EXO Fans Brilliantly Deduce Possible Meanings Behind

EXO Fans Brilliantly Deduce Possible Meanings Behind "Ko Ko Bop," "The War," And New Logos

Music
Jul 08, 2017
by Elizabeth Kang

EXO dropped the very first teaser for their much-wanted summer comeback on July 8, and Sherlockian fans put their detective hats on once more as they put their minds to try and decipher everything, leaving no stone unturned.

Given how SM Entertainment has a history of having planned things for years (remember the guessing game they sent us on back in 2015 aka Pathcode era), fans were already on high alert for anything remotely EXO-related, when something unexpected recently came into their radar. They found a hidden verified account on not just Twitter, but also Chinese social media site Weibo, that had been created early last month. These would later open and turn out to be actual official accounts that released the teasers in July.

Curiously, the account didn’t read “tt” until July 7, and, as expected, fans found a possible explanation for that as well.

https://twitter.com/classic112756/status/883684882316017669

July 8 didn’t mark the beginning of the deductions however; ever since EXO started giving sly hints back during their encore concert in May, fans have already figured out that the phrase “The War” and “heat” would have something to do with the comeback.

As it turns out, “The War” does indeed have something to do with the comeback, as it was shown in the teaser, along with the phrase, “Ko Ko Bop.” As for what these signify, nothing is certain, although Baekhyun did mention “Ko Ko Bop” is “a title track” during a live broadcast he held late night on July 8. This, in addition to there being multiple logos, lead some fans to believe this.

https://twitter.com/94_degrees/status/883686901990871040

Meanwhile, the plants and leaves used for the logos came under scrutiny as well, with the focus being on the use of a bird of paradise (name of flower).

Everyone may happen to remember that EXO just recently celebrated their fifth anniversary.

Let us also remember that EXO consists of nine members, and that they said something vaguely familiar back in May to the meaning behind the bird of paradise.

The flower itself is often classified as an exotic flower, making some fans bet that it’s possible the album could be titled “Exotic.”

Not to mention, the plant imagery was in line with Baekhyun and Sehun’s past few Instagram posts, confirming fans’ guesses that they had been hinting at their comeback.

Fans also belatedly realized that even Sehun’s non spoiler-like posts were still spoilers. (Bop sounds similar to bap, which is the Korean word for cooked rice.)

As for the other logos, some fans chose to focus on a particular one that looked as if it used bay laurel leaves, which usually signify success and honor. However, there is another meaning behind the plant, betrayal, based on the Greek mythological story of Daphne and Apollo. One explanation pointed out that Baekhyun looked as if he had a tattoo of bay laurel leaves, and referred back to how he was a “spy” during the “Monster” music video from their previous comeback.

https://twitter.com/lecol__O522/status/883686257892573184

Speaking of connections to their past comeback, another detail that stood out was Lay’s, at the time, strange use of a flower in their “Lucky One” music video.

https://twitter.com/xxuelie/status/883697460631052288

While Lay cannot participate in promotions this comeback, fans were excited to spot a familiar figure in the teaser, and Lay showed some love for his brothers as well.

https://twitter.com/tinyvocaIist/status/883681147170861056

And of course, the guessing games didn’t end there, nor were fans expecting them to. As soon as the SMTOWN concert ended on July 8—the same night the teaser was released—, most fans had this thought in their heads as well.

To no one’s surprise, there were several instances that night that made fans second-guess what they were seeing.

Finally, and possibly the strangest thing of all, one fan noticed that when you try to translate the two phrases “The War” and “Ko Ko Bop” on Naver’s translation application using various forms of spacing and capitalization, actual sentences are shown as results. The peculiar thing is that these sentences couldn’t possibly come from the phrase “Ko Ko Bop,” which is neither proper Korean nor English.

They read, “A war has begun,” “That war has become the fuse of…” “The people who were disposed of by being knocked out.” Another result was “malt scotch whiskey,” and the same fan pointed out that whiskey has historically been referred to as “the water of life.”

https://twitter.com/My_savior_61X94/status/883682515986161664

This is just the beginning of it all, and SM Entertainment has hinted that the next teaser will be released on July 10 at midnight KST, so stay tuned!

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