It’s all one big joke, of course. They don’t actually consider the members of BSS to be new kids on the block the way they pretend to in videos like “Thanks for coming, GYU 😎,” which they did with MINGYU. As BSS explained on It’s Live, their relative status among the other SEVENTEEN members is just one way of making the “Fighting” experience more immersive—that “it’s just a song to [help you] cheer up.” In their world, BSS is a so-called fourth-gen group with four years under their belt who still need to look up to their seniors and ask a popular producer nicely to get a good song, according to GOING BSS: Comeback Time. Just like every employee in “Fighting”—“all earphone-wearing zombies”—“needs a boost up pumpin’” to get through the same slog every morning, so too do BSS face challenges at every step of their job in this multiverse. Putting out a new song means trading ideas with colleagues from the concept stage right through to choreography practice, even going out to dinner together so they can work out the feuds between them. “Fighting” is more than a cry of support from a group of idols to a working audience—the boys become workers themselves, wrapped up in busywork but always saying “fighting,” or keep it up.

In the alternate universe of the “SEVENTEEN - CHEERS, _WORLD, CIRCLES, etc.” episode of Tipsy Live2 on the Dingo Music YouTube channel, the SEVENTEEN members sing and drink together, and DINO, as Mr. Cha, makes a toast, telling them they did a “great job … for SEVENTEEN. We still have so much to do in the future, right? Guys, are you ready? Again, are you ready?” Two months after the video was uploaded, the group was performing at Tokyo Dome in Japan. Since their debut, they’ve sold more than 16 million albums, according to the Circle chart. Yet still the members squeeze themselves into a small bar, sitting around drinking soju and encouraging themselves to take things to the next level. WOOZI introduces the song “Circles” in that video as “something I personally really wanted to say to the members, with a sincere heart—something I wanted to tell WONWOO, something I wanted to tell myself. It’s something I wanted to say to us all, and also to CARATs.” The song opens with the words, “What am I wandering for? What am I looking for? When I feel like I want to bawl my eyes out, I go closer to the sky.” With a career bringing them from a tiny practice studio to performing at Tokyo Dome, for all the happy times SEVENTEEN has experienced, they’ve surely dealt with just as many hard times. From ordinary office workers to world-class stars, the experience of getting together with friends and coworkers to talk about problems over drinks is universal. WOOZI’s words move the other members to tears, and SEUNGKWAN, wiping his away, launches into the chorus, repurposing a soju bottle as a makeshift microphone. No matter how sad things get, when it comes time to sing, it’s time to sings. That’s how life goes when you’re an idol. Maybe that’s why the album’s called SECOND WIND: that feeling of being able to breathe freely after coming down from an exhausting bout of exercise. And while BSS tell themselves they have to keep it up, they keep on supporting others all the same. BSS’s fictional world has become extremely broad, deep and intricate ever since SECOND WIND, expanding beyond their own plans. At first glace, BSS comes across as a parody of ideas like the fourth generation and of seniority—a culture unique to Korean idols. But there’s a nugget of truth in there: the life of an idol—and, more generally, of all Koreans—means working really hard all day sometimes calls for a drink to release stress. It’s rare for idol music like BSS’s these days to resonate with regular people’s lives and emotions in such a concrete way.

To emphasize the idea of working in an office, BSS wore suits throughout the promotion period. The three members also introduce each of the songs in the SECOND WIND highlight medley video in turn while imitating the typical style of DJs as they differ between the morning, noon and night shifts. That seems to line up with the flow of the album, whose three songs—“Fighting,” “LUNCH” and “7PM” (feat. Peder Elias)—perfectly mirror a typical employee’s morning commute, lunch hour and getting off from work in order. Onstage, they show off their tight group choreography—complete with synchronized clapping—the backup dancers’ complex choreography and fireworks during the climax all contribute to a particularly fantastic performance. Offstage, BSS has fun exploring the ups and downs of working life, from working for a day at a chocolate factory on the YouTube show Workman to SEUNGKWAN jumping into conversation with middle-aged employees in a video titled “Find the MZ Generation hiding in a room of Boomers(?)” from the channel Pixid. K-pop is unique in the way the production teams run promotions that are so thoroughly interwoven with the themes behind the albums. And this attention to detail is captured in the song “Fighting” with lyrics like those that Lee Young Ji raps: “Morning coffee is decaf … Stretch out my back, my arms and my legs … If I live with unhappiness … then I’m just wasting my time, man.” Words like these truly convey the way workers have to build up the strength to go on. It’s easy enough to cry out “keep going,” but it’s words like “gotta” where they tend to lose gusto. And they might work up the strength to sing, “gotta keep going, what else can you do?” But the voice shrinks as they get towards those last few words. The details of this side of life would seem to lie entirely outside the realm of K-pop, and yet, thanks to K-pop’s tried and true production style, SECOND WIND is able to capture them perfectly. It represents a whole new universe—one arrived at by a group of workers who have been through thick and thin in the eight years following their debut but are the same sparkling idols as ever, working hard to fill their audiences with joy. The title “Fighting” is a short and sweet shot of support for people everywhere. Still, people who can manage to get out “keep going” and “you gotta” in one breath must live their lives on trajectories that are difficult to put into words. It seems safe to say, then, that BSS really are fourth-generation idols. They’re innovators in the K-pop space at the same time that they’re creators of their own universe—a “meta” universe that blends the real world and a make-believe one, and the worlds inside and outside of K-pop. And they do it all with a smile.