The issue of mandatory military service is an extremely sensitive one in the country of South Korea. But the popular band BTS and its fandom ARMY were in some controversy recently where the Korean media apparently said that they were asking for the exemption of the members of the band from their military services.

As per the Korean law, there exists the Conscription in South Korea since 1957 that mandates all males between the ages of 18 to 35 to perform about 2 years of compulsory military service.

According to the law, when a boy turns 18 he is considered fit to enlist for the military but as per various sources can delay it till they are about 30. However, some recent reports did reveal that that was not possible anymore and that one would have to enlist whenever the country calls for them.

All in all, the issue of military is an extremely sensitive one and those who try to avoid it or try to get out of usually receive a lot of backlash along with heavy penalties. A South Korean pop columnist, Ha Jae-Keun even said that, “The mood against draft-dodgers and negligence of duty is so hostile that nowadays entertainers feel it’s better to get it over and done with.”

That is why this issue with BTS and their enlistment is so grave and something that can possibly affect their rising stardom in their own country.

How It All Started

In July, Ha Tae Kyung, a politician from the Bareun Mirae Party in South Korea called for a change in the military policy at the National Assembly Defense Committee.

He stated that,

“There are many requests asking military exemption for BTS, so I’ve taken a look at the list of national events giving military exemption and noticed there is an issue in the equality.” 

“You are given an exemption if you win #1 in violin, piano, and classical music competitions. However, you are not given an exemption for ranking No.1 on the Billboard chart.”

“Psy made a world record with YouTube views. The influence he had on the people around the world was tremendous. However, everything that is capable of giving dreams and inspiration to the younger generation has been omitted from the military exemption list.”

“You can find a winner of a ballet competition (on the list) but not a winner of b-boying competitions. There’s none for winners of e-sports competitions/gaming which dominate the world. There’s also none for film.” 

Kyung finished by saying that, “There needs to be a reform that suits the level of the younger generation.”

Although this issue did not get that much attention, the ripple had started and people were beginning to question whether BTS were asking for a military exemption or not.

But on September 3rd, in relation to another on-going issue with a baseball player Oh Ji Hwan, Kyung again brought up the social media by saying, “Why the top musical artist like BTS does not receive a military exemption? BTS is the reason behind the announcement to revise the military service exemption system from the Military Manpower Administration. The winner in the world’s classical music competition is exempted from military service, but the world leader of mass music like BTS cannot skip military obligation?”

However, things came to a head a few days back when in the JTBC newsroom this issue was discussed and it apparently led to the assumption that the BTS fandom was asking and even making a petition for their military exemption, when in reality that was not true at all.

As per a few translated tweets that talked about this issue, the problem here was that false and inaccurate information was being reported where it almost claimed that the military exemption was something that the fans were asking for.

The so-called petition only had about 20 people in it and that too anonymously which makes it difficult to confirm whether they even are real fans or not.

https://twitter.com/agirlinthepark/status/1037162517469061121

What more, this could be really bad for the members of the group and the fans too since the public could misunderstand this and get the wrong impression of the fandom and could affect the achievements of the group.

However, the fandom in response to this decided to mass-email several important people from various news channels including JTBC that asked for a correction and an apology for the false news reports.

The Korean side of the fandom decided to handle this situation on their own, since the topic is so sensitive and local that the international side cannot easily understand.

Read More: BTS RM And Sexist Lyrics Saga Shows A Problem With The Current Generation Of Not Forgiving No Matter What

Problem Resolved

The situation was resolved pretty quickly with JTBC coming out with a new report that the ARMY fandom had made their feelings on this matter clear and gave a solution to it all where they apparently said that if the band has to go to the military they should and that the fans will still be here waiting for them.

As per translations of the JTBC news report, they said that,

The ARMY of @BTS_twt who was in the middle of aimless controversy suggested a rather contrary and clarifying solution to this blatant disputation.

“If it’s a place where they have to go, they will go & all we gotta do is wait for them meanwhile.” #BTSxARMY

Even the politicians who were involved in this have cleared up the situation. Ha Tae Kyung stated that, “BTS fans never asked for military exemption…please put the blame on me.”

It was even reported by OSEN that, “The management agency, the members and even the fans have never expressed their wishes for BTS to be exempted from military service but the politicians want to set fire to this topic.”


Image Credits: Google Images

Sources: Wikipedia, OSEN


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2 COMMENTS

  1. it actually started like this:
    Tamar Herman, a writer from Billboard, wrote on her article that ARMYs, the fandom name of BTS, started a petition. it only had four (4) signs when her article was first published, it gained attention so it now has 20 signs. Also, those first three signs only signed to comment that they disagree with the petition. BTS has thousands of antis/haters, and it’s not new to us that there are impersonators (pretending to be ARMYs, fans) since last year. and the fact that she said that the petition was signed by the fans clearly knowing that it was anonymous is just off.

  2. This fake politician using BTS name for the sake of power and wants to influence the youth and also playing with their emotion .
    However it’s not the true fact about the military exemption if they were call for the country they have to go to serve the country first if there fans really love and admire them then being not as a member of BTS for a while will also not hamper there popularity. They will surely wait for the mind blowing comeback.

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