After multiple fan requests, this week, Jungkook finally shared a video that the Armys (BTS fans) were eagerly waiting for – the ‘Seven’ dance challenge with one of his best friends, Mingyu from the K-pop band Seventeen.
On August 1, 2023, the ‘golden maknae’ (youngest member) of BTS shared the challenge video on his Weverse account, an online community for K-pop fans.
The excitement surrounding this collaboration began much earlier when fans urged Jungkook to do the dance challenge with Mingyu. Earlier this year, Jungkook had joined Mingyu for a dance challenge on a Seventeen song ‘Super’. The video released in June had quickly gone viral on social media.
To further fan their enthusiasm, Jungkook teased his fans about a potential collaboration with Mingyu in a previous Weverse live session, saying they had already recorded the challenge.
The 25-year-old K-pop icon also revealed that Mingyu had requested to shoot the dance challenge as soon as they reunited after Jungkook's return to Korea.
Dressed in matching black and white outfits with sunglasses, the two friends complemented each other perfectly as they grooved in sync with the choreography. The video went viral on social media.
Both Jungkook and Mingyu are a part of the '97 liners' group.
Who are the 97 liners?
It isn’t documented how the culture started, but apparently, same-birth-year friendships are pretty common in the K-Pop industry. Apparently, K-pop idols born in the same year get together to make ‘liner’ groups.
There are multiple ‘liner’ groups in K-Pop such as the '91 liners', the '92 liners', the '95 liners', and so on. However, the liner group that creates the most buzz on social media is the '97 liners' – made up of K-pop idols born in 1997.
The boy squad members include BTS’ Jungkook, Got7’s Yugyeom, BamBam, Seventeen’s Mingyu, The8 and DK, Astro’s Cha Eun-woo, and NCT’s Jaehyun.
According to the South Korean entertainment website, koreaboo.com, BamBam, and Yugyeom, explained how the group became friends.
“According to Yugyeom, he and Jungkook were the first to become good friends. The squad started when he and Jungkook started looking to collect other ’97-liners'.”
According to Yugyeom, Jungkook brought Mingyu, The8, and DK into the fold, he said he’d also invite BamBam to join the group. Jaehyun came in later, seeing as he had attended high school together with DK. Cha Eunwoo was one of the last to join the ’97-liner squad, and he was brought in due to his friendship with Mingyu, the article added.
