One day, four directions — BTS just landed on a game console, the Hot 100, a national museum wall, and the worst ticket queue on three continents. If you're just joining us, the ARIRANG comeback hasn't been a one-week spike. The album held the number-one spot on the Billboard 200 for three straight weeks, kept every track moving on Spotify worldwide, and turned "SWIM" into the era's long-running Hot 100 anchor heading into this latest Billboard frame. This is BTS Daily — and today the scam map gets bigger and the wins get weirder. First up: BTS's first-ever gaming collab. Stick around for that one. ARIRANG chart run isn't over. Follow us wherever you're listening, and the next chapter comes to you. From Ali Shutler at NME:
Now Nex have confirmed that BTS will be coming to the Playground’s rhythm game Starri later this year. “Using Nex Playground’s controller-free, motion-tracking technology, players will interact with BTS’ music through full-body gameplay,” reads a press release. “Designed exclusively for Nex Playground, the experience reimagines how users can engage with the group at home, transforming the living room into an interactive celebration of the music and artistry that have captivated audiences around the globe.”
BTS's first ever gaming collab — first EVER — is Nex Playground, an active play console. No passive tap-the-screen mobile thing here; it tracks your whole body like the old Kinect. Per NME, they're coming to Starri, the rhythm game. And Nex is framing it as gaming plus physical movement, accessible to all ages. Liz, do you understand what this means for me? I have learned every single one of these choreos. A game that makes you physically dance the BTS routines? That's just my apartment on a Tuesday with a scoreboard attached. And that feels deliberate. For their first move into gaming, they went with the body — the choreography, the thing the fandom already does — instead of skins or a sticker pack. Smart brand read. Though — £269 for the console, plus ninety quid a year for the full library. So ARMY, start saving now, because you know we're all in. Here's Kim Noeul at STARNEWS:
According to the latest chart (dated June 27) released by U.S. music specialty outlet Billboard on the 23rd, BTS's 'Come Over', released on the 12th, ranked 69th on the main song chart 'Hot 100'. This marks the group's 39th entry on the 'Hot 100' for a group track.
Here's the chart number I actually want to sit with this week — not a presale stat, not a venue count. 'Come Over' debuts at 69 on the Hot 100, dated June 27, per STARNEWS. That's a real Billboard position mid-tour. And it's their 39th group entry on the Hot 100! Thirty-nine. At that point, you're looking at a track record. The ARIRANG run keeps mutating too — 'Come Over' lands on the Hot 100 the same week the album swings back into the Billboard 200 top ten at number 10. The whole project is still moving. And number 5 on Global Excluding US — that's 21 group tracks now in the top ten there. New record. Even when the US chart is a grind, the rest of the planet just shows up. From Shim Sun-ah at Yonhap News Agency:
SEOUL, June 24 (Yonhap) -- The music video of K-pop superband BTS' 2020 megahit single "Dynamite" has topped 2.1 billion views on YouTube, becoming the most-viewed music video by the group, its agency said Wednesday.
Okay, 2.1 billion on Dynamite — and here's the part that got me: that last hundred million came in just nine months. A 2020 video, still pulling like that. And I like that contrast — we just talked about 'Come Over' landing on the Hot 100 this week, brand new. Meanwhile, the catalog from six years ago is still climbing. Both engines running at once. Right? Dynamite was literally the first K-pop song to hit number one on the Hot 100 — three weeks at the top. And it's still the workhorse of the YouTube count. It earned them their first Grammy nod too. For a disco-pop song they put out to make people feel okay in 2020 — honestly, that's held up better than most things from that year. Here's Jin Hyanghee at MK:
As BTS leader RM steps forward as the face of the National Museum of Korea, attention is also turning to the museum's cultural products. With the public release of the 'Daedongyeojido Scroll Special Edition,' a gift he received at his appointment ceremony as a global ambassador, many are expecting another 'RM effect.'
So this one's different. The National Museum of Korea named RM its global ambassador, and director Yu Hong-jun is right there in the frame with him, per MK. This is institutional Korea putting him forward, without the brand-deal wrapper. And the object itself is wild — the Daedongyeojido, a nationwide map finished in 1861 by Kim Jeong-ho. RM got the first unit of the special edition scroll. The original has 22 folded sections and stretches past six meters when it's unfolded. That's the kind of artifact museums build whole rooms around — and they handed the first reproduction to RM. We just talked about the Nex Playground gaming collab — physical, playful, pop. And then this? A 19th-century geographer's map. The range on this man is absurd. This is so squarely RM's lane it's almost funny. Suga's got the studio, Jungkook's got the choreo — RM gets handed a Joseon-era heritage map and somehow it's the most on-brand thing all week. And MK's already calling the shot — they expect another 'RM effect.' The first unit goes to him, advance sales opened on the 24th. I'd buy a scroll I have nowhere to put. Gulf News, with Lakshana N Palat:
13-year-old Dubai-based Aheli Patekar recalls the excitement of waking up early at 4 am in the hope of joining the digital queue early. After watching J-Hope in Bangkok last year, she assumed that getting the tickets wouldn’t be such a bloodbath. “It was very strange. For Bangkok queue, we couldn’t even the number of people ahead of us. At one point, I thought there was something wrong with our internet. By 11 am, I got in, but no tickets.”
Okay, this scam story has officially gone global. Gulf News today — UAE ARMY, Dubai fans, waking up at 4 a.m. for the Bangkok queue and still walking away with nothing. There's a 13-year-old in Dubai, Aheli, who saw J-Hope in Bangkok last year and figured this'd be easy. Three hours in line, the stick figure never moved, and by 11 a.m. she's in — nothing left. And what gets me is the logic of it — everyone assumed Bangkok was the affordable one, so ARMY everywhere piled onto the same door. The crush goes way beyond one region, with Manila, London, and the UAE all funneling into one queue. Yeah, and the scam pattern we flagged earlier this week — the fake queue helpers, the fake VIP offers, the social transfers — Gulf News confirms it's the same playbook hitting London and the Gulf now. It's documented across continents at this point. Which means I want to be careful — a 13-year-old praying someone gives her a ticket is exactly the person these scammers target. If you're buying secondhand right now, slow down. Got a correction, a comeback theory, or a story you want us to watch closely? Send it to btsdailyfacast at lantern podcasts dot com. We read your notes — and yes, we appreciate the detail.
Next, we're watching for the BTS co-branded Starri experience, slated to arrive on Nex Playground later this year. As always, links to every story we covered are in the show notes, so if something caught your ear, you can go straight to the source. That's BTS Daily Podcast for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.