In recent days, information about BTS enlistment has always been the center of attention. Because this is being discussed by the National Assembly and there will be results soon. But it seems that BTS's military service exemption will be difficult to be passed when Military Manpower Administration thinks that BTS's achievements are not enough to get this privilege.
The BTS's exemption of mandatory military service appeared from the huge success of 'Dynamite' in 2020, making BTS the first Korean artist to hit #1 on the Billboard HOT 100 in the US. After that, legislators passed an amendment and allowed some male K-pop idols like BTS to postpone mandatory military service until the age of 30. BTS has used this law.
Next, the legislators submitted the military service exemption bill for K-pop groups with great influence on the nation's status. This, as Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hwang Hee said at a press conference earlier this May is: It’s time to create a system for incorporating popular culture-art figures as art personnel,".
The Minister is among those that have pushed for a new law through Parliament that would allow K-pop stars to serve their country in ways other than enlisting in the military. Besides the Minister, recently in an official cabinet meeting, Sung Il-Jong, the politician who submitted the exemption bill also gave many proofs to support the bill for BTS to be passed.
He presented that BTS has received two major pop awards on the international music scene, namely AMAs and Billboard. The awards have been won in the biggest music market and thus give prestige to their country, and thus this is something to consider to exempt BTS from military service.
However, not everyone in the government of the country agreed with his way of thinking. Typically, Kim Yong-Moo, who represents the Army Manpower Administration, opposed this argument.
He stated that such awards cannot be used as an excuse for an exemption. The reason was that such awards are not awarded based on specific judging criteria but by fan votes or in some cases album sales.
So for him, there was a big difference between those awards and those considered and used for military service exemption today. The official position of the soldiers is that BTS's award is not great enough for them to be exempted from enlistment.
With the important power of Kim Young Moo, it seems that exempting BTS from military service might be not possible. Representatives from the Military Manpower Administration had considerable influence over the consideration of this matter.
And even if the bill does pass and become law, if the military disagrees, there could be consequences in other ways. For example, they can easily deny the party in question any entry to Korea. This is because the officials of the Military Manpower Administration have a lot of influence when it comes to issuing visas.
On the public side, some people also pointed out the difficult reasons for BTS to be exempted from compulsory military service. One reason is that considering the global impact, many others would justifiably claim an exemption.
Specifically, they give the example of families that own large corporations like Samsung. Samsung is one of the largest companies in the world, and it can be said that the people who run it have had a global influence and helped elevate the nation's status.
In addition, some netizens believe that the awards given as a reason for exemption from military service are just awards and rankings made by a private unit abroad. They felt that overseas popularity could not be the criterion for exemption.
Although BTS has won amazing awards that no other K-pop group has achieved, the disadvantage of not having a clear standard for K-pop idols' exemption has made it very difficult. . We still have to wait a little longer for the results!
