BTS continues their criticism of societal pressures placed on millennials in Korea through their 4th Mini Album The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Pt. 2. The most notable track carrying social criticism is their song “Bapsae” in Korean, also known as “Silver Spoon” in English.
The title of the song shows the duality of the track’s meaning. “Baepsae” is the Korean word for “crow-tit”, a small bird with short legs while the English title “Silver Spoon” refers to the collectively known phrase to describe people born into wealth “with a silver spoon in their mouth”. The spoon theory causes the youth to classify themselves as having either a gold, silver, or dirt spoon; The gold spoon representing the very rich, sliver spoon for the middle class, and dirt spoon for the low-income class (Korean Economic Institute of America, 2015). In the song “Baepsae” BTS is singing from the lens of the middle class youth with silver spoons.
The lyrics of “Baepsae” is a song based on the Korean proverb about a crow-tit:
“뱁새가 황새 걸음을 걸으면 가랑이 찢어진다”
Which translates to:
“When crow-tit walks like stork, its crotch will tear.”
The proverb is cautioning people to know your place and acting the part you are given. BTS relates this to the current youth attempting to be a stork in a society where crow-tits have no chance to meet the standards of storks by mocking the expectation the older generation (storks) have for the youth (crow-tits) through their song.
The high unemployment rate is one of the biggest challenges for people in their early twenties. The unemployment rate for youth age 20-29 in South Korea was at 9.2% when 69% of Korean millennials have college degrees (Korean Economic Institute of America, 2015). This creates a highly competitive job market with a large supply of educated, over-qualified youth.
In addition, only 1% of young people living in Seoul, living on their own during 2014 (Chong, 2016). The housing crisis in Seoul, has the majority of graduated student living with their parents.
As a result the Korean media created a term called the ‘N-po’ generation. N-po’ meaning that Korean youth have to give up ‘n’ amount of things. For example: love, marriage, childbirth, human relations, home ownership, personal dreams, and hope (Korean Economic Institute of America, 2015).
Crow-tit and Stork for comparison