Jin, "third from the left": how the internet accidentally discovered Worldwide Handsome

When BTS showed up at the Billboard Music Awards for the first time in 2017, they were still, for a large part of the American audience, that Korean group everyone had suddenly started talking about. ARMY, of course, knew exactly who was who. The rest of the internet had a simpler question: who's that third guy from the left?

BTS won Top Social Artist that night, ending Justin Bieber's years-long streak in the category, but photos of the seven on the magenta carpet started drawing attention for a completely different reason too. Tweets started popping up from people trying to identify the member standing third from the left in the group photos. It was Jin, and "third one from the left" very quickly became a new way part of the internet got to know him.

For ARMY, the situation was even funnier because something similar had already happened before. In 2015, Jin drew attention at the Melon Music Awards simply by getting out of a car. Photos and clips started circulating around the Korean internet, people asked who that BTS member was, and Jin earned the nickname "Car Door Guy." He hadn't done anything particularly spectacular. A car door opened, Jin stepped out, and the internet decided that was reason enough to investigate.

Billboard 2017 just moved the same phenomenon onto a much bigger, international stage. And Jin very quickly found a way to turn it into a joke of his own. During his American appearances, he started using a phrase that would follow him for years: "Worldwide Handsome." Instead of acting awkward about the compliments, he embraced them with completely over-the-top confidence, introduced himself as Worldwide Handsome, blew kisses at cameras, and regularly got the other members to react with a mix of laughter and despair.

Over time, it became almost expected that Jin would find a way to work his nickname into an interview. One of the most famous moments happened during BTS's appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, when a compliment about his looks got an instant response: "Yeah, I'm worldwide handsome." To anyone seeing BTS for the first time, it might have sounded like an unbelievable amount of confidence. To anyone who already knew Jin, it was clear that was exactly the joke.

Because Jin later explained himself that "Worldwide Handsome" shouldn't be taken all that seriously. He's said he says things like that to make people laugh, and that of course he thinks plenty of people are better-looking than him. That contrast is exactly what makes the bit work: he can declare himself the most handsome man in the world in one sentence, while making it completely clear he's mostly just having fun with it.

"Third One from the Left" didn't stay the only sequel to the story that started with Car Door Guy, either. Over the years, Jin has picked up new viral nicknames tied to various appearances, from award shows to interviews, and what they had in common was that they were often coined by people who didn't know his name but wanted to find out who he was.

Maybe that's exactly why Worldwide Handsome ended up being the perfect answer to all of them. If the internet was going to keep rediscovering him every few years as "that handsome guy from BTS," Jin simply skipped the whole process and introduced himself in advance.

First he was Car Door Guy, then Third One from the Left, and then he settled the matter once and for all: Worldwide Handsome.