EXO Wasn’t Nominated As A Candidate For The Bonsang Award, Soribada Responds

Soribada is a music streaming platform that also holds a music show titled Soribada Best K-Music Awards to celebrate the best in K-Pop music. They first began this awards show in 2017. The judging criteria for the show are a combination of internal data, online votes, and ratings from professionals.

For this year, this was the list of nominees for the Bonsang award.

2020 Soribada Best K-Music Awards Bonsang nominees

Super Junior
Taeyeon
Baekhyun
Red Velvet
NCT 127
BTS
TXT
IU
Twice
GOT7
Winner
Seventeen
Zico
FT Island
MonstaX
NUEST
AOA
Apink
April
(G)I-DLE
Mamamoo
Momoland
OMG
Astro
AB6IX
WJSN
Kang Daniel
Seongwoo
Park Jihoon
CIX
Victon, etc pic.twitter.com/WubMyXq43N

— SMTownEngSub 🌏 (@SMTownEngSub) June 9, 2020

Fans of EXO were curious as to why they were not on the list of nominees and began requesting that Soribada explain the reasoning behind this.

#소리바다_해명해 is currently trending #1 in South Korea Trends.

It means "Soribada Explain" about the issue of exempting EXO for the nominees of Bonsang at Soribada Awards 2020 because of withdrawal? of a member of EXO?

EXOLs! Let's all say "EXO IS 9"@weareoneEXO #EXOISNINE

— EXO-L ACE Tëam PH (@EXOLAceTeamPH) June 11, 2020

Online communities also began posting the responses they received from Soribada regarding this situation.

This was Soribada’s response to a fan’s question of why EXO was not on the nominee list.

“Hello this is Soribada. We have chosen our nominee list through our internal standards and regulations and in the case of EXO, they had some issues with a member leaving the group during our nominee selection period (2019.08.01~2020.04.30) so unfortunately they have been excluded from the list. Thank you.”

Fans argue that this is not a good reason because first, a member did not leave the group, and second, the rules below for selecting a nominee has nothing about being excluded for a member leaving the group.

“Rules for selecting a nominee: Artist who has released an album in the allotted time period, album release country to be ‘South Korea’, and Album type to be official/ EP/ Single/ OST.”

Another fans’ response from Soribada also revealed that they excluded some groups because their music ratings were low.

“Hello, EXO has been excluded from the list for having issues with members during the nominee selection period. Groups such as iKON, IZ*ONE, ITZY, Stray Kids have been excluded from the list because unfortunately their music ratings were low.”

Fans do not find this a reasonable issue to use to exclude EXO from the nominee list. Fans are hoping that they make adjustments to the list and give EXO the recognition they deserve.

This awards show will take place on August 19 and the venue location will be released at a later date.