BTS (RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook) gave a powerful commencement speech during YouTube’s virtual “Dear Class of 2020″ graduation celebration on Sunday (June 7).
Wearing sleek black suits, the seven members recorded their contribution to the event from the National Museum of Korea in Seoul, South Korea. Each took turns sharing messages of hope and inspiration for the class of 2020 in both Korean and English, while revealing their own graduation stories and memories.
In true BTS style, they ended the clip with a good-humored gesture: “Congratulations, Class of 2020!” they yelled before tossing graduation caps into the air.
Check out part of RM’s speech below.
Dear Class of 2020, it’s been a strange year so far, but you made it. Today, we might not have flowers, and we might not have graduation caps. What we do have is possibly the most special graduation ceremony in history. Never before have so many gathered to celebrate a graduating class for their achievements and their dreams. You could be watching us from your bed or from your living room, alone or with somebody. Wherever you are, you will all soon be breaking out of one world to soar into another. Ten years ago, it snowed really hard on the day of my middle school graduation. I remember that day clearly because I took a picture with my friends, and kept it as my messenger profile for the rest of my school years. On that day, I was just a boy who had closed just one chapter ready to pen another. And I remember that feeling, it’s really thrilling and breathtaking. It was a moment I felt most like me, myself. A feeling I wanted to hold onto forever. So, as a fellow individual in his 20s, all the way from Seoul, Korea, I want to say, congratulations. [clapping] We’re very excited for what lies ahead of you. Regardless of where or how far you are, we hope our stories today can give you some sort of comfort, hope and maybe even a bit of inspiration…
…Dear Class of 2020, I hope our stories reached you all today. To be really, really frank, we still feel very unsure and unsettled as we speak, just like the day we left the school gates for the last time on graduation day. Some say we have achieved so many things, but we stand no different from any other youth in their 20s, our graduation caps still pressed to our heads, and awkwardly peering into the face of reality. The recent unforeseen events completely changed our plans, and the sense of loss and anxiety we felt then, are still with us today. The fear of an obscure future as our daily lives turn upside down, is a moment of realization of the self, the realization of what makes me a true me, myself. Us, as musicians, we are pulling ourselves together by making music. We write songs, we produce, and we practice as we think about the people we love. And it connects to the world during such difficult times. And with music, we hope we can bring you smiles and courage again. And V just mentioned memos and the photographs. For us, our way of remembering and communicating is to make music. For you, it could be anything. And our music and in our hearts, and in the time that we break out of ourselves, we’re alone, but also together. We may be seeing each other through just a camera and this small screen, but I know your future will bloom to something much bigger and magnificent. Graduates, friends, family, faculty, today, you stand with us, the largest graduating class in history.
Watch the clip of BTS’s commencement speech below.
