Bias Tracker: Why does allkpop trash certain events but not others?

So KCON happened recently, but I didn’t pay much attention to it because I don’t get all that hyped about K-pop events in America. Honestly, in my opinion, they usually consist of mediocre lineups and a lot of them end up being horribly disappointing to a lot of fans.

That said, the concert did come to my attention when the allkpop Twitter feed retweeted this from their CEO regarding the concert, and I found it a bit odd.

so kcon was a disaster. hopefully fans dont get conned into going to the fail event next year

I obviously didn’t see the concert since I haven’t followed it, so it may well have been a disaster, but that’s sort of besides the point. After all, why exactly does this particular concert deserve public ire from allkpop? I mean, it’s not like K-pop events in America are known for being smoothly run with coherent people at the helm to begin with.

Hm…

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So with that in mind, I tried to search allkpop for details on KCON to see if they were involved, as I figured they may have got shafted by them in some way. But no, quite the contrary, as KCON doesn’t exist as far as they’re concerned. So then I went over to Soompi and realized that they had a booth at KCON, and therefore had hyped the concert a ton. After that I went over to Koreaboo to make sure that this was a newsworthy event, and indeed it was. A lot of others seemed to feel that way as well, which makes allkpop’s decision to ignore it the outlier.

Anyway, given the constant dick-measuring contests held between allkpop and Soompi, one can sort of infer what went down here, right? Well I did, which led to me tweeting about it.

I said it because … well … it’s true.

This is just one example, but remember SBS‘s K-Pop Super Concert? Well allkpop was involved with it and that was an actual confirmed gigantic clusterfuck that still continues to this day. But don’t take my word for it, SBS themselves apologized for it being a mess. So where were the criticisms coming from allkpop then exactly? Oops.

This isn’t a one-off either. Rather, it’s part of a trend. I previously pointed out a time when allkpop and Soompi basically pretended K-pop Masters didn’t exist because they didn’t get what they wanted. All class.

If you want to believe all of this is a coincidence, then feel free, but I’ll pass and see reality.

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So why care, right? Um, you don’t have to, doesn’t affect my life.

But as a consumer of media, it goes to credibility, does it not? As a brand, when one instills a policy where you will shit on any event or person or whatever else that doesn’t support you financially or doesn’t give you access or doesn’t just blindly cooperate, then it basically cripples the credibility of their opinions. At that point, rather than people taking your brand’s opinion at face value, that opinion becomes worthless, because all people would have to do to find your opinion is research whether the said event or person cooperated with you. It’s like some ghetto version of the pay-to-play shit you see in politics, except buried in a niche market.

It’s their business, and they can run it how they want, but when one tweets about how all the work they’ve been doing to promote K-pop has somehow led to Psy‘s success in the states, it’s weird then to set a standard where it’s either people participate with them or they bitch you out in public like a mom scolding her five-year-old child. It’s just an odd way to put yourself out there, and it sort of submarines any inclination one might have to believe that this is all for K-pop or Korea or Asian pride, as it’s actually been revealed to be nothing more than a dick-measuring contest between international K-pop sites.

I mean, at the end of the day, it’s fucking K-pop, not world politics. Even I think I take it too seriously at times and I rarely give all that much of a shit. These people fight behind-the-scenes like they’re fucking Samsung and Apple or they’re fighting for research grants to cure cancer. It’s fucking pathetic.