Although the C0VID-19 pandemic has pαssed, everything related to it is still carefully studíєd because this is one of the most notable events of humanity in the 21st century. Recently, A study began to attract fans' attention by showing that BTS has a huge influence on the public during the pand3mic.

Even BTS's influence in promoting public health and safety during this period was comparable to organizations such as CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), NIH (National Institute of Health), and WHO (World Health Organization). While many people believe that BTS was just the pillar that helped ARMYs get through the gloomy times of the pandemic, in reality, through the group's bright and optimistic music during those years, they were also able to save lives of the whole community.

Below is what Herbert Chang's research has shown about BTS's influence during the C0VID-19 pand3mic on society:

Herbert Chang is currently a professor of Quantitative Social Science at Dartmouth College. Meanwhile, he conducted a study of which public entities had the loudest voices in public health messaging during the pand3mic. The research was conducted while he was a graduate student at the University of Southern California and had access to the world's largest Twitter dataset.

The inspiration for this research arose on a personal level when Chang noticed that many people around him during the C0VID-19 lockdown relied heavily on digital content to survive. Although he wasn't familiar with the K-Pop world back then, his co-writer, Becky, was a fan.

He and his colleagues realized that BTS played a huge social advocacy role during the pand3mic, even including speaking about mental health during the pand3mic at the United National General Assembly. Not only did BTS explode worldwide thanks to their outstanding reputation, but BTS was also the biggest and most effective driving force to convey medical messages and hope for life during that gloomy period.

In a recent interview, Chang gave a brief example of the dataset analyzed in the study. He pointed out that the head of the WHO used BTS in his tweets a total of 16 times during that time, and there were 2000 other tweets with similar messages but without any mention of the K-Pop mammoths.

Chang said the difference in reach between the former and the latter is 111 times: "His 16 tweets that did contain BTS generated around 200,000 retweets. His other tweets generated about the same amount as well. From this, we can see that the increase in in virality, just by adding them, was more than 111 times."

Chang confessed that while he expected BTS to have a sizable presence among the other public figures and institutions that had influence over public health messaging at that time, he never thought they would actually be proven to be the biggest among them all. But the numbers say it all about their influence, even surpαssing the power of world health organizations.

But it’s not just BTS’s own influence as public figures that drove these numbers. Chang noted that the strongly connected community of their fans contributed toward carrying BTS’s messages to newer depths.

He commented: "Also, one of the things we looked at was how strong their communities are. We can imagine social media networks as just networks, users are connected to users. We could basically measure the strength of these communities as well using social network analysis algorithms."

When the interviewer asked if BTS’s fan community was restricted only to hashtag activism or if it extended beyond the scope of the keyboard, Professor Chang responded that their online activity was matched with in-person actions. He pointed out the several donation drives led by ARMYs, the fanbase of BTS, including their USD 1 million dollar donation to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

He replied: "Once the pandemic ḧïẗ, a lot of concerts that BTS held were canceled. The fans online organized themselves to donate, basically, these refunds to different causes. One is the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Also to UNICEF as well. And this summed to more than $3 million or $4 million in total donations, often all in the span of a few days. This is all from from this type of grαssroot organization from using social media."

According to Chang, the influence that BTS have displayed on their fanbase and inspired positive action during the pandemic could be a learning point for other nonpartisan influencers to affect well-meaning changes in people’s lives.