On 3rd June, 2013, Bighit unveiled Jimin as a member of BTS, so I wanted to talk a bit about the younger Jimin. I feel so immensely affectionate and unnecessarily overprotective about Jimin in his formative years — so here are some random and cuuute nuggets from his early years that I wanted to gush over.

Pre-debut Jimin was so handsome!

This is my favourite pre-debut photo of him — he looks like that boy everyone in school has a crush on, hehe. And this tweet talks about how apparently the girls in his school broke down a stage and a bathroom door trying to get at him after his explosive performance on Mirotic! Which is interesting for me coz this pre-debut video from 2011 of Jimin practicing Mirotic is my all time favourite, I especially love how he crashes into the camera in the end and everyone bursts into fits of giggles.

His English was (still is) super cute!

His "excuse me" is the most endearing thing in the world! Also, in this log with JK, from 00:22 onwards, both he and JK clearly catch the meanings of the lyrics of the BGM and are trying to control their laughter, which cracks me up every time I watch this.

He was a smol, wise bean.

This log by him is again one of my favourites, because it shows how he learnt to handle disappointments early in his career. He says: "Right after debut, I went to school with a lot of anticipation…but I got this really flat, normal reaction from my friends. That day I got hit with the sad reality." It's a bit of a harsh realization for a 17-yo, isn't it, that the world doesn't care as much as we think it does, and as much as we want it to care.

He was overflowing with so much love for his members, all the time.

I mean, this is true for all of BTS, all seven members, and probably is their biggest strengths till this day. This wholesome and beautiful relationship between the seven boys is what keeps us hooked, doesn't it? Here's a log of Jimin worried about his hyungs working too hard, as he says, "RM and Suga work till dawn" and here's one where he describes all the members (except Tae, the "secret member") with great enthusiasm. And we all know how he showered JK with love all the time, there's endless evidence for that!

He loved his family so much and loved talking about them

Here's a cute log where he made midnight snacks for Suga, JK and himself using his dad's recipe for sandwiches. And we know how he thanked his father in the BTS Begins concert.

They all worked crazy hard, it's so impressive.

The video where, 6 months after debut, the boys read out letters to ARMY is one of my favourites early videos but it makes me bawl every time. Nearly all the members, including Jimin, cried as they read their letters. At 4:15, Jimin tears up as he talks about working extremely hard and sometimes wanting to quit. All of them say very touching things, actually, I recommend the whole video.

He had this special crazy laugh which is absolutely adorable

We know how sweet and charming his smile usually is. But! He's got this crooked laugh which I really really love! We see the younger Jimin indulging in this cute, crooked laugh far more often than our older boy does — see this Bangtan Bomb at minutes 00:52.

His interaction with fans have always been cute and fun

There are loads of random interactions with fans floating around on the net, here's a random, sweet moment from a fanmeeting.

His dancing, period.

Like the comments on this video says, Jimin was throwing it back (at 00:43) way before tiktok discovered this move. But if we talk seriously about his dance, a lot of the stuff which young Jimin did in the beginning years made BTS as a group 'stand out'. Their early choreos were stunt-heavy, and Jimin, JK and Jhope usually were the ones who executed these stunts. For example, I remember how their debut performance of No More Dream was introduced as the "dance with the levitating trick", which obviously refers to the kicking-the-line dance break which Jimin and Jungkook performed.

I'd like to end with this iconic video of older Jimin talking very kindly about his younger self, where he says that he could see how aspirational he used to be. He says, " I was impressed and moved by you. I could feel how hard you were trying. I mean…your eyes looked very eager to show something." Jimin has always shown a lot of self awareness, but has never shied away from talking about the difficulties he had faced in his growing years, and yet, even as he grew more comfortable and natural with his self-image, has never stopped consciously trying to improve himself.

So this is just a small note of gratitude from a rather new ARMY to Jimin, for giving us 8 years of joy and inspiration through his words, actions, music and dance.

Love you so much, and thank you!