BTS (band)
BTS (Korean: 방탄소년단; RR: Bangtan Sonyeondan), also known as the Bangtan Boys, and since 2017 also represented as Beyond The Scene, is a seven-member South Korean Boy Band debuted in Seoul in 2013. The septet co-writes and produces much of their output. Initially rooted in Hip Hop, the group’s musical style has evolved to include a wide range of genres. Their lyrics, often focused on personal and social commentary, touch on the themes of mental health, troubles of school-age youth, loss, the journey towards loving oneself, and individualism. Their work features references to literature and psychological concepts and includes an alternative universe storyline. Popular for their live performances, the group has staged several world tours.
They are often perceived as a major 'Korean Wave' act which has helped Korean music and culture have more influence in the West.
In 2020, their album MAP OF THE SOUL: 7 has sold more than 4 million copies in South Korea: the highest-selling album ever there. In total, their albums sold more than 17 million copies. Time Magazine named them Entertainer of the Year for 2020.
As of mid 2022, they announced a temporary suspension of their group activities, to focus in solo projects and side pursuits, and also do their obligatory military service.
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Members:
- Kim Namjoon (RM -formerly Rap Monster-, born September 12, 1994)
- Kim Seokjin (Jin, born December 4, 1992)
- Min Yoongi (Suga, born March 9, 1993)
- Jung Hoseok (J-Hope, born February 18, 1994)
- Park Jimin (Jimin, born October 13, 1995)
- Kim Taehyung (V, born December 30, 1995)
- Jeon Jungkook (Jungkook, born September 1, 1997)
Discography:
Studio albums in Korean
- Dark & Wild (2014)
- Wings (2016) and its repackaged extended version You Never Walk Alone (2017)
- Love Yourself: 轉 Tear (2018)
- Map of the Soul: 7 (2020)
- Be (2020)
Studio albums in Japanese
- Wake Up (2014)
- Youth (2016)
- Face Yourself (2018)
- Map of the Soul: 7 ~ The Journey ~ (2020)
Other releases
- 2 Cool 4 Skool (2013, EP, debut album)
- O!RUL8,2 (2013)
- Skool Luv Affair (2014) and its Updated Rerelease Skool Luv Affair: Special Addition
- The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Part 1 (2015)
- The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Part 2 (2015)
- Love Yourself: 承 Her (2017)
- Love Yourself: 結 Answer (2018)
- MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA (2019)
- BTS World: Original Soundtrack (2019)
- Dynamite (2020, single, their first song fully in English that isn't a collaboration with other artist)
- Butter / Permission to Dance (2021, their second full-English single and its B-side)
- Proof (2022, anthology)
Individual members' releases
- RM
- RM (2015, mixtape)
- mono (2018, playlist)
- Indigo (2022, album)
- Suga (as Agust D)
- Agust D (2016, mixtape)
- D-2 (2020, mixtape)
- D-Day (2023, album)
- J-Hope
- Hope World (2018, mixtape)
- Chicken Noodle Soup (2019, single)
- Jack In The Box (2022, album)
- On the Street (2023, single)
- Hope On The Street Vol. 1 (2024, album)
- Jin
- The Astronaut (2022, single)
- Jimin
- FACE (2023, album)
- Jungkook
- Seven (2023, single)
- 3D (2023, single)
- Golden (2023, album)
- V
- Layo(v)er (2023, album)
- Fri(end)s (2024, single)
- Before their grupal hiatus the members had released individual original songs on the side; all of them are available in their Soundcloud account and their YouTube channel.
Other Media Aparitions
Multimedia projects
- The BU / BTS Universe (also called the "Bangtan Universe" or "HYYH Universe" until the current name was revealed in 2017), an alternate universe that has been unveiled through several video clips and short films, a couple of novels (The Most Beautiful Moment In Life: The Notes 1 and 2), notes included in their albums booklets (most of them compiled in the before-mentioned books), a webcomic (Save Me) and a mobile game (BTS Universe Story); a drama based on this storyline (not starring the band members) was announced in mid 2020 for a late 2021 release but postponed until 2024 to be released in digital platform Xclusive. The plot, told in non-linear fashion and with a great amount of symbolism, depicts the group members in an Alternate Reality as a group of friends with dysfunctional lives, who had to confront their traumas and anxieties to get to the future. A great generator of Epileptic Trees within the fandom, and even when the webcomic and the novels clarified some things about the plot by telling what's going on (a Groundhog Day Loop to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, it turns out), it still left more questions than answers. While most of the material uses the real names of the band members for the characters, it was announced that their drama incarnations will have different names (namely, the same set used for 7Fates: CHAKHO).
- The BT21 project, a collaboration with the messaging service LINE where the group created cutesy animal and pastry-based characters inspired on themselves to be used as stickers for said messaging service. It has generated a great amount of derivative merchandise, including plushies, clothes, makeup and skincare products, snacks, at least three mobile games, a special menu in a Korean cafe, and even an animated web-series in YouTube starring the characters, BT21 Universe.
- Learn Korean With BTS, an Edutainment Show intended to teach fans basic Korean, released in the app Weverse in 2020. An accompanying package with books and other learning aids to complement the videos has been released. A second edutainment series with the respective package, Bon BORAge!, this time using the story of a fan traveling to Korea to visit several BTS-related landmarks as a means to teach basic Korean, was released between 2020 and 2021. A third series and package, Learn Korean with TinyTAN was launched in 2021.
- The Tiny Tan project, a Super-Deformed and Fun Size animated rendition of the band, who was first introduced in the advisory videos previous to online performances and DVD releases, and whose looks are based on the outfits the band members wore in the MV for "MIC Drop" (they also had artwork of them based in the looks from other MVs). Mostly Merchandise-Driven, and invoking Rule of Cute at its most shameless. They star in the third Korean-learning package, Learn KOREAN with TinyTAN.
- 7Fates: CHAKHO (also known as 7Fates: CHAKHO with BTS or 7Fates: CHAKHO by HYBE), an original story released simultaneously in several languages as a webcomic in Line Webtoon and as a paid web novel in Wattpad since January 16, 2022. Inspired by the legends of the Chakhogapsa, the Korean tiger hunters during the Jeon dynasty, the story is about seven young men in a futuristic city who form a squadron to hunt the Beom, a species of tiger-like monsters that are invading the city. The first non-mascot project where the characters have actual names instead of going for The Danza.
TV Series and Variety Shows
- Rookie King: Channel Bangtan: a skit-based 2013 variety show.
- American Hustle Life: a 2014 reality show where the members were brought to Los Angeles to know the West Coast rap culture.
- BTS Gayo, a "behind the scenes" showing the members doing promotional activities related to KPop, stream on the online service V Live between 2015 and 2017.
- Run BTS! a variety show streamed in the online service V Live since 2015 (and in Weverse since 2019), where the members of the group do outrageous dares or play games among themselves for small prizes or punishments. A selection of 8 episodes was shown on network TV in 2018. Old episodes were moved to YouTube after the closing of VLive in 2022.
- Burn the Stage, a 2018 8-episode YouTube exclusive series documenting their 2017 promotional tour "The Wings Tour".
- BTS: Bon Voyage, a Travelogue Show, portraying the members of the band during their vacations, which has run since 2016. The first three seasons stream in V Live, and from the fourth onwards stream on the online app Weverse.
- Bring the Soul: the Docu-series: An extended, chaptered version of their documentary Bring the Soul, released in Weverse in 2019.
- Break the Silence: Docu-Series: a documentary on BTS' Love Yourself and Speak Yourself tours, released in Weverse in mid 2020.
- In The SOOP BTS Ver., a 2020 reality show where the band spent a short vacation in a luxury camping site. Aired in both TV network JTBC and online app Weverse. A second season, In The SOOP 2, where the members spent a week in a specially remodeled mansion, was aired in 2021.
- BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star, a retrospective documentary in eight parts, premiered in Disney+ in December 2023
- Hope on the Street a docuseries centered on J-Hope's dance career and influences, premiered in Amazon Prime on March 2024
Filmography
- Burn the Stage: The Movie : a compiled, compressed version of the YouTube documentary.
- Love Yourself in Seoul: a concert film depicting their August 26, 2018 show of the band's Love Yourself Tour at Seoul Olympic Stadium.
- Bring the Soul: The Movie: a 2019 documentary that intercalates footage from their 2018 "Love Yourself" tour with a rooftop conversation between the members filmed at the end of the European Leg of said tour.
- Break the Silence: The Movie: a film adaptation of the Weverse docu-series, released in some markets in 2020.
- Yet To Come At Cinemas: a concert film depicting their October 15, 2022 concert Yet To Come In Busan, released worldwide between February 1 to 5 2023.
- Two documentaries about j-hope and Suga solo albums, J-Hope in the Box and Suga: Road to D-Day, were released in Weverse and Disney+ in 2023, with a limited theatre release.
Videogames
- SUPERSTAR BTS: a Rhythm Game for mobile phones released in 2018, featuring songs from their entire discography. Ended its service in 2020 and was substituted with RHYTHM HIVE, a similar game that featured songs by BTS and five other groups managed by HYBE, BTS's agency/company.
- BTS World, a mobile game that ran from June 2019 to December 2023. It was an Episodic Visual Novel/Gacha Game where the player took the role of the group manager and has to go through several journeys with the group members from their pre-debut era to the current day. It had an unlockable "Another Story" mode, that followed a scenario about What If...? each member didn't get into the music industry and instead got more mundane professions. Notorious for having released a full soundtrack (with collaborations with artists Charlie CXC, Juice WRLD and Zara Larsson) and a MV for the main theme "Heartbeat".
- BTS Universe Story, a mobile game mostly based on their BU verse, active from September 2020 to September 2023. It was a Visual Novel-esque game with both a main story mode and a story-creation system that let players create and share their own stories as well as play those made by others.
- BTS Island: In the SEOM, a mobile game that mixes character management and decoration with match-3 puzzle gameplay, released in late June 2022. The plot revolves around the group accidentally getting stranded on an island and attempting to get back to civilization.
- BT21 have several games and apps, but the most notable ones are PUZZLE STAR BT21 and BT21 POP STAR, both puzzle game for mobiles that are the most promoted.
Webcomics
- We On: Be The Shield, a 2015 webtoon who portrays the band as a group of super-powered heroes having shounenesque adventures.
- Hip Hop Monster, a second webtoon, more comedic in tone, where the members of the group are Flanderized for laughs. Initially fan-translated, got a later official release on Line Webtoon.
- The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Pt.0: Save Me or just Save Me: a webtoon released on Line Webtoon between January and April 2019, as part of the BU universe. A more linear retelling of the early events of the 'verse or at least, the ones that happen in the real world. To date, the first webcomic with an official English release - the other two had fan translations before getting official ones.
- 7Fates: CHAKHO: the webcomic side of this sub-franchise. Released in early 2022 in Line Webtoon, ended in 2023 after 52 chapters.
BTS provides examples of the following tropes:
- Adorkable: their offstage personalities tend to be on the nerdy/dorky side.
- all lowercase letters:
- All the song titles in mono.
- Officially, "j-hope" is written with no caps. Most people prefer to write it J-Hope, however
- Archive Panic: Along with the above discography and the MV for their singles and comebacks, there are hundreds of hours on content from their social media, their stages, their shows, and all their side projects.
- Attractive Bent Gender:
- Suga has experienced this at least twice: once when in Rookie King he was forced to dress as a maid as a punishment and the other members were surprised at how convincingly he looked, and then again for an episode of Run! BTS where he had to take the role of an "exchange-student high school girl", where he looked so convincing that pics of him in the role generated interest on "her" on the Internet.
- Jin and Jungkook got also hit for this in Rookie King when both were forced to wear a sexy red dress and a fairy costume respectively, and both looked quite convincing as females judging for the reactions of the other members and people around.
- For one of their anniversary fanclub events, the group did a sketch titled "House of ARMY", where RM and J-Hope did the roles of a schoolgirl ARMY and her mother respectively. While the attractiveness of both men as girls can be debated, Mom!J-Hope was apparently so convincing that many fans didn't recognize him at first look, while others initially believed that an actual actress was hired for the role.
- Autobiographical Role : the main storyline of BTS World has them portraying a slightly fictionalized version of their career, with scenes all acted by themselves.
- Berserk Button: you better don't dare to interfere with Suga's precious sleep time. Interrupting his sleep only attracts painful retaliation.
- Bishonen: being a boy band, this is a given, with the possible exception of RM and J-Hope who are more "manly handsome" than "pretty boy".
- Boastful Rap: Being a group with roots in western rap, this is a given. Notorious are "We Are Bulletproof" pt. 1 and 2 (Typical "we are good at rapping" songs), their Cyphers (basically their showcases of skill, with their lines being all about their hard work and their increasing success) and "Mic Drop" (see Take That, Critics! below)
- From the mixtapes, the titular track of Agust D is a great example, with Suga boasting about his rapping skills (which he describes as "Sending listeners to Hong Kong[1]" with his "tongue technology") and claiming that the K-pop scene isn't enough to contain him.
- Call Back: extremely frequent in their career. Some examples:
- "I'm Fine" is both this and a sequel to the earlier "Save Me". They deal with opposite themes ("Save Me" is about a person hanging in a failing relationship to salvage their self-worth, "I'm Fine" is about a person that has found self-worth by themselves), the order of the rap-line is the opposite to the other song, and "I'm Fine" begins with the initial notes of "Save Me" before they fade to the actual melody
- Similarly, "Boy With Luv" towards "Boy in Luv", shows the evolution between the Hormone-Addled Teenager featured in "Boy in Luv" with the more mature and respectful view of love in "Boy with Luv".
- The video for "Persona" begins with a classroom suspiciously similar to the one used in the teaser for the "No More Dream" MV, features RM in outfits reminiscing to the ones used in the School Trilogy era, includes a scene of him surrounded by mirrors (the main motif of his character in the BU) that reminisces similar scenes en the videos for "Fake Love" and "Reflection", and even features a gigantic CGI version of himself similar to the ones that appear in "IDOL".
- The official MV for "ON" ends by calling back the title screen of their very first MV single "No More Dream", with the same typography and all. Except that, in "ON", the first two words dissolve, leaving only "Dream".
- The MV for "Yet to Come" is filled with references to all their career, and among the most visible includes the truck Jin drives in the BU, the abandoned carousel and the train from "Spring Day", the fallen angel statue from "Blood, Sweat, and Tears", and even ends with the band inside a school bus nearly identical to the one that appeared in the very first scene for "No More Dream".
- Cerebus Syndrome: The video clip for "I Need U", with its shocking plot and high angst content, marked a change of direction in the group career. Not that they stopped having silly or light MV and songs, but the video clips for its more serious songs became darker and filled with symbology, and their songs began to treat more serious themes. To an extent, the album from where the song came out also counts.
- Concept Video: "Spring Day", "N.O", all their Comeback video clips, among others. The BU is a whole continuity of these.
- The Danza: In the BU, the characters have the same real name as the group members - and to an extent, similar personality traits and interests. Partially averted in the TV drama, where the characters have different names, but the same family names as the correspondent member.
- Darker and Edgier:
- While they didn't precisely begin "light", most of their earlier output wasn't as dark as angsty as the MV for "I Need U", which informed a good part of their following career.
- As a general rule, in each multi-album era, the second album tends to be the darkest.
- J-Hope first album, Jack In The Box, is notoriously darker in sound and themes than his previous mixtape Hope World. Even the MVs and the stylism for the promotional singles are darker in color schemes and style.
- Dye Hard: The members of the band like to dye their hair quite often, from normal colors like blond or red, to more outrageous colors like green and pink. According to this chart (which was compiled until mid-2018), all members have had pink hair at some point, and RM and Suga are the ones with more hair color changes.
- Fan Community Nicknames: Their official fan club is named ARMY. Internal nicknames within the fan clubs involve the Korean side calling the international fans "i-lovelies"; they return the favor by calling the Korean fans "K-diamonds"
- The Fashionista: V, who loves all things Gucci and always wears something from the brand every time he's in public, and J-Hope, a self-admitted shopaholic.
- Fan Hater: BTS is really... there for a lot of people who listen to them. Not for their fangirls, the ARMY, however - for ARMY, BTS is a religion and a way of life. And so, it comes with all the expected elements of cringeworthy behaviour from fangirls - shipping, being obsessed with the idea of being dated by one of the band members, and attacking anyone else who even dares to even slightly criticize BTS (or tells that BTS isn't their cup of tea). It's telling that the BTS fandom has become the new stereotypical definition of the Loony Fan, outdoing even all the American boyband fandoms in the sheer level of cringeworthyness and utterly pathetic, mockable behaviour.
- Fun with Acronyms:
- The international name of the group is an initialism for "Bangtan Sonyeondan (which is given the official translation "Bulletproof Boyscouts"). They decided that since 2017 it would also mean "Beyond the Scene".
- The name of their fan club, ARMY, stands for "Adorable MCs Representatives of Youth"
- Note the titles of their documentaries: Burn the Stage, Bring the Soul, Break the Silence, Beyond The Star. They try to keep them on translations whenever possible.
- RM has stopped using his original stage name Rap Monster since 2015 and has claimed different meanings for the initials he currently uses (one of them being "Real Me").
- Growing the Beard: The era of The Most Beautiful Moment In Life albums is acknowledged as the moment BTS stepped up their game and grew out of their initial "bad boys" image and overwhelming rap sound, with their songs growing in quality, their sound becoming poppier while also venturing in other genres, their video clips actually getting a budget, the group refining their choreographies and stage presence, and the metaplot making its apparition.
- Guyliner: excessively prevalent during their early years.
- Hotter and Sexier: while the group isn't a stranger to sexy songs and performances, during most of their group career they were way more modest than other boy bands, avoiding showing large expanses of skin whenever possible; this was adopted after Jimin developed a serious body image dysmorphia disorder due to being forced to be the band's Mr. Fanservice during their early years. "Chapter 2" (a.k.a their solo era), however, had seen a lot of provocative photoshoots where the boys pose shirtless in obvious defiance to the perceived Contractual Purity, and, in the case of Jungkook, singing songs with sexually direct lyrics.
- I Have Many Names: Note that the members tend to use both their stage and their given names interchangeably and that some have extra stage names (Suga's solo output have been released under the stage name Agust D) and additional nicknames.
- Jack of All Trades:
- Jungkook, which has earned the nickname of "Golden Maknae" due to his ability to flawlessly sing, dance, rap, produce, and compose, among other talents.
- J-Hope, along with being one of the main dancers, also raps, sings vocals on his own verses, and has a producer/composer credit list almost as long as Suga and RM.
- Lighter and Softer:
- The 2019 track "Boy with Luv", with its soft sound, sweets lyrics, and downright fluffy MV where the featured artist, Hasley, is treated as just one more of the group, is this compared to 2014' "Boy in Luv", featuring macho-charged lyrics to a harsh sounding tune and a gritty MV taking place in an even more gritty school where the group members treat the girl character/love interest as an object and manhandle her.
- Love Yourself: Her is a subversion, as it was released after the quite heavy and philosophically charged WINGS. The album does begin with soft and sweet-sounding love songs, but when you pay attention to the lyrics you notice that each song features an increasing amount of obsession towards the love interest... and then mid-album the songs change the tone and become more introspective and dense.
- J-Hope mixtape, Hope World, when compared with the very introspective mixtapes by RM and the autobiographical Agust D by Suga.
- The first comeback trailer released for MOTS: 7 was "Shadow", interpreted by Suga, which was a song about the negative aspects of fame and whose MV was filled with oppressive imagery and dark colors. It was immediately followed by "Ego", interpreted by J-Hope, which was way much cheerful in sound, themes (it was equally introspective but in a more positive way), and imagery.
- Be, an album filled with songs with uplifting messages and deliberately created as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, after the celebratory but very introspective MOTS: 7.
- Money Song: "If I Ruled the World".
- Never Trust a Trailer: a rare musical version. Every MV release is usually preceded by a short teaser; however, the teaser usually presents fragments of the song or instrumental versions that rarely coincide with the actually released song. For example:
- The teasers for "I Need U" and "Blood, Sweat, Tears" use the mellow bridges of said songs, giving the impression that the songs were R&B ballads instead of the more bombastic rock-sounding and trap-leaning tracks they respectively are.
- The teaser for "Spring Day" uses an arrangement with chorus and organ that isn't used in the version of the song featured on the MV (said fragment was used in the "Brit Rock" remix of the song released on SoundCloud)
- The teaser for "IDOL" used an arrangement with more Korean instruments; the arrangements on the released song are based more on African instrumentation. The Korean-instrumented version has been performed on concerts and award shows.
- The Oner: The video for "Save Me" was filmed in one take. The video for "Dope" wasn't, but was edited to give the same impression.
- Pep Talk Song: since their stated mission is to give people a respite from their difficult lives with their songs, this is a given. Among their most notorious are "Not Today", "No More Dream", "21st Century Girl" and "A Supplementary Story: You Never Walk Alone".
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: due to their heavier hip-hop/rap leanings around their debut era, their initial image threaded towards a "gangsta" line. However, after 2014 and their boot camp in actual hip-hop culture for American Hustle, they dropped this image like a hot potato, with RM even publicly apologizing for his initial gaffes and putting it under Old Shame.
- Protest Song: "No More Dream" and "N.O" are protests against the Korean education system. "Baepsae", meanwhile, does so towards the Korean class system and their contradictory bouts of Tall Poppy Syndrome towards people who want to socially ascend and victim-blaming towards the ones who cannot do so. "Am I Wrong?" is a call out to the youth that doesn't care about the state of the world and disentangle them from politics, paradoxically helping bad politicians with their indifference. "Go Go" is one towards people who lives day-to-day because of YOLO-ing and overspending their money in pointless luxuries because they don't really see any reason to save money as things like mortgages for a home and having a family are even more above their paycheck.
- Rated "G" for Gangsta: Played with. Their styling and sound are notoriously softer than the ones they had around his debut era and early years (just compare the MV of "No More Dream" to the ones for "I Need U" or "DNA"), but the themes they tackle in their songs had become harder and more serious.
- Reality Subtext: Given the way the group tend to process their issues though their lyrics, it happens a lot. Some examples:
- The last album on their Love Yourself trilogy, the compilation Love Yourself: Answer, has its structure and most of its new songs modeled around a breakup. They later revealed that, at the time of production, the band members were seriously considering separating because their work rhythm got them exhausted.
- Similarly, some of the songs from the Map of the Soul albums onwards have themes of burnout and uncertainty, particularly noted in "Black Swan", the second single from MOTS: 7. When the band announced in 2022 that they were taking a group activities hiatus, they revealed that their original plan was to take it after the Map of the Soul tour, had the COVID-19 pandemic not hindered that plan.
- "Pied Piper" is a song to their fans where the band compares themselves to the fairytale character and has a message that can be summed as "we are grateful you love us, but don't you have other things to do too?". It was released in 2017, around the time they began to realize how big and fast their international fanbase was growing and how much influence they had on them.
- V's SoundCloud released song "Winter Bear" was a farewell to his deceased grandmother, who had raised him during a good chunk of his childhood and died while he was on tour.
- Suga has experienced depression, social anxiety to panic attack levels, many health issues[2], and despite his "cold and cocky" image he actually is very sensitive and mindful, so naturally that's what his "Agust D" albums are all about.
- Running Gag:
- During the WINGS era, they made a habit of one member displaying a paper heart from somewhere in their clothing, usually revealing it from some hidden place. This gag got to its end and logical extreme in their New Year stage for "Go Go" in MBC, with every member revealing a paper heart from increasingly more outrageous places.
- Jin, arguably the most Bishonen of the group, after becoming memetically known as "Third guy from the left" after his appearance on the magenta carpet for the 2017 Billboard Awards was noticed by global internet, was asked in an interview how he felt about it. He jokingly answered "I'm worldwide handsome" to that question. Since then, he always introduces himself as "Worldwide Handsome" in every interview and presentation to Western media.
- A lesser one, but Suga and pianos. It seems that if they can place the man near a piano or similar instrument they'll do it. His characters in both the BU and BTS World are piano players. On one occasion they did a photobook with a "villain" concept for each member and Suga's character was... a piano player here too.
- Shout-Out: Part of BTS's fame is that they use references to Western literature that aren't commonly seen in Asian pop, or pop in general.
- Their album "Wings" is full of references to the famous Hermann Hesse novel Demian. The short films used to promote the individual songs of the members all begin with a reading of select quotes from the novel, and feature imagery of Abraxas, the deity revered by Demian.
- Their video clip for "Spring Day" visibly features a hotel named Omelas, a reference to Ursula K. Le Guin's famous short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. The song and its video clip were rumored to have been created to memorialize the victims of the Sewol Ferry tragedy.
- "Blood, Sweat, Tears" quotes Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra and its video clip features, along with the Demian references above mentioned, the famous pictures The Lament for Icarus by Herbert James Draper, and Pieter Bruegel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, and The Fall of the Rebel Angels.
- The series of albums "Love Yourself" is said to be inspired by Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving. Their official Korean e-store even sold a special edition of the book.
- "Magic Shop" was titled and inspired by the memoir Into the Magic Shop by James R. Doty
- Their song "Anpanman" was inspired by and named after the titular Japanese character. The choreography they use for this song have the members doing famous poses from superheroes of Marvel and DC (and, of course, Anpanman's too).
- Their albums Map of the Soul: Persona and Map of the Soul:7 are named after Murray Stein's Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction. The songs used for the comeback trailers for these albums, "Intro: Persona", "Interlude: Shadow" and "Outro: Ego", have several references to Carl Jung's psychological concepts ("Persona" use more of the psychological terms, while the other songs are more descriptive of the concepts themselves).
- Their song "Attack on Bangtan" evidently references Attack on Titan. This one is especially obvious because the Japanese version of the song was titled "Shingeki no Boudan", after the manga's original Japanese title "Shingeki no Kyojin".
- Silly Love Songs: "Blanket Kick," "Miss Right," "Just One Day" and "Boy in Luv," among others.
- Singer Namedrop: present on "Rise of Bangtan/Attack on Bangtan", "Boys With Fun" "Not Today" and "Anpanman", among other songs.
- Singer-songwriter: everyone in the group, some way or another. Notably, the rap line has sung their own lines from day one.
- Spell My Name with an "S": For the translation of BTS World, they decided to use the traditional Hangul romanization for the names (i.e. Yunki, Jeoungguk), instead of the slightly modified romanizations they use in official BTS releases (Yoongi, Jungkook). And in BTS Universe works (like The Notes and the mobile game), their given names are often written in CamelCase or as separate particles instead of as a single world with normal capitalization.
- Stepford Smiler: The concept for the Love Yourself albums is that such a person decides to pursue a relationship by hiding his true self (pain, flaws, dreams) from the person they love, and how the relationship collapses when it becomes painfully obvious that the relationship was based on so many lies it became unsustainable.
- Surreal Music Video: "IDOL".
- Take That, Critics!: "DDaeng", "MIC Drop", and "IDOL" are directed to every person that told them they couldn't make it or that questioned their artistic integrity. The video clip for "IDOL" even includes visual cues on the members wearing or doing things they had been criticized for online.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: In the Save Me webcomic, all the boys have ordinary-ish hair colors... except Yoongi, who has pink hair. And judging from his flashbacks to his childhood, it's natural too.