May 15 marks the day when Jimin set off for Seoul from his hometown in Busan at the tender age of only 16 years old to build a career as an idol/artist. It has now been 11 years since he made this decision to move to Seoul to become a trainee under BigHit Entertainment, and fans have made it a tradition to celebrate the anniversary of this life-changing day for Jimin, this year being no exception.
On May 15, Jimin’s fans commemorated this big day by looking back at his journey from his trainee days through his life with BTS and all the achievements he made, up until now when he has finally made an official solo debut and has become the most successful Korean soloist of all time considering all the significant and unprecedented records that he has registered with his solo debut album ‘FACE’ and his singles ‘Set Me Free Pt.2’ and ‘Like Crazy,’ both domestically and internationally.
Some of these records that will forever be etched in the history books include the first solo artist to sell over 1 million album copies on Hanteo on the first day of release and the first and only Korean solo artist to hit #1 on the USA Billboard Hot 100 chart, also being the first Asian solo artist in 60 years (second Asian soloist overall) to do so. He is also the only Korean solo artist to enter the Top 10 of the UK official Singles chart at #8 and the first Korean soloist to hit #1 on Spotify Global Daily Top Songs chart. He is the longest-charting Korean soloist on Spotify Daily and Weekly Top Artists chart and on Spotify Global Daily Top Songs chart, among many other achievements [refer here and here for examples].
Being where he is now, Jimin has had a significant impact on the K-pop music industry, winning several dance awards [read here]. He has inspired many idols to pursue their dreams, and many rookie idols look up to him as a role model. In fact, the dancers are always covering his iconic performance of ‘Lie’ among other stages as a way to prove their capability as dancers, and this has earned him the title of ‘rookies’ bible’ and ‘idol of idols’ [refer here as well as here and here for a few of the many examples].
However, it is worth noting that all this recognition and ‘top idol’ status did not come easy for him. Jimin put in a lot of hard work and persevered through many hardships to refine his skills to the level he is now. For this, fans are so proud of him for the far he has come and the much he has accomplished, and they are even more grateful that he chose this path and stuck to it even through the toughest of times. It was only because of his admirable mental strength, his belief in himself, and his fighting spirit that many of the fans were able to get to know him at some point in their lives, and now consider him to be an irreplaceable part of their lives and the best idol they could ever ask for.
Here are some of the tweets from fans as they commemorated this day, and pledged their undying loyalty to stay with Jimin all through the rest of his journey as their artist.
The celebrations saw Jimin take over real-time trends on Twitter with his name as well as the tags #JiminMeetsSeoul and ‘WITH JIMIN TILL THE END.’
Jimin is a ‘one in a lifetime’ kind of an idol/artist and his fans are more than proud to support him and love him for the rest of their existence.
