Love Myself is a two-year, anti-violence campaign launched on November 1, 2017 by South Koreanboy bandBTS in partnership with the Korean and Japanese Committee for UNICEF. The campaign idea was introduced by the group as a sponsorship to #ENDviolence, a global UNICEF campaign aimed at the protection of young people so they can live without the fear of violence, and promotes the hashtag – #BTSLoveMyself, which asks fans and supporters to post self-loving photos with the hashtag to different social media platforms. Love Myself made BTS the first artist in South Korea to raise funds as part of a social fund for global campaigns.
Background
BTS' discography focuses heavily on themes such as mental health issues, suicide, nihilism, the K-pop idol system, and female empowerment. In September 2017, their fifth extended play, , which featured themes of love, loss, friendship, and death, was released. As with past EPs and albums, BTS continued to promote social messages in the new songs. BTS started working on the campaign in early 2017, together with their label Big Hit Entertainment, and hoped to help with their social influence in action. In November, BTS and the Korean Committee for UNICEF announced their partnership, supporting both their Love Myself campaign and UNICEF's #ENDviolence campaign. Since then, BTS began promoting the campaign and raising funds to support it. Official merchandise for the campaign was released and made available for purchase through BTS' online store. In January 2018, BTS introduced donation platforms in collaboration with KakaoTalk as well as official stickers for the campaign. Five months later, in June, a partnership with the Japan Committee for UNICEF was announced through a partnership agreement ceremony held in Tokyo. BTS later attended the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 24, for the launch ceremony of UNICEF's global partnership, Generation Unlimited, a program “dedicated to increasing opportunities and investments for children and young people aged 10 to 24.” RM spoke on behalf of the group and delivered a speech about the Love Myself campaign.
Donations
The campaign is funded in the following ways:
KR₩ 500 million donated by Big Hit Entertainment and the seven members of BTS
3% of all income from physical album sales of the Love Yourself series, including ', ' and
100% of all sales of official Love Myself campaign goods
Part of the income from the sales of official KakaoTalk Give-ticon and LINE stickersfor the Love Myself campaign
Kakao’s contribution platform “Together Value with Kakao”
Naver’s online donation platform “Happy Bean”
Donations received through donation desks installed by UNICEF
As of January 17, 2018, global accumulated funds received for the campaign totaled around KR₩ 106 million. Overall, around KR₩ 606 million was raised. The #BTSLoveMyself hashtag has been used across social media over 2 million times. In November 2018 it was announced that over KR₩ 1.6 billion had been raised by the organization, or $1.4 million USD. As of June 30, 2019, the campaign's global accumulated funds total stands at KR₩ 2.4 billion.
