EVERYBODY JUST COOL OUT.

The Preamble

Contrary to what my ramblings here may suggest, my typical demeanor is pretty chill. Within reason, of course – there’s that ol’ Yerkes-Dodson bell curve that says too little or too much stress results in lower performance. Essentially, the goal is to find that Goldilocks “just right” amount of pressure in order to motivate peak achievement.

Here’s a problem though: trying to acquire official BTS-related things (e.g., new merch or concert tickets) drops you right straight down in the far right of that curve. Peak performance flies out the window. Instantly and quite unconsciously, you find yourself in conditions of intensity that could trigger some sort of fight, flight, freeze, or maybe event faint and fall response. 

If there are any brain surgeons out there in the Venn diagram overlap of brain surgeons who have also purchased BTS concert tickets, please let me know which activity causes you more stress: literal brain surgery or acquiring BTS concert tickets. 

All of that to say, wouldn’t it be nice if there were some little gadget that sensed growing pressure and would be like, “Hey you, just chill…”?

The Pitch

Good afternoon, gentlemen. This is a familiar space – standing in front of you talking about attending one of your shows. It’s just that new variables and needs regularly reveal themselves, so here we are.

Once again, it’s less about the show itself and more about gaining admittance to them in the first place. Perhaps you’ve heard about something I’d like to call the ticket tango. No, no, no. That paints far too measured of a scene for what the process is actually like. I cannot let my need for alliteration supersede the need to accurately depict the living hell that descends upon a person when trying to get tickets to your shows.

Oh, wait, I found a way to meet my need for both alliteration and accuracy – let’s call it the ticket terror. Or traumatic ticket time. Well now I’m on a roll, but I’ll stop there because I think you get the point. 

I know you genuinely care about people being able to enjoy one of your shows instead finding themselves in the ER due to cardiac arrest as a result of trying to buy tickets to said show. Therefore, I’d like to offer a potential solution to mitigate high intensity moments like these: the Purple Heart Protector, AKA a BTS musical watch that could not only monitor stress levels, but reduce them as well. Or, conversely, help put some pep in your step when you need a boost. Just a little something that reminds you to just take a breath and, oh, I don’t know, self-regulate.^*

The device would be programmed (via the menu on the device itself or Bluetooth pairing and an app on a smart phone – somebody who knows technology can give you these details) with self-selected music triggers that are suited to an individual’s personal health parameters. For example, maybe these are your ranges:

• Heart rate below 60, or for extended periods of sedentary time: Your device will be like, “Hey, you ok, hun? Let’s get you pumped up a bit!” And it’ll play your hype song of choice. Perhaps you need a fire lit under you, so appropriately, you choose “Fire” to play at this time. You see where this is going. 
• Heart rate 60-75: Normal resting heart rate, no music needed (but you can still play some if you want).
• Heart rate 76-85: Maybe you’re getting a little riled up, and it could be a good rile or a bad rile. You need a middle-of-the-road song to help you recalibrate, stay comfortable, or progress in this moment. Perhaps “Tomorrow” or “Fly to My Room” meets that need. 
• Heart rate of 86+: Holy heart rate, Batman, I think it’s time to cool our jets. Your soothing song of choice starts playing and you instantly start to settle. Maybe “Spring Day” or “Young Forever” would be the salve you need at this juncture. 

Of course, there are times when your heart rate will need to be higher or lower, like when exercising or sleeping, etc., and you don’t want the music auto-response. In those instances, if you don’t want to take your device off, just mute it or put it in “do not disturb” mode and voilà, now you just have a cool watch that won’t blast you with some jams when your heart is having a moment. But you’ll still know what time it is. 

Allow me to walk you through an example of how this could work. We’re going to go on a little bit of a t-word journey together (the “t-word” is ticket, just so we’re clear).

Say, for example, you’re counting down to an ARMY concert ticket pre-sale event. Your rational, logical brain knows hundreds of thousands of other people are also vying for the high demand, limited supply item. Nonetheless, your unwavering optimism and naive confidence lead you to believe your efforts here today will undoubtedly carry you to your future as a ticket-holding concert-goer. 

When the time comes, you log in and queue up. “2000+ PEOPLE AHEAD OF YOU” the screen says. And you know that 2000+ probably means 20,000+. Or more. 

Thirty minutes into waiting, your heart rate starts to slowly creep up. You know the chances of snagging your ideal seats are dwindling.

One hour in, you’ve given up hope for those ideal seats and just wonder if you’ll be able to get anything at all. Your pulse ticks ever-so-slightly higher. Nearly two hours in, your aforementioned optimism and confidence are waning. 

Suddenly, you get a notice that your turn is coming up. And then, just as suddenly, it’s actually your turn. You’re thrown into the arena and see your choices are limited. And your limited choices are disappearing lightning-fast as other buyers are making their selections. 

Your heart rate rises yet again. The plans you had going into the ticket purchase are quickly thrown out the window because the seating chart you’d carefully studied prior to the pre-sale is now sparsely populated with options – none of which you’d considered in your thoughtful pre-purchase planning phase. 

Your pulse quickens even more. Do you try to click around on the map to pick seats, or do you just go straight to “best available” and grab what you can before everything is gone? Strategy is a game of the past. Now you’re just in survival mode.

Boom. You’ve reached your trigger heart rate. The Purple Heart Protector springs into action and starts playing Suga’s piano version of “I Need U,” triggering a calming response that allows you to find that peak performance zone, focus, and do what you came here to do. 

You get your tickets. You have no idea where in the stadium they are and how much your nose is going to bleed when you’re sitting in them, but you got them. Your heart rate starts to fall, but is still beating in a slightly elevated territory. Your device responds in kind with your mid-tempo chill song. “Stay Gold” starts playing as you see the words “You Got the Tickets” boldly stamped across the newest email in your inbox. 

The tension floats right out of your body and you see it transition to its next home like Patrick Swayze in the final scene of Ghost. (And no, that did not need a spoiler alert because that movie is older than all of you all and it’s not, like, a big mystery at this point). Just like that, your handy dandy wrist piece has provided you with your very own personalized life soundtrack, all the while coaching you through these harrowing moments. 

I would imagine that by now, our little t-word exercise has you nearly 100% convinced that the Purple Heart Protector needs to exist IRL. But you have just one lingering doubt…

“What happens,” you ask, “when ARMY shows up at our concerts and their heart rates are off the charts from excitement?” 

Good question, and I understand your concern. You can’t have people showing up with wrist jewelry playing a bunch of different songs in response to their accelerated BPMs. The dissonance. The disparate tempos. The pure chaos. It would be too much. BUT, have no fear, for there’s a very logical and, really, quite seamless solution here. 

You know the Bluetooth pairing technology for the BTS light sticks? Of course you do, it’s magical. Well, just apply that to these gadgets. So now, the very wrists that wave the ARMY bombs around will also glow in unison with the orchestrated light show. Double the light, double the joy. Win-win. 

As you can see, the PULSE-ibilities here are endless. So what say you, gentlemen? Are you in?

^*I can’t say the word regulate without thinking of this song and immediately shouting “REGULATORS…” in my head. So, while this is primarily a pitch for a BTS stress monitor music watch, I would also offer up this exception: a person could, if they so choose, opt to have Warren G’s “Regulate” play as their “settle down, partner” song.