In eighth grade, I was one of those people—sweaty palms on keyboard, albums lined in a ritualistic circle, and prayers to the seven male gods singing in my head as timed tick closer to the moment when concert tickets went on sale. I was also one of the many who were disappointed—I didn’t get the ticket that day.

But after months of anticipation, pulling out my phone and refreshing ticketmaster, and begging my parents, my best friend and I ended up going to the BTS concert at Oakland. But before then, we had already begun scheming—thinking about how we’d look with the new BTS  t-shirts on, the exclusive Love Yourself Photocards we could hang on our wall, and key chains we’d bring back to the friends who didn’t get the chance to go. Once again, I was disappointed. When we arrived, the only things that weren’t sold out were the Army Bombs which were overpriced light sticks that the Army would wave during concerts—a symbol, for the lack of a better word, that we were BTS fans.

I’m not going to tell you the story of how I pleaded to go, the trials and tribulations of making it into the concert, nor the extent to which I screamed that night. I want to tell a story about community, and just how much one commonality can unite people, can change the way we perceive and interact with others, and how it can open, for someone, a whole new world.  

The story is set at the Oracle Arena on September 12, 2018 and the tiny slice of paradise that popped up one day in the middle of a giant parking lot. When we got off the highway and inched closer to the gates of the Oracle Arena that is what came into sight—lines of makeshift gates that stopped at merchandise booths, photo-booths, and reporters interviewing random fans here and there.

Driving through these gates meant no more judgment, meant no more shame (not that I ever felt any) about the music we like, and sharing the same anticipation. The arena could seat 20,000 concert goers, but the capacity that day was 16,000. There were 16,000 of us lining up to see that show while me and my best friend were just two tiny eighth graders trying to find our way to getting our merch. I still can’t get over how awkward we must’ve looked. When they handed us the catalog, I was busy messing around with my bag trying to pull out my money making sure not to drop any of the loose change in my hands. 

And as we stood silently in the line, the awkwardness only thickened until the person standing ahead of us said, “Damn they sold out of everything.”

“What, did they really?” The mouth that had always stayed shut in front of “strangers” miraculously opened as I hopped into a conversation I had more or less eavesdropped on, but they didn’t seem to care.

I didn’t either. The conversation about disappointment transitioned into one about a shared struggle to obtain tickets. We talked about sweaty hands on that deathly day in March, our anxieties about not being able to go, and the unhealthy amount of bragging we did when it came to our excitement at being one of the 2 or 3 people from our schools that ultimately purchased the privilege to see BTS that day. I think of it  like a cracked  open chestnut with its fleshy, soft, and hidden part revealed for all to see and all that were seeing were also naked chestnuts.

The shell that had made us sweaty, uncomfortable, and shameful on the inside finally broke, and now, all we can feel is a cool breeze—as if there were no more secrets to hide. I would call it “一见钟情” or in English ,“love at first sight,” but this wasn’t love nor friendship. I can only call it community—a community indiscriminate of race, gender, age, and even musical tastes. There were no rules because everyone in it didn’t need to care about the rules. We cared, focused, and were excited about one thing: the concert. This is a place where there are rules, but also a place where the thought of breaking them never crosses the mind. Call us brainwashed, but I think it’s the collective unconscious dormant deep in all of us.

Sometimes I think: Is this the feeling Karl Marx was trying to replicate in The Communist Manifesto? Was this parking lot of boy band fans the perfect civilization that blood and revolt sought to create? Who knows.