Fans Furious After "2022 Genie Music Awards" Revokes 1.6 Million Votes For BLACKPINK

The Genie Music Awards is set to return to an in-person ceremony with a live audience for the first time in three years on November 8 at Namdong Gymnasium in Incheon. Fans have been excitedly voting for their favorite artists in anticipation of the event.

Voting began on October 6 and is open to voters with an official Korean ID or a Korean phone number until November 3. While international K-Pop fans may not be able to vote for their faves in every available category, they can vote for the GMA Idol Plus Global Popularity Award.

Nominated for the GMA Idol Plus Global Popularity Award this year are 36 artists, including BLACKPINK, IVE, NewJeans, ATEEZ, Stray Kids, PSY, SEVENTEEN, BTS, and many more.

The Genie Music Awards selects winners based on Genie Music chart data, online voting, and judge evaluation. Votes have steadily been rolling in from K-Pop fans around the world, as they eagerly contributed to the chance of their favorite artist winning the global popularity award.

On October 19, Genie Music released a formal notice that they would be revoking votes for BLACKPINK and PSY, as Genie Music shared they had noticed “abnormal traffic” that they “recognized as fraudulent [votes].”

Genie Music announced that their solution to the alleged fraudulent voting would be to revoke 1,627,041 votes from BLACKPINK and 306,908 votes from PSY.

The decision was met with immediate outrage from fans, who had been tracking the votes for BLACKPINK and noted the votes had been steadily rising over time, which seemed to conflict with the claim there was abnormal traffic.

I wonder how 🧞‍♂️ came to the conclusion that BLACKPINK's votes were fake. It was consistently increasing since the votings started, even @BLACKPINK_BBU is documenting it. All those efforts down the drain 'cause BLACKPINK was almost winning.

BOYCOTT GENIE AWARDS

— ken (@togejustvibin) October 19, 2022

WE KEEP TRACK OF OUR VOTES WITH DATE AND TIME. WE VOTED EVERYDAY FOR 9DAYS STRAIGHT!! AND NOW CALLING US BOTS?! THIS IS GLOBAL VOTINGS AND NOT JUST LIMITED TO KOREAN. THEY THINK INTERNATIONAL BLINKS CANT VOTE THIS MUCH?! 1.7M VOTES DOWN TO 92K?! https://t.co/jkpz8NSr2u

— BLACKPINK BLINK UNION #1 (@BLACKPINK_BBU) October 19, 2022

Before the votes were revoked, BLACKPINK was in third place overall with over 1.7 million votes; after Genie Music took away votes, the group dropped to fifth place.

Fans were bewildered, wondering how 1.7 million votes could be considered an abnormally high number when the poll was open to fans around the globe. Fans noted that the group even has a voting poll on Mubeat that has accumulated over 6 million votes, showing that the 1.7 million votes they held for the GMA Idol Plus Global Popularity Award weren’t an absurd number for the superstar K-Pop group.

6M votes on mubeat currently and mind you blackpink and blinks actually hold the records for most votes on mubeat with almost 10M but yes the 1.7M votes on genie is fake okay

— ً (@laIisalover) October 20, 2022

After voting for BLACKPINK daily and seeing their efforts discredited and disregarded, fans began to trend “BOYCOTT GENIE AWARDS” on Twitter, with the number of tweets associated with the hashtag rapidly growing.

the genie award show is rigged. blinks worked so hard for the girls and in the end they call us ‘fraudulent’ when they can’t even spell the name blackpink correctly

BOYCOTT GENIE AWARDS pic.twitter.com/r7mgyLwD5G

— honors lisa (@honorslisa) October 19, 2022

Cutting the votes
Reason not valid
Disrespecting the name of blackpink as blankpink??

BOYCOTT GENIE AWARDS pic.twitter.com/Fp1olykthh

— ᴄʜᴇʀʀʏ ʙʟɪɴᴋ ♡︎ (@DARKXSTAR99) October 19, 2022

Anyway BLACKPINK don't need a fucking local korean award, they're still on top all over the world, I hope you get the BLACKPINK name out of your mouth, they didn't lose you, you lost them.

BOYCOTT GENIE AWARDS
GENNIE MUSIC RIGGED AWARDS pic.twitter.com/vqzp1niPDw

— BORN PINK 🔝 (@BP_PT0W) October 19, 2022

As fans continue to voice their anger at the situation, neither IdolPlus nor Genie Music has made any additional statements regarding the matter.