I recently found myself, a 39-something years old woman, very interested in a boy band (though can you call a group of 20-something year old men boys?). Even now, as I write this down, I wonder if I am simply attracted by their looks, their dances and their styles. In which case, how mature am I in reality? I began to reflect on my thoughts and actions, as I am wont to do when they cause me to question myself. I wondered if I, like many of their fans, was enamored by their outward appearance and behavior. I looked back at when I first began to pay attention to their music.
It began with a friend telling me about them as part of our conversation about music (I had mentioned that as a multicultural adult, I listened to a great deal of music from other countries). She noted how some of their lyrics were based off of psychological concepts and suggested a song that I should listen to.
My curiosity piqued, I watched the video of the song she suggested. Yes, they looked good and they danced well. They were able to do both at the same time as well, as I later found when I watched one of their recorded live performances. Might not seem like much, but there are surprisingly few artists who can simultaneously sing and perform a choreographed dance.
But what intrigued me the most was the way their dance was expressing something even deeper, something more raw. Since the song was in a language that I didn’t know, I decided to look them up. This was the turning point in my interest – their lyrics expressed the depth of distress that came with writer’s block. I went further into their music, and that they wrote their own lyrics based off their own experiences. But it wasn’t just that – several of the phrases harkened back to Jungian concepts. For those of you who don’t know, Carl Jung was the student of Sigmund Freud, and – in essence – developed a more practical version of the unconscious mind and how it affected conscious thought and action.
Now, my curiosity was no longer just curiosity…I actually began admiring them. How did a group of 20-something year olds bring out these very concepts that we use as therapists? And they took it one step further…by using their music, they were doing what I hoped to do one day – using these concepts to help a much larger group of individuals. They were fundamentally introducing these concepts to millions of people!
I talk to my clients and use their life experiences to introduce these concepts, making more practical and real. These men (yes, men, not boys) were using their own experiences to introduce these principles, exposing their own vulnerabilities and reaching out to those of their fans.
So, yes, I am a fan of a boy band. Not just because of how they look and dance…but because of what they were doing with their music. I hope more and more of their fans realise just what they are saying through their music, fulfilling the goals of not just the men in the band, but mine, too.
By the way, the band is the Bangtan Boys, or BTS. There you have it, I admit to being one of their millions of admirers. And I’m not ashamed to say so.
Think Again 