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No one had ever suspected that the seven most famous youtubers, with their wildly differentiating styles and video topics would have anything to do with each other. The youtubers never mentioned one another, and their channels had such varying content that no one saw any reason why they would be involved with each other.
First there was Jin, with his channel Eat Jin, who made mukbangs and cooking videos, entertaining over eight million people with the dad jokes he threw in alongside the instructions. He was known for occasionally bringing in guests to his mukbangs, and had even cooked with Gordon Ramsay once (the older had started yelling at him in angry English, ending with Jin resorting to his native language and yelling back at the man in equally angry Korean, despite the fact that the chef couldn't understand a single word of what Jin was yelling at him).
His videos were watched and appreciated around the world, but aside from the fact that he was a great cook and that he made a lot of jokes, people didn't actually know too much about him. Sure, he often mentioned his roommates being out pretty much every time he was recording in his kitchen, but said roommates had never been shown.
Suga, as he called himself on his channel, had almost the exact same amount of subscribers, but instead of cooking, his videos related to the topic of music. He had covered quite a few rap songs and even posted some originals, but his main thing was the piano covers that he dropped weekly. You didn't have to be good at music to recognize his skill.
Other than the music, he sometimes used his platform to speak out about issues that he cared about, such as the importance of openly discussing mental health. Suga knew a lot of people appreciated the music he made and that it had led to great things, like that time he literally got to perform for the president, but in his own opinion, the most important moment of this career had been when he discussed different issues regarding mental health with the UN.
Jung Hoseok danced. He freestyled, he choreographed, he covered other people's dances... It was mostly various street styles that he did on his channel, where he was known as J-hope, but he liked trying new things and could for example mix it with disco, or he'd even throw in some contemporary. Despite the fact that Hoseok wasn't bound to any dance studio, since he preferred going his own way, he had danced at the Millennium in LA a total of three times, each visit gaining him a lot of attention online. Even if you knew practically nothing about dancing, you were guaranteed to have heard of him.
He didn't collaborate often, but when he did, it was usually to shine light on some lesser known group or dancer, people that weren't as widely known but had talent that deserved to be appreciated. A lot of big names only collaborate with other big names, but the ways in which Hoseok lived like other people were few. He didn't follow the crowd.
Long before he was a youtuber, RM was an author. He wasn't actually planning on becoming a youtuber before uploading a short video of him ranting about rap music, and apparently people searched his name, because it was trending in over 30 countries within three hours. After that, things just happened, and before he knew it, he was making videos where he talked about books and writing and complaining about trivial things.
Uploading the video where he talked about diversity in media was honestly a huge leap, because he had never been that serious about things before, but after receiving (mostly) positive feedback, his channel opened up to those kinds of topics as well.
Jimin was a vlogger. He didn't vlog daily, and vlogs weren't the only thing he did, but it was the main thing and it was the type of video that most people knew him for. Despite never once having shown his apartment in a video, he did share a lot of things with his followers, and most of the people that watched him did so because it was so easy to connect and relate to him. His bright personality brought a lot of people in, but when he became serious and talked about the problems that were bothering him, everyone was just as interested in watching.
In the beginning, he had gotten a lot of hate and nearly quit, but eventually made the decision to keep going, and that just made him all the more inspirational in the eyes of his viewers.
Taehyung initially became famous under the name of V. He had always taken an interest in acting and loved roleplaying, so one day, he came up with the character V before deciding to film himself as he goofed around in a costume. People seemed to enjoy his antics, so he kept it up, and his popularity slowly increased. At the time, he was only 16, but he's now 23 and his channel's one of the few that has lasted through the change of what's considered successful content on the platform. He's existed online for a long time, but has no plans of stopping anytime soon.
Apart from his comedic side, he also talks about not feeling like you fit in and about being an outcast, so he has become someone that a lot of people watch in order to feel like they're less alone.
No one knew who was behind the Golden Closet Film channel on youtube, but he was well-known nonetheless. All people knew about him was that he had an interest for shooting and editing clips in a very aesthetically pleasing way, and it was suspected that he was born in 1997, since the people most often featured in his short films were the members of a youtube squad that had been dubbed as the "97 liners". It only made sense for him to be a part of that same squad. Then again, no one knew for sure, and he had never posted anything that gave any clue to his identity.
It was a Monday in the middle of June when these seven channels got publicly involved with each other for the first time.
The clip Jin posted had a thumbnail like any other video, had a regular title, and was filled with his regular walkthrough of how to make the meal that was the focus of today's video. It all seemed very normal, up until the last twenty seconds of the cooking tutorial. The meal was finished, and now, Jin filmed six plates of the food that had been set up on his dining table. It then cut to a shaky clip of people eating, and everyone watching the video had a collective heart attack upon seeing the faces of the people around the table.
"How's the food?" Jin's voice asked from behind the camera.
Suga, the musician, and RM, the author, each gave a thumbs up to the camera, while Hoseok the dancer only responded with a facial expression that perfectly described how good the food was.
"This is one of your best meals, hyung", Jimin said, and Taehyung nodded his agreement to that statement. There was a seventh person seated at the end of the table, someone that the viewers didn't recognize, and the boy couldn't even be bothered to respond to Jin's question. He seemed to be enjoying the food, though, even if he didn't reply along with everyone else.
The video got a lot of attention because of those twenty seconds. People were discussing and theorizing how those seven boys knew each other and how long this had been going on. Since their content was so different, they didn't really have any reason to be on each other's channels, and from the short clip they got with the seven boys, viewers concluded that they had to be friends.
People were keeping a close look on all of their channels after that, waiting for one of the other boys to post something that could explain what was going on, or simply just post something so that their subscribers could see if the seven of them were with each other right now. For some reason, all of them had apparently decided to log out from social media after Jin's video, because there weren't any new tweets or Instagram posts or even snapchat stories. Not even Jimin, who was usually the most active, posted anything new that day.
The second one of them made another post, the internet was all over it.
"here's some bloopers cus i can't be bothered to film rn" was the title of the video RM posted the following day. Immediately, lots of people were disappointed, since it looked like this was a compilation of bloopers from his old videos and not any recent material, meaning that they wouldn't get their questions answered about how they all knew each other, but everyone who clicked on the video had their interest renewed after two seconds. The video opened with Jin's windshield wiper laugh coming from somewhere behind the camera, which was turned to an empty green wall, and two voices arguing somewhere further back. After a few more seconds, you were able to conclude that the voices belonged to RM and J-hope, and that they were discussing whether the Black panther could be called a furry or not.
The video only contained more moments like that one, and at the end, every one of the seven boys had been both seen and heard at least twice. What made people the most confused was the fact that all these moments were so spread out over time, all of them being bloopers from old videos, something that could easily be proven by looking at RM's clothes and hairstyle as they changed between clips. It meant that the boys must have known each other for a pretty long time already, something that had their fans even more puzzled.
On Wednesday, one day after RM's confounding video and two days after Jin's mysterious cooking show, it was Taehyung's turn to turn the internet into a mess. In true Taehyung fashion, he dropped nothing more than a very random fifteen second clip, but it was enough to catch people's attention just as much as the other two had done before him.
The video had been shot in the same kitchen where Jin made all of his cooking tutorials, but this time, six people were seated in various places around the room, most likely with Taehyung behind the camera. It was titled "Jin's cooking but without the cooking", meaning that it was pretty much just them eating without knowing that they were being filmed.
Yoongi, RM and the unrecognized seventh boy were passing a bag of chips between them, as they had all taken their seats on the countertop. Hoseok stood leaning against it next to them, eyes on his phone screen, completely unaware that he was being recorded, while eating from a bowl placed next to him. Jimin was seated on the floor by Hoseok's feet, eating out of a bowl that he held on his lap. Jin stood next to them but was paying no attention to the people around him.
Nobody said anything during those fifteen seconds, but at the end, Jimin looked up from his food and noticed that they were being recorded. He didn't say anything, though, only grinned at the person behind the camera.
On Thursday, people thought their streak of featuring each other in videos was finally ending, as J-hope posted a seemingly normal dance cover, but that was until the video actually started. Instead of only seeing Hoseok in the familiar setting of the dancing room where he so often practiced, there was a whole group of people standing in front of the mirror, and they all started dancing as soon as the first beat of the music played through the speakers.
His subscribers watched in fascination as all of them moved in perfect synchronization with moves that matched well with the music. When the song reached its bridge, the music became a lot calmer, and Jimin did a contemporary solo that went really well with the switch in the song. After that, the assumed 97 liner showed off some quick footwork, before they all stepped into a group position to do the last chorus. J-hope stood in the middle up front, leading the other six through the remaining moves.
The song finished way too early, and every viewer was left breathless, now eagerly waiting for the next person to drop their video.
Jimin usually posted every second or third day, but it had been almost a week when he finally posted something new that Friday. At this point, people weren't even that surprised to see that the other six boys were all featured in this day in the life-video that Jimin had made, or by the fact that it seemed like they all lived in the apartment where the video was shot. It was just another vlog, the only noticeable difference being that there were six other youtubers living in his apartment.
This time, viewers got to see more of their casual interactions. Jimin sneakily filmed as Suga practiced the piano while RM and V stood in the background and sang completely off-key. The pianist wasn't amused, but he also didn't seem bothered by it. On the other hand, the camera was shaking from how much Jimin was laughing.
Another part of the video showed Jung Hoseok and the unnamed maknae as they helped Jin cook in the kitchen. RM tried to enter at some point, but Jin yelled at him that he was still banned from the kitchen after somehow breaking the kitchen sink while attempting to cook eggs (yes, it made absolutely no sense), and the whole scene had a very domestic feel to it. The maknae, and supposed owner of the G.C.F. channel, finally got a name to match with his face:
"Jeon Jungkook, you spill one more drop of that banana milk on my chair and you're dead!" Seokjin had threatened a few seconds after kicking RM out of the room. It left viewers wondering just how long they had known each other, how long they had been keeping this secret from the internet.
Jimin's vlog ended with a shot of six boys asleep in various positions around the living room after finishing a movie night. Jimin quietly waved goodbye to the camera in the dark with a fond smile on his face, and in the background, you could see a small wave from Jungkook, who was apparently still awake.
"Seesaw - acoustic version" was released on Suga's channel the next day. He was the only one in the group that actually had a set uploading schedule, so his video was greatly anticipated after he'd been seen in the videos that had been released earlier that week. Almost all of his followers could predict that Suga's roommates were going to be featured in his video this week, and they were not let down when they were met with all seven of the boys placed around the grand piano in Suga's living room as soon as the video started. The song opened with the strumming of a guitar that Jin was playing, followed by a melody that Suga started on the piano. Taehyung was sitting next to him, and when the chorus came, he joined in with higher notes on the piano while Suga played in a lower octave.
RM and J-hope stood behind the pair by the piano, and they had split the verses between them and took turns rapping. Jimin sat with his legs crossed on top of the black piano, and mostly did ad-libs or harmonies while Jungkook sang the melody, but Jimin also had his own impressive solo during the bridge.
The cover was everything anyone could have asked for. Both instruments were played perfectly, the two rappers had great flow, and the vocalists sounded angelic. If there was one thing viewers could complain about, it was that the song didn't go on forever, which would have been the ideal. Sadly, it ended, but at least they ended it in a great way.
Jungkook was singing the main melody while Jimin added a higher harmony to his soft voice. Taehyung joined the vocalists and started singing the melody of the chorus in a lower octave, showcasing his deep and soulful voice. Jin continued strumming on the guitar but also did some impressive ad-libs that had everyone listening shook. Suga kept playing the piano, but now, he was adding a lot more difficulty to it by playing faster parts that went both high and low, his fingers moving expertly over the keys of the piano.
RM and J-hope kept the beat by clapping and stomping, giving the song a nice rhythm toward the end. It finished with a single chord played by Jin, and after that, the screen faded to black.
With only one day of the week left, there was only one person in the group that hadn't posted a video.
The week of their unexplained videos ended spectacularly with a new post from Golden Closet Film. A lot of people had already connected the face and voice from the others' videos to the person that could sometimes be seen in videos with the 97 liners, and come to the conclusion that the mysterious boy had to be behind G.C.F, but this video finally confirmed it. Instead of focusing on the 97 liners, like it usually did, this one focused on the 7 famous youtubers and a regular day in their lives. It was similar from Jimin's vlog in terms of content, but the shooting and editing style was entirely different.
Jeon Jungkook filmed all of his hyungs during the day, but at some point, they decided to take the camera from him in order to show Jungkook's face. The youngest tried to cover it with his hands, but eventually gave up and just laughed at the camera, warming the hearts of every single viewer.
At the end of his video, the scene showed all seven of them sitting on the floor in the living room, working on pride flags and signs to hold up during pride. That scene was followed by short clips with each of them holding up their own pride flag. Seokjin, Jimin and Taehyung all held up a rainbow colored one, RM had a bisexual pride flag with blue, purple and pink colors. Suga and Jungkook had a pansexual flag, and Jungkook had even painted his cheeks pink, yellow and blue to match with it. At the end, J-hope held up a sign that had been painted pink, green, and blue, and which said "POLY" in big metallic letters. As he held it up with a bright smile on his face, the frame zoomed out to show the rest of the group all standing around him.
Within a week, the group had become the source for thousands of rumors, inspired a whole bunch of fanfics, and trended on so many different platforms that it was hard to keep up with what was going on in the rest of the world. They practically overtook the entire internet for multiple days.
Fans were confused, happy, excited, and they had a lot of questions, but most of the time, they just had a lot of different things to say. Some conspired that they were only using their friendship for clout, that this week of reveals was just one step in some masterplan to give them the world's attention for a short while. But, everyone who knew even a fraction of who they were as people could see that it wasn't a clout chasing thing. It was a "we've been keeping the truth from you for way too long so here you go, we're finally being honest"-kind of thing. Of course, there would always be haters and bigots that were unwilling to support them. They did loose subscribers that week, but the group never saw it as a bad thing. All it meant was that the millions of viewers that remained were truly loyal and nice people.
After all, their success was thanks to their fans, so they figured that being honest was the least they could do.