During World War II, women in territories that were occupied by Japan, including South Korea, were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army, and many South Koreans today feel that Japan has not done enough in terms of an apology or compensation.
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In 2015, BTS member V (real name Kim Tae-hyung) tweeted out a picture of himself wearing a Marymond jumper emblazoned with the words “I Marymond You”.
Marymond is a South Korean brand dedicated to supporting the cause of former Korean comfort women, with products designed to represent their stories, and a portion of the profits go to the women.
V also tweeted a picture of himself and band leader RM (real name Kim Nam-joon) with a floral Marymond phone case on display. And their fellow member Jin (real name Kim Seok-jin) was spotted wearing a white Marymond shirt during one of the group’s VLive broadcasts.
Some Japanese expressed outrage, but BTS’ formidable Japanese ARMY fan base remained supportive throughout.
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2. Their views on the LGBTIQ+ community
South Korea’s views on the LGBTIQ+ community tend to be conservative – gay TV personality and restaurateur Hong Seok-cheon caused a lot of controversy when he came out in 2000.
While BTS hasn’t lent their official support to the community, RM and fellow band member Jungkook have covered openly gay singer Troye Sivan’s 2015 hit Fools. RM also received a lot of praise from international fans after he tweeted Sivan’s Strawberries and Cigarettes track from the 2018 coming-of-age film Love, Simon, about a gay teenager who falls in love, as one of his #RMusic recommendations.
In 2013, RM also tweeted about his love of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s Same Love – a 2012 hip-hop tune that has become an unofficial anthem for same sex marriage – stating that after understanding the lyrics, he loved the song even more.
In a later interview with Billboard in 2018, the tweet was mentioned and RM said, “It’s hard to find the right words. To reverse the words: Saying ‘same love’ is saying ‘love is the same.’ I just really liked that song. That’s about all I have to say.”
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Fellow rapper Suga (real name Min Yoon-gi) followed up by saying, “There’s nothing wrong. Everyone is equal.”
No stranger to speculation, Suga caused a stir among fans when he shared his views on his “ideal type” in a 2013 interview with Oricon Buzz (which was later highlighted by popular international K-entertainment blog Seoulbeats).
BTS was in the midst of promoting the Japanese album Danger, and the interviewer asked Suga what he notices first when he looks at girls.
He answered, “I focus on personality and atmosphere. I don’t have an ideal type and it’s not limited to a girl.”
Fans debated over potential mistranslation, as the words were translated from Korean to Japanese and then to English. The band has not commented on the subject since.
Suga’s lyrics in Cypher Part. 3 have also been highly scrutinised by fans – in it Suga boasts that his voice turns people on, regardless of their gender, and that his “flexible tongue movements” would “send them to Hong Kong”. In Korean slang, to “send or take someone to Hong Kong” alludes to sexual pleasure.
3. Their lyrics
While BTS’s lyrics are known for raising awareness about various social issues, they rarely take on political issues as directly as the track Am I Wrong from the 2016 album Wings.
Suga raps, “We're all dogs and pigs/ we become dogs because we're angry.”
The words, whose meaning may be lost on those outside South Korea, reference an incident many South Koreans felt strongly about.
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Prior to the release of Wings, a South Korean education ministry official, Na Hyang-wook, reportedly told journalists the country should put in place a class system that would classify 99 per cent of the population as dogs and pigs, and that they should be treated as such. Na later claimed he was drunk when making the statement, but the damage had already been done.
Another jab at the then-administration was the use of the words “mayday, mayday” in the lyrics of the track, referencing the tragic 2014 Sewol ferry incident, where 300 people died.
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