Fan boycott (due to mistreatment) of LOONA’s upcoming comeback is showing early returns

[My Everything]

In response to the ongoing saga of Blockberry Creative kicking member Chuu from the group, the contract injunction nine members reportedly filed, and alleged general mistreatment of LOONA, the fandom are responding by declaring a boycott of the group’s announced comeback in 2023.

A fan union was formed this month demanding response from Blockberry, and since their requests were not met, they released a statement that the boycott would go through.

Normally I’m skeptical about fandom boycotts for a multitude of reasons. Mostly that a fandom will have to be united and organized effectively enough to pull it off, but also concern that the company would just see it as a reason to scrap the group and effectively punish the members more than anything. However, as fans pointed out, the company isn’t paying LOONA members for their work anyway and there are indications from the members themselves that they aren’t happy about this.

Blockberry has also seemed to handle LOONA poorly enough that it has galvanized a lot of their fanbase to unite behind the cause of hating them, which is a remarkable feat in itself.

Still, for it to be effective results would have to be seen, and fortunately it seems to be working to some degree if pre-order numbers are anything to go by, as they show a 98% decrease from one site that tracks them.

Additionally, LOONA’s fandom has worked with overseas distributors to not carry the album.

Obviously there’s still a long way to go, especially if the company actually gets worried about sales and starts using other tactics (forcing members to show support, buying albums to give the impression nobody else is boycotting, the song/music video being great, etc). However, this is a potentially important event because a fandom being able to achieve positive change for their artists against a company through collective action would be a milestone.

Anyway, I wish LOONA fans the best in this endeavor, and at least I hope they can make Blockberry sweat for somehow being so shitty it even got to this point.

Source

[Your Biggest Fan]

I'll be very proud of Orbits if the hold rank and follow through.

What's the worse BlockBerry can do? Fire them? That'd be a blessing since they aren't paying the girls anyway.

[rananicolee]

a win is a win

[heart clue]

i'm honestly so impressed by how effective the boycott has been so far, especially seeing how many stores have decided not to stock the album. as sad as it is, it's not always that fans put idols before numbers and statistics

[minniemoo]

Damn the pre-orders are impressive

[Nev Schulman]

Ngl I feel bad for the other members. As reckless as their company is, the members are suffering too from low numbers when they're pretty much collateral damage. 

[heart clue]

4 minutes ago, Nev Schulman said:

Ngl I feel bad for the other members. As reckless as their company is, the members are suffering too from low numbers when they're pretty much collateral damage. 

9/11 filed for contract termination, one of the remaining members had activities on a tv show and couldn't terminate it and the other one's visa depends on her contract with bbc. also they haven't been paid at all since debut so they're not really losing money

[Nev Schulman]

8 minutes ago, heart clue said:

9/11 filed for contract termination, one of the remaining members had activities on a tv show and couldn't terminate it and the other one's visa depends on her contract with bbc. also they haven't been paid at all since debut so they're not really losing money

Wasn't the contract termination denied? I mean nothing ever came out of it and the members are still preparing for a comeback. If it was true we wouldn't be seeing any of the members participating for a comeback. When rumors about Chuu happened she wasn't participating in some activities and it was pretty believable at that point.

They haven't been paid because their debut project was expensive as hell. The group never ended up popular enough to pay it off yet.

[rananicolee]

4 minutes ago, Nev Schulman said:

Wasn't the contract termination denied? I mean nothing ever came out of it and the members are still preparing for a comeback. If it was true we wouldn't be seeing any of the members participating for a comeback. When rumors about Chuu happened she wasn't participating in some activities and it was pretty believable at that point.

They haven't been paid because their debut project was expensive as hell. The group never ended up popular enough to pay it off yet.

It was but no one is going to believe BBC about that. I think they're forcing the remaining members to have a comeback now. 

[No1]

32 minutes ago, Nev Schulman said:

Ngl I feel bad for the other members. As reckless as their company is, the members are suffering too from low numbers when they're pretty much collateral damage. 

The member will not see a penny from these sales, so it doesn't matter anyway when it comes to them.

[heart clue]

30 minutes ago, Nev Schulman said:

Wasn't the contract termination denied? I mean nothing ever came out of it and the members are still preparing for a comeback. If it was true we wouldn't be seeing any of the members participating for a comeback. When rumors about Chuu happened she wasn't participating in some activities and it was pretty believable at that point.

They haven't been paid because their debut project was expensive as hell. The group never ended up popular enough to pay it off yet.

has it really? last i knew it was still being processed so maybe you're right. and yeah i know about their predebut project,  but whatever the reason is they're not getting paid as of today and realistically i doubt they ever will see a penny from bbc ngl. if anything, given that they'll get 0 profit themselves, i would assume they'd like to see fans back up their decision to stand against the company

Edited December 15, 2022 by heart clue
typo

[xmisterygamerx]

44 minutes ago, Nev Schulman said:

Wasn't the contract termination denied? I mean nothing ever came out of it and the members are still preparing for a comeback. If it was true we wouldn't be seeing any of the members participating for a comeback. When rumors about Chuu happened she wasn't participating in some activities and it was pretty believable at that point.

They haven't been paid because their debut project was expensive as hell. The group never ended up popular enough to pay it off yet.

I mean, BBC denied all the rumours about Chuu and all of them ended up being true. JTBC reported the members filled for injuction, and there is usually months between filling the injuction and the court hearing (Chuu filled the injuction in December 2021 and only was partially given one in February, which is when Chuu started missing some activities, and even then Chuu was able to participate in some loona activities), so until the injuction hearing takes place, the members are forced to do what bbc wants.

The 9 members that filled for the injuction are the ones that have had no social media presence, either in fab or twitter/insta etc, and its their own decision because they still have access to those. The other 2 members arent happy with the situation, and have replied to fans things that show their discomfort with the comeback and all whats happening. None of the two members said anything about the comeback, not even Hyunjin, who spent 10 hours in a pc cafe playing games with orbits but didnt even send a message hyping the comeback unlike with Flip that

The debut project wasnt an expensive as originally said, and they definitely made that money back , BBC had to be shamed into paying staff more than once too (and they do have the money) so BBC not paying the girls despite having made that money back is also an option. 

Edited December 15, 2022 by xmisterygamerx

[Guest]

i'm impressed honestly that fans have been actually holding firm because so often i see fans going "oh it's not fair to the members they need money" - even when the idols aren't being paid - or "we can't let it flop".

[deliriousness]

Thank you, Hyoyeon.

[Winter Bear]

I’m really happy to see fans actually giving a damn about their artist for once, for seeing them as real people and not just dolls.

[sour candy]

I'm impressed that the boycott is working so far, I wonder if they can keep it up. I'm also curious to see what their youtube views will be like since I feel like people will definitely be tuning in to see how it is without Chuu there. 

[RussianRoulette]

I’m really really Impressed with the boycott, but I do honestly worry about the members a bit. I hope their company won’t punish them too harshly about this and they stay safe…

[Simpatico]

With the exception of Stellar, I can't remember a fandom that loved the members so much they rooted so hard for their group to disband. Orbits are something else.