Behind The Screen — Summary of Smeraldo

Smeraldo (Italian):

1.  Noun (m plural smeraldi): emerald (gemstone)
Lo smeraldo è una gemma verde. ― Emerald is a green gemstone.

2.  Adjective (invariable): emerald-like in colour; emerald green (attributive)
Un mare color smeraldo. ― An emerald-coloured sea.

The first time the term “Smeraldo” appeared in BTS content, it was in a tweet

posted by Jin on the 9th August 2017, and accompanied by this photo:

After some research, ARMY discovered a blog called Flower Smeraldo and that Smeraldo was the name of a flower – the ones we see in Jin’s arms above. All of this content is actually a creation from Big Hit for the Love Yourself series and the BU. ARMY thoroughly searched everything about Smeraldo and Youes made a thread about it on One Hallyu. This post is mainly based on this thread, with the addition of the content released in 2018.

Flower Smeraldo

It’s a blog owned by a character named Testesso.

First, there was a series of posts published in 2017 that was eventually deleted. However, the translated blog created by ktaebwi is still up so you can see it here.

The first posts were reposted in 2018 but we also got modified and new ones (translation by Cafe ARMY).

In

2020,

a

third

iteration

of

the

blog

happened.

The

first

two

posts

were

similar

to

the

previous

years

but

the

third

story

(English translation by Haru and Doolsetbangtan), the ninth story (English translation by Haru), the tenth story (English translation by Haru), and the eleventh story (English translation by Haru)

were completely

new.

This an element from the BU: the identical posts are due to time travel (the past is happening again) and to Seokjin’s actions (he met Testesso the first time but not the second one, thus the different posts).

You

can
find

a

complete

timeline

of

the

posts through the years on

The

BTS

Effect.

The story of Smeraldo

Through these blog posts, Testesso told his and Smeraldo flowers’ stories. These stories are the posts that were posted in both 2017 and 2018. There are seven posts in total and you can read their translation in English by ktaebwi here.

The legend of Smeraldo is similar to classics like The hunchback of Notre-Dame or Beauty & the Beast – where a monstrous being has to live hidden and can’t receive love. It’s apparently an authentic Italian oral story (the original has an epilogue where the man pays for the funeral and is finally able to give the flower, on the girl’s tomb).

The legend has been referenced in “전하지 못한 진심” (The Truth Untold), a song in Love Yourself 轉 Tear. The lyrics are similar to the story. It also connects with the concept of the album, where the Boy changed himself for a girl to the point of becoming unable to recognize himself, but remained unable to receive love.

We also have a reference to William Ashbless in 花樣年華 The Notes 1, in the last double-page where you can see an abstract of a paper titled Study on the Narrative Structure of Playing Cards: Focusing on The Flower Card.

In the BU

Past the 7th story post, Testesso’s publications are very close to the BU.

His posts from the 15 August 2017 and 30 August 2017 fit with Seokjin’s Note in Her and Tear for August YEAR 22. In addition, Jin is seen with a bunch of smeraldo flowers in his Love Yourself poster. It’s also identical to the end of the Highlight Reel, where we learn why Seokjin went to buy Smeraldo flowers: because he found a girl’s diary relating how she wanted to find this flower. He did it for her, to show her the flowers while giving her back her diary.

On September 3, Testesso announced that for personal reasons, he had to stop his activities. The day after, “Serendipity” was released and we didn’t hear of him until the reposting in 2018.

This time, Testesso’s post for the 15 August 2018 explains that he didn’t see anyone. It fits with Seokjin’s 30 August YEAR 22 Note in Answer where it’s explained he renounced to search the Smeraldo flower and just gave the diary

back

to the girl. There are two new posts following this modified one: the first announces the opening of the shop, the second is the day before the opening where the florist is worried by a typhoon.

Those two new posts are actually references, not to the BU, but to the Love Yourself Tour in Seoul, which was held on the 25 August at Jamsil Stadium – same place and same date as the Smeraldo shop. And indeed, there was a shop at the concert venue where ARMY could buy Smeraldo merchandise. The opening of the shop was also the occasion to see the Smeraldo logo which is a combination of the logos for the Love Yourself Series.

Smeraldo flowers in BTS content

Seokjin holds a bunch of smeraldo flowers on his first Love Yourself poster.

A flower can also be seen in “Singularity” and in “FAKE LOVE”.

References to BTS

There are actually several Easter eggs in this fictive creation, which helped the fans realizing Big Hit was behind everything, even before it was officially stated:

• The blog was created on the 4th July 2017, the same day BTS new logo was revealed
• The smeraldo flower was discovered on June 12, 2013, the date BTS debuted
• There was an event where people were offered to submit a story. There were 7 winners (as many as BTS members) and the limit date to submit was August 15, the date the last episode of Bon Voyage was released. Salon translated a thread written by one of the winners here.
• “BTS” is in the file name of the pictures on the blog. In the same idea, you can see “Seokjin’s flower” in Korean in the metadata of the page
• In a picture showing the first order, we can see that the customer’s signature is identical to Jin’s. Same with an Instagram post showing Jin’s handwriting. Another element

  relating to Seokjin is a screenshot, taken at 12:04pm (as in December 4th, Seokjin’s birthday)

• Testesso/”te stesso” means “yourself” in Italian, as in Love Yourself
• Spam comments under the blog posts actually redirect to BTS MVs
• @btsinfo1 also found the location of Testesso’s shop that we see in pictures
• The Smeraldo Academy (TSA) Facebook page also has funny details:
• TSA can stand for Top Social Artist
• It was founded on September 12, 2013, namely, RM’s birth date and the year BTS debuted
• The first person to sign-up was InBloomBTS (“In Bloom” was already used by Bangtan before)
• An ASHS (American Society for Horticultural Science) conference was held on September 17th, 2017 in Hawai. It’s one day before Love Yourself 承 Her was released
• Emailing TSA results in a reply from Ashbless Will (like William Ashbless)
• The flowers were supposedly discovered in “La Città di smeraldo”, which is a reference to The Wizard of Oz
• The content about William Ashbless on Wiki Commons was published by Qkdxksthsuseks, which is 방탄소년단 (BTS name in hangul) if you type it on a Korean keyboard

Let’s conclude with the Twitter account @Smeraldo_Books. It’s an official account that was created to promote the release of the book 花樣年華 The Notes 1 and of the webcomic 花樣年華 Pt.0 ‘Save Me’.