BTS Jung Kook may or may not have a tattoo obsession, and we’re not mad about it.
The youngest member of the biggest boy band in the world is hugely into getting inked but started out small! Some of his very first tattoos that fans could spot were tiny hand tattoos. And one of the first tattoos they spotted was on Jung Kook’s knuckles, which spelled out “ARMY,” the BTS fandom name. Cute!!
Since the first ink spotting, ARMY have noticed that Jung Kook has started to slowly show off his tattooed arm sleeve! In a July 2021 V Live, which is a South Korean live video streaming service, fans realized that Jung Kook’s sleeve had new additions. One fan wrote on Twitter, “Jung Kook coming onto V live and telling us his eyebrow piercing is real and having all his tattoos displayed just shows how much more comfortable he is with army now & how much his confidence has grown, i’m so proud of him.”
Tattoos in South Korea are not widely accepted by the general public, so much so that musical artists are prohibited from displaying their ink on TV shows and live broadcasts. If anyone has a tattoo on a broadcast, they are either covered up with makeup, or blurred in post-production. It’s gotten to the point that there is a tattoo ban in the country, which only allows medical professionals to perform the procedure.
Since BTS holds a huge influence over South Korea, Jung Kook has become a symbol within the country and the way they view tattoos, as the more he shows his ink off, the more they are accepted.
The singer himself has talked about the pressure of being a member of BTS before. “As I get older, I feel more pressure,” he explained to Vogue Korea in January 2022. “I’m not particularly great; and I’m not that good and virtuous. I’m a very ordinary person, and I’m often scolded by the other members for my immature behaviour. If the world sees us as having a positive influence, then I need to try to adjust and match my actions and thoughts to those values.”
Scroll through our gallery for a guide to Jung Kook’s tattoos!
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