Netizens Slam “The-K Billboard Awards” Saying It Unnecessarily Segregates Korean And Western Music
Billboard announced their new event titled The-K Billboard Awards on their Instagram page. Their caption says the event aims to highlight “the dazzling achievements of K-POP artists based on the Billboard charts.” It is scheduled for live-streaming on October 28, 2022, at 8 pm Korean Standard Time on the K-Culture Festival YouTube channel.
The post’s message seems hopeful, but many netizens online slammed and criticized the announcement, saying it was unnecessary to have a separate awards show dedicated to Korean artists.
This "K-billboard" stuff is straight up racist, they also did this to Latin Artists, they are afraid they will overshadow American Artists, and don't want them to be acknowledged in the main category, that's ridiculous. Xenophobia at it's pic. pic.twitter.com/390a8qatax
— Hoopki :D (@hoopki) October 24, 2022
The K-Billboard award is one step away from a separate Grammy category for kpop. Don’t be happy about this. The one thing all stans should do is not support this. Like the music industry is fcking racist.
— 💜 maizeeey2 ⁷🃏💜 🏁🧑🚀🚀🌕 (@maizeeey2) October 24, 2022
ARMYs, BTS’s official fandom, were particularly upset due to a statement made by Bik Hwang, the executive director of the 2022 K-Culture Festival. This festival served to launch The-K Billboard Awards.
In an interview with The Korea Times last September 20, 2022, Hwang said,
This is part of our mission to find the next BTS. We will not limit our nominees to the festival attendees. Instead, we will strictly adhere to Billboard’s points system and honor winners by visiting their studios if necessary.
Netizens online were furious, claiming there was no point in looking for “The next BTS” since the group was still active.
“this is part of our mission to find the next bts”… BE SO SERIOUS RN pic.twitter.com/JXBnY6J2wK
— agust d⁷ 👩🚀 (@pjmyoongii) October 24, 2022
idk but making a new award show to “find the next bts” when the bts in question is alive and kicking is a show of shamelessness and acknowledgement that they don't have any power over bts. also very embarrassing to all the artists involved bc they'll be known as 2nd class.
— delilah min 👩🏾🚀☄️ is ia (@tanseok) October 24, 2022
Others claimed that separating Korean artists from Western artists meant Billboard was concerned about the amount of attention given to BTS.
Billboard is a joke. It's losing its relevancy day by day. BTS literally made them scared. They don't want their western artists to lose against BTS. That's why they are introducing to the new category. I'm not even surprised. This screams xenophobia if you ask me.
— SumSum⁷🍊 ALIZEH APU DAY💅 (@SumSumSeVeN) October 24, 2022
This is straight up racist,they trying so hard to exclude bts from the main categories and trying to put them on this k-billboard cuz they know how only bts had the best chart placement on it..
— s⁷👩🚀 (@ot7enthusiast) October 24, 2022
No official statements have addressed fans’ outrage as of this article’s writing.
