G-Dragon’s most outrageous birthday gifts: BTS’ Army has nothing on this K-pop idol’s fans, who once decorated an entire Beijing building and even planted forests in his honour …

Aug 17 , 2021

G-Dragon’s fans sure know how to celebrate the K-pop idol’s birthday. Photo: YG Entertainment

Fans of BTS members Jungkook and Jimin took out advertisements and composed songs for the boys’ birthdays, while IU’s supporters made donations to good causes

Not to be outdone, the Big Bang leader’s fan clubs put him on the front page of Sports Seoul newspaper and grew him a forest on Jeju Island

Nobody shows love to their idols quite like K-pop fans. They splash their appreciation on ads, shower their favourite artists with gifts, and get songs charting just because they can … So when an idol has a birthday, you can bet the celebrations will be big.

For BTS member Jimin’s birthday last year, the band’s official fan club – Army – in Indonesia honoured the occasion by raising funds to plant and maintain mangroves in his name. In Vietnam, fans even composed a song just for him.

As G-Dragon – OG hip-hop star, leader of Big Bang and long-rumoured romantic partner of Blackpink’s Jennie – turns 33 on August 18, let’s take a look back at the most outrageous birthday gifts and celebrations his fans have planned for him over the years.

The “G-Dragon building” in Beijing

G-Dragon once had a building covered in his honour. Photo: @MGBB88/Twitter

Jimin’s Chinese fan base, Park Jimin Bar, placed an ad in the world’s biggest mall in Dubai for his birthday last year. But G-Dragon’s Chinese fans actually did one better four years prior: they turned a building in Beijing into a “G-Dragon building” for the week leading up to his birthday, by posting huge photos and birthday messages all around the structure, as well as hosting an exhibition.

A building in Beijing was filled with G-Dragon’s photos and birthday messages to celebrate his birthday in 2016. Photo: @LRUNFREE/Weibo

Pressna reported that, as his birthday is August 18, there were 818 different photos and messages from fans filling the building. Meanwhile, its exterior was emblazoned with a huge screen featuring a birthday celebration video – which was played at midnight on August 18, of course.

The front page of Sports Seoul newspaper

You might usually expect the front page of a newspaper to be dedicated to breaking news, but in 2016, Chinese fan club G-One decided that their idol deserved to grace the cover instead. And they didn’t just put him on any newspaper, but bought a cover ad for Sports Seoul, one of the most popular newspapers in South Korea. The group posted photos of the project on their Twitter account.

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