Korean Boyband BTS Launch Twitter’s First Ever K-Pop Emoji

BTS, the seven-member boyband that have attracted great popularity in their homeland of South Korea, have become the first K-pop act to get their own emoji on Twitter. However, it looks like the emoji has triggered some confusion on the social media site…

To bring up the new emoji, which shows a black bulletproof vest with the initials BTS, you simply need to include the hashtags #BTS and #방탄소년단 in a tweet. The emoji will be available to use on Twitter for about a month – after which time, the top five countries that have most commonly used the emoji will get a special “thank you” video from the band the Korean name of which translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts”.

However, it looks like the band could do with a bit more publicity in the West. Both singer Justin Timberlake and actress Kate Beckinsale have included the #BTS hashtag – and, therefore, the special emoji – in tweets in which they are seen preparing themselves out of the spotlight. Could they have mistakenly thought that the acronym stood for “behind the scenes”?