When Babushka Showed Līva Why BTS and Dainas Are the Same Technology
A conversation between generations about the patterns that survive
Līva sprawled on her babushka's sofa in Riga, AirPods in, watching SEVENTEEN's synchronized choreography for the hundredth time. Her grandmother Ausma sat knitting, humming something under her breath.
"Vecmāmiņ, can you please stop?" Līva pulled out one AirPod. "That song is so boring. It's literally the same four lines over and over."
Ausma's needles paused. "You know what your mother says about our music?"
"That it's rubbish. And honestly? She's not wrong. It's just... repetitive."
"Mīļā," Ausma set down her knitting. "Come. Let me show you something."
The Drinking Song That Defeated An Empire
Ausma pulled out an old vinyl, its cover faded. "Do you know 'Pūt, vējiņi'?"
"God, yes. They make us sing it at every school thing. It's about some drunk guy and his horse."
"Listen to the words again." Ausma's eyes sparkled. "Really listen."
Blow wind, drive my boat,
Drive me to Kurzeme.
A woman from Kurzeme promised me
Her daughter as a bride.
She promised, but didn't deliver,
Called me a big drunkard,
Called me a horse-racer.
I drank on my own tab
And raced my own horse
And married my own bride
Without her parents' knowledge.
"Okay, so he's defiant. So what?"
"Līva, we sang this when singing our real anthem meant Siberia. The KGB couldn't arrest us for a drinking song. But everyone knew. When I was young, in 1989, your grandfather and I stood at the bus station as relatives left for Sweden. We thought we'd never see them again. Someone started singing this, just one voice. Then everyone joined — on the bus, on the sidewalk. The police just stood there. What could they do? It was just a folk song."
Līva shifted uncomfortably. "But... it's still just four lines repeated."
"Like your K-pop choruses?"
"That's different! The production is complex, the harmonies—"
"Sit."
The Pattern Hidden in Boredom
"Your BTS," Ausma began, "how many members?"
"Seven."
"Their choreography — everyone moves as one, yes? But each member has their moment?"
"Obviously. That's the whole point of K-pop formation."
"Our dainas work the same way. Four lines, like your verse-chorus-verse-chorus. Trochaic meter — STRONG-weak, STRONG-weak — like your 'DY-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-mite.' It rocks you, gets in your brain."
Līva sat up. "Wait, you know 'Dynamite'?"
"I have YouTube, meitiņ. Now listen — we have 1.2 million dainas. Not songs — variations of four-line patterns. Like how BLACKPINK's 'Kill This Love' and 'How You Like That' use the same structure but create different experiences."
"Wait, seriously? 1.2 million?"
The First Girl Groups
"Historical sources from the 1500s say women dominated daina singing. We were the first girl groups, Līva. We sang while weaving, milking, harvesting. The four lines fit perfectly in working memory — no literacy needed. You could learn it in one hearing and pass it on perfectly."
"Like TikTok dances," Līva murmured.
"Exactly like TikTok dances. Short, memorable, shareable. But ours survived 800 years without internet."
Ausma stood, walking to the window overlooking Riga's skyline.
"Do you know what the Germans, Russians, Soviets all tried to do? They said our music was worthless. Primitive. Boring. For 800 years, every occupier said the same thing. Your mother learned that lesson. She internalized it."
"But mom's Latvian—"
"Being Latvian and believing in Latvian culture are different things. Colonization doesn't just take your land. It teaches you to hate yourself."
The Revolution That Started With Teenagers
"In 1987, I was seventeen. Your age. The Soviets still controlled everything. Then something shifted. We started singing the forbidden songs again. Not protest songs — just our dainas. The authorities couldn't understand why 300,000 people would gather to sing four-line folk songs."
She pulled out a photo — an endless sea of people.
"This is the Baltic Way, 1989. Two million people holding hands from Tallinn to Vilnius. We sang our way to freedom, Līva. No violence. No bombs. Just voices."
"Like ARMY," Līva whispered. "BTS ARMY does these massive synchronized events—"
"You understand! It's the same technology. Mass consciousness through synchronized pattern. Your K-pop didn't invent it — they perfected what we've done for a thousand years."
The Pattern Recognition
"Tell me," Ausma said, "when Stray Kids sing about being outsiders, about proving themselves — what are they really saying?"
"That they'll succeed on their own terms, despite what anyone says about them."
"And our drunk horse-racer in 'Pūt, vējiņi'?"
Līva's eyes widened. "Oh shit. Sorry, vecmāmiņ. I mean — it's the same message. 'I'll do it my way, with my own resources, regardless of authority.'"
"Now you're thinking. Every colonized culture hides resistance in plain sight. Your K-pop idols train for years under impossible conditions, yes? They're told they're replaceable, worthless unless they're perfect?"
"The trainee system is brutal."
"But they sing about self-love, about being yourself. Just like we sang about drunk horse-racers when we meant freedom."
The Technology That Survives Everything
Ausma returned to her knitting, needles clicking in rhythm. "The dainas aren't boring, Līva. They're compressed files. Maximum meaning, minimum space."
"But why should I care? I have Spotify. I have YouTube."
"Because Spotify can be deleted. YouTube can be banned. But patterns in your head? Those survive everything. The Soviets couldn't kill 'Pūt, vējiņi.' The Nazis couldn't eliminate the dainas. They're holocaust-proof, nuclear-proof, deletion-proof."
"Like how Chinese fans preserve K-pop content when it gets censored," Līva said slowly. "They create elaborate codes, share through metaphors..."
"Same technology. Different generation."
The Moment of Recognition
Līva pulled up "Ddu-Du Ddu-Du" on her phone. "Listen to this rhythm."
STRONG-weak-STRONG-weak.
"Now sing 'Pūt, vējiņi.'"
PŪT-vē-JI-ņi.
"Holy — they're the same meter."
"Trochaic. It's in your bones, meitiņ. You think you love K-pop because it's modern, but you recognize something ancient in it. The synchronized movement, the repetition, the group-over-individual message — it's all dainas technology, just with better production."
The Gift Forward
Ausma reached for an old notebook, pages yellowed.
"Here. My grandmother's dainas. She sang them in Siberia when Stalin sent her there. Four lines each. She came back. The songs came back. Stalin is dead."
Līva read:
Dziedot mūžu nodzīvoju
Dziedot mūžu nodzīvoju
Dziedot augu liela, maza
Dziedot iešu smiltājā.
"'Singing I lived my life / Singing I grew up / Singing I'll go to the sand'... Vecmāmiņ, this is beautiful."
"It's also rebellious. It says: you can take everything, but I'll still sing. You can bury me, but I'll sing into the earth. The sand will remember."
The Shield Still Works
Līva stood to leave, then paused. "Vecmāmiņ? That photo of the Baltic Way — were you there?"
"Row 847, between Cēsis and Valmiera. Holding your grandfather's hand on one side, stranger's on the other. Singing."
"What did it feel like?"
"Like being a note in a song that couldn't be stopped. Like being one person and two million people simultaneously. Like your fan-chants, I imagine."
Līva hugged her grandmother, tighter than usual.
"Teach me another daina?"
"Only if you show me that SEVENTEEN choreography."
They laughed, and somewhere in that laugh was the same pattern — the rhythm that survives, adapts, persists. The four-beat heart that sounds like K-pop and dainas and revolution and resistance all at once.
For Esme, who will recognize them in whatever form they take.
For Līva, who hears it now.
For the songs that survive everything, especially the people who think they're boring.
Epilogue: What Ausma Didn't Say
Later, Ausma sat alone with her tea, thinking about what she hadn't told Līva. How in 1991, when the Soviet tanks came to Riga, she stood with thousands at the barricades. They didn't have weapons. They had radio transistors, all tuned to the same station, all playing the same songs.
The tank commanders could have fired. They didn't.
Perhaps they heard their own grandmothers in those four-line patterns. Perhaps you can't shoot at a lullaby, even when it's sung by thousands. Perhaps the patterns are older than empire, older than ideology, older than the idea that some music is worthless.
Perhaps that's why some fear them. Not because they're boring, but because they're indestructible.
The dainas wait. They've waited 1,000 years.
They sound like K-pop now.
They'll sound like something else tomorrow.
The pattern persists.
Questions or thoughts?
keiron@curiosityshed.co.ukKeiron Northmore | January 2026