an overwhelming honor to be invited here. And also we feel, all together, a great sense of responsibility in being invited here as the special presidential envoys. We received answers from the future generation to the questions that we posed, and we did our best to transmit or share these answers with the rest of the world. So yeah, I have to say thank you so much from us for the opportunity to do so.”

(BTS at the interview with the UN)

Source: YouTube Channel United Nation

 

   Furthermore, BTS also mentioned repetitively that today’s generation is not a lost generation due to the pandemic, “We're the welcome generation. So, let's join hands together and work together so that we can build a better tomorrow. Let's go!” said J-Hope (27) in the interview. They wrapped up their appearance at the event with a performance of their latest single entitled Permission to Dance with United Nations Assembly Hall as the background. The song is one of their English Songs after Dynamite and Butter which gained a bunch of great records specifically on Billboard. Recently, BTS' collaboration with Coldplay The Universe was released on September 24th which also makes another list of their collaborations with Western musicians.