[Update] BTS earns Billboard nomination for meaningless award used for fandom wars

Billboard has decided they want free promo for their upcoming Billboard Music Awards, and have effectively monetized the international K-pop fandom by nominating BTS, the fandom with the best international representation. The ‘Top Social Artist’ is effectively meaningless (even more than normal awards), but it should help them hype the show by starting fanwars between fandoms of Western artists and K-pop, as well as in the K-pop fandom itself.

#BBMAs Top Social Artist Nominees 📈
➕@justinbieber
➕@BTS_twt
➕@selenagomez
➕@ArianaGrande
➕@ShawnMendes
Fan voting opens May 1st. pic.twitter.com/QUiTQ4ChaM

— Billboard Music Awards (@BBMAs) April 10, 2017

BTS’s competition is Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, and Shawn Mendes. Should be fun and I look forward to videos of fans crying on the phone trying to get through to Billboard customer service or something.

Nothing against BTS themselves, as they deserve credit for the recognition that they’re the most relevant internationally and thus can be used like this. But wow, I thought after the ‘SNSD/2NE1 are taking over America’ mess and every other time this has happened, the international K-pop fandom would be done with this. Guess not.

—–

Update

Jeff Benjamin of Billboard pointed out that they don’t actually nominate themselves, it’s just based on their chart.

https://twitter.com/Jeff__Benjamin/status/851990644302237696

So ignore the part about Billboard using K-pop fandoms, but I still feel the same about everything else. Just assumed that was the case with the frequency that Western publications use K-pop and the rabid fandom for clicks and what not, but I was wrong.