[VARSITY UK] What does BTS’s Billboard Music Award mean for K-Pop? Not much

[Hyooga]

What does BTS’s Billboard Music Award mean for K-Pop? Not much

BTS’s win isn’t as important as some Western outlets are making it out to be, writes Theo Howe

 

 

 

Monday June 5 2017, 1:10pm

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BTS are one of the most popular K-Pop acts in the world  AJEONG_JM

 

 

 

You’d be forgiven for missing the Billboard Music Awards last Sunday. It had the feeling of being a Grammys-Lite ceremony. The one thing that seemed to cause any buzz at all was the ‘Best Social Artist’ category, voted for by fans and being given to Korean seven-piece BTS, which was seen by many to be a huge shock. Fans of BTS (known as ARMYs) used it as evidence of their chosen group’s superiority, and a couple of American outlets asked what they thought to be a big question: what does this mean for K-Pop in the West? A question to which I would respond ‘not much at all.’

 

I don’t wish to take too much away from BTS – they work incredibly hard (as do basically all K-Pop groups under horrendous contracts) and are a talented group of men who have a large hand in the creation of the music they put out. However, there are a couple things to note with regards to their winning of this award. The first is that they have always had a disproportionately large international following in comparison to their Korean fanbase, the second being that Korea’s music show system means that fans have to be mobilised if they want to see their favourite groups thrive and be successful.

 

And so when it comes to fan-voted things, it should hardly be a surprise to see a K-Pop group emerge on top. Just last year Billboard ran a ‘fan army’ competition where people had to vote for their favourite group in knockout rounds which resulted in fans of the K-Pop group T-Ara emerging on top. While you might buy merchandise or go and see your favourite artist in concert, international K-Pop fans vote for things to use as bragging rights.

 

In the immediate aftermath of BTS winning the award, many news outlets tried to capitalise on it, with Rolling Stone writing an utterly risible article telling you ‘Five things you need to know about BTS.’ This journalistic masterpiece told us how socially conscious BTS are in comparison to the fat jolly man PSY who is seen to represent all of K-Pop, conveniently forgetting to mention that PSY dodged the draft and has been consistently outspoken about Korean reconciliation. It’s indicative that people are looking all too deeply for meaning in something that is fairly self-evident: ARMYs organised and voted like crazy.

 

And now we come to the issue of why K-Pop holds so many fans: specifically, why so many international fans only like K-Pop, seeing it as inherently different from Western pop music. I should disclose that I am more than partial to a lot of K-Pop, BTS included, and yet it’s clear as day to me that K-Pop shows obvious and direct influence to Western pop music of all eras since the 80s, as well as genres like hip-hop and new jack swing. Of course, one can’t explain taste and what one likes and dislikes easily. Even so, liking K-Pop but not liking pop seems a strange and mysterious thing to me.

 

In the hypothetical situation that someone who likes K-Pop and only K-Pop liked a Western pop star, would they engage and talk about it in the same way? This is all built on hypotheticals, of course, but you don’t need to move terribly far into the K-Pop fandom to see a whole bunch of fetishisation of East Asian beauty standards going on. K-Pop is a deeply visual genre, and the artists are made to look pretty, but there’s a danger among international K-Pop fans that this can create an echo chamber for saying how BTS or Twice are that much more attractive than people of any other ethnicity.

 

In any case, congratulations to BTS, but ultimately all this does is confirm that they are as popular as everyone already thought they were. As much as awards ceremonies are arbitrary, it would mean so much more for them to win an award which isn’t affected by the sway of great swathes of already-mobilised fans, ready to vote at the slightest opportunity. They have done so in Korea, and I hope they continue to get recognition and that their working contract isn’t too harrowing. It’s safe to say that K-Pop has already arrived in the West. It’s just unfortunate that a large part of its success is subject to gross levels of fetishisation which are not placed upon their Western counterparts

 

https://www.varsity.co.uk/music/13129

[DOOLY]

ok

[TMollie]

ok

I was just wondering what to say to the article. This summarizes it perfectly. 

It will be interesting to watch this thread though  

I said something a while back "But the truth of the matter is it's not "kpop" that suddenly became popular. It's BTS. A boy band that somehow beat Justin and almost broke twitter."

 

I wonder if that's what this article is trying to say in its way???

[â„“ucieâ„“â„“e]

Lmao, it's not like I wanted the win to benefit Kpop. As long as it benefits BTS I am ok

[Delusion_Angel]

ok

My thoughts exactly lol.

[RIP Shikkie ��]

These are the kind of threads that you either gotta stay silent, or risk an argument with someone

 

 

I'm staying silent wonder how this thread gonna turn out tho

[PanWink Is Real]

what?

[Vick]

ok

Lol I am in no mood to argue today

[â„“ucieâ„“â„“e]

41 user(s) are reading this topic

 

7 members, 21 guests, 12 anonymous users

 

 

The drama is starting soon

[Myth]

So BTS remains irrelevant internationally.

 

Shocking.

[Eppo]

Duh

 

Just like when Big Bang won an EMA or Gangnam Style went viral.

[Kally]

I don’t wish to take too much away from BTS â€“

And then proceeds to do exactly that.

[DOOLY]

Lmao, it's not like I wanted the win to benefit Kpop. As long as it benefits BTS I am ok

 

I don't know why it's so hard for so many people to understand this. I thought it was a pretty simple concept to grasp. But instead you have all these people doing all these mental gymnastic to prove how irrelevant the award is... i don't get it, lol.

[littlemaru]

".co.uk"

 

ahh... the UK... not surprised.

[Aliens-United]

Antis taking the bait in 3...2...1

[Vick]

Lmao, it's not like I wanted the win to benefit Kpop. As long as it benefits BTS I am ok

This I wont cry if kpop remains nugu in the west

 

I do not care what happens to kpop

I only want my faves to get media attention wich led to possible western collabs and just get their name out there.

 

MONEY MONEY MONEY YUP

[Marshmallows]

When will y'all realize it's not the award itself that was armys main goal. We got what we wanted and it was not only the award that we wanted. Y'all seem to not understand that...

Also I don't care whether it benefited kpop or whatever as long as it benefits BTS. BTS is not responsible for kpop or making a whole genre suddenly popular. It was clear from the beginning this is a success to BTS more than it is to K pop.

[pururin]

he wanted the clicks... and he will get it lol

 

i don't really get what he's trying to say as he brings unrelated topics at the end but doesn't develop the discussion at all but ok  

[Aquamaraqua]

TL;DR it's too early for this

[Sakura // TaeTae]

for me it was never for kpop to win, but for bts to win.

they can say what they want, the thing was, all those articles, all that buzz and everything gave bts a huge exposure. those that got curious, checked them out, those who didnt, just went on. 

in the end, this was win for bts. free exposure, media buzz, an award, new fans, interest in them (maybe some collabs along the way  )

with how salty kpop fans were during the voting and after win, i dont care about this win affecting kpop.

 

lets not forget how "kpop fans" were talking about bts being made fun of, flopping, being ignored at bbma's and on top of that you could see portion of those so called "kpop fans" saying that its dumb to vote for bts.

[Eremit]

lmao he seems to have really hated the Rolling Stone article (did Jeff write that one?) so I'm guessing he felt that it was putting down his faves/K-pop in general to praise BTS.

because other than that was is he saying? BTS has a super organised fandom and that's why they won the award? Well, duh.

The better question to ask would be why BTS got high enough on the chart to be nominated in the first place, but he doesn't seem interested in trying to answer that.

[TaeGiElitist]

Who cares about the rest of kpop as long as my faves prosper I'm good

[car door guy's mom]

 

 

The first is that they have always had a disproportionately large international following in comparison to their Korean fanbase

Where does this misinformation come from? As far as I know, South Korea is leading in BTS Youtube views, at least for last year, look at their number of fancafe members (yes, international fans use it as well, but it's almost useless if you don't know Korean, so I'm sure it's mostly Korean fans). We're living in 2017, their Korean fanbase is huge.

 

edit. oh, and Korea was in TOP3 of countries that voted for BTS in BBMAs

[Almost Famous]

Even though I dreamed about, what was between Paul's

perfect milky-white thighs, I had not yet conjured up dimensions.

I collected Beatle bubble-gum cards, and one of them

was a shot of Paul playing his bass, sitting on a bed in a hotel

with his legs apart. You could actually see the shape of his

balls being crushed by the tightness of his trousers, and I

carried that card around with me in a little gold box with

cotton covering it like it was a precious jewel. I peeked into it

reverently, once a day, and lifted the cotton gently, holding my

breath as I stared between his legs at the eighth wonder of the

world. Every other day on my Beatles station, KRLA, Dave

Hull the Hullabalooer would announce whether or not Paul

was engaged to marry the creepy freckle-faced bowwow,

Jane Asher. It drove me crazy; it's all I thought about.

 

The above is a passage from Pamela des Barres's book "I'm With The Band", in which she describes her fascination with one of the Beatles members as a teenager in the first chapter. Attractiveness has been a part of pop culture since its inception. 

 

It seems like the author wrote this piece without giving a second thought about what makes BTS similar to or different from the rest of kpop. It is very possible to both find a group attractive and have an emotional connection to their music. He just applied all the usual kpop tropes to them. 

 

Even the unfair contracts bribe was completely unresearched. Actually, kpop contracts have been getting closer and closer to those in the US music industry. Initial 360 deals will always be unfair to the artist because they have nothing to offer before they have become famous. There is a changing in the balance of power as a group starts to become more popular. Kpop companies have to accommodate their artists if they hope to have them resign their contracts. 

 

Also, he completely ignored the fact that they were nominated because they topped an actual Billboard chart. Everyone seems to forget that fact when they make their arguments about BTS being nominated just to monetize the fandom. 

 

I will add on that the creation of Koreaboos is a really unfortunate effect of kpop. If you've met any in real life, you'll understand why. However, it still has nothing to do specifically with why BTS won this award as opposed to another kpop group. 

 

EDIT: I do want to add on, however, that I have no problem with BTS reaping the benefits of their recent success and publicity without the rest of kpop benefitting. Everyone else can create their own success. 

[CookieMaster97]

if it's always been so easy for a kpop group to win why did justin bieber sunbaenim win 7 times in a row

 

oh that's right, cause fan voting isn't how you get nominated

 

and then suddenly they be talking about fetishes and im like