Celebrity

2018 Rookie Award: whoever wins the award will be criticized?

2018 MAMA has recently announced a nomination list in the Rookie award categories, which became a hot topic.

On November 1st, the 2018 MAMA announced the list of nominees. The Best Rookie category has received a lot of attention because there are so many ‘newcomers’ this year. However, there are no outstanding performers such as Black Pink, Twice or Wanna One years ago. This award is considered to be the most intense battle and whoever wins will also become controversial and receive criticism from the public.

The six nominees for the best female rookies are Nature, GWSN, IZONE, G-ILE, LOON and fromis_9. (G) I-DLE from CUBE is the most prominent. The group released two hit singles, Latata and HANN, which have won trophies on music shows. However, they don’t have a big fanbase, their album sales are not outstanding compared to other competitors. Although (G) I-DLE is recognized as the most successful rookie group of the year, the team’s probability to win is still questionable.

https://youtu.be/OaSlTs6ZahY

(G)I-DLE and their BTS cover.

The two most prominent names in the album sales are LOONA and IZONE. The band from the Produce 48 show has received great support from Mnet. The 12-member girlgroup was criticised for being nominated despite not having a debut stage. If IZONE receive the award, people will think that they are unworthy and that they receive the award for being “the daughter” of Mnet rather than for having talents. However, IZONE has released their debut album, which got pretty good physical album sales, digital sales and MV views.

LOONA is famous for being from a wealthy company, being invested generously and a large number of international fans. However, the group’s song did not perform well on music charts with little public recognition.

Fromis_9 is a girl group formed from the Idol School program. The group ranks well on online music charts and Youtube views thanks to the two songs, “To Heart” and “Love Bomb.” Fromis_9 was also quite successful with winning the New Star Award at the 2018 Asia Model Awards. However, the team’s probability to win at MAMA is not as high when compared to IZONE and (G) I-DLE.

Nature and GWSN are quite unknown names to K-pop fans. They don’t stand out among a ‘forest’ of idols nowadays. If one of these two groups win, it will be MAMA’s new joke. However, we do not know what will happen because Mnet is famous for messing up everything at their previous MAMAs!

IZONE struggling to dance 2x faster.

The six nominees for Best Male Rookie are HAON, Stray Kids, Kim Dong Han, THE BOYZ, VINXEN, Hyeong Seob & Eui Woong. The boy groups this year are quite ‘bland’, none of them stands out. Stray Kids, the group that is backed by JYP, constantly released albums but had no hit songs. Their digital sales is also bad. However, the group remains to be the most popular candidate for the award.


Kim Dong Han, VINXEN and Hyeong Seob & Eui Woong were all trainees from Produce 101 season 2. They are also from the ‘house of Mnet’, so their chances of winning are also high.

Souces: ione

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