Famous Korean boy band BTS are making their Greek fans extra happy in their much-anticipated new album, Map of the Soul: Persona on 12 April, with the focus on Dionysus, the good of wine and revelry.
The BTS official site’s description reads: “He was one of the twelve Olympians, although he was the last to arrive, and his unusual birth and upbringing marked him as an outsider. This was an inherent part of his cult, which often focused on the more subversive elements of his nature. Dionysus was often called Eleutherios, meaning ‘the liberator,’ because his wine, music, and ecstatic dance freed his followers from self-consciousness and the restraints of society. Earlier images and descriptions of Dionysus depict him as a mature male, bearded and robed holding a fennel staff tipped with a pine-cone. However, in later images the god is shown to be a beardless, sensuous, naked or semi-naked androgynous youth.”
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No sooner was this tidbit of information released that god Dionysus started trending on social media. Young BTS fans, known as ARMY, were seeking information on Greek mythology and trying to find out as much as they could about mythology ahead of the next BTS release.
The ARMY also got to work trying to interpret the message that BTS were trying to send with this choice. There have been rumours regarding the sexuality of some of the members, causing fans to speculate as to whether BTS wanted to confirm rumours that there was a bisexual member in their fold.