K-netizens discuss boy group ONEUS’s controversial number of fansigns: A form of ‘sajaegi’ to boost sales?

Netizens voice their concerns over the increasingly odd fansign culture of the K-pop industry.

Last November, boy group ONEUS released their 6th mini album “BLOOD MOON” featuring the title track “LUNA“. This song helped ONEUS take home their first-ever music show win on “Show Champion” since their debut in January 2019.  

2 months after its release, the mini-album “BLOOD MOON” suddenly became a trending topic of discussion on online communities in Korea. Specifically, in its first week of sales, “BLOOD MOON” recorded 172,500 copies sold. This is almost double the first week sales of their previous album “BINARY CODE” (90,700 copies).

First week sales are a big deal to idol groups and their fandoms. This is considered the most important period for album sales. After the first week, fans usually don’t care about sales anymore. ONEUS is the prime example of this because after selling more than 172,000 copies in the first week, they only sold about 5,000 more copies after that.  Total album sales of “BLOOD MOON” recorded on Gaon is 177,877 copies.

However, a lot of people are suspecting that the impressive first-week sales of “BLOOD MOON” can only be attributed to the staggering number of fansigns that ONEUS has been working on. By January 11th, 2022, the number of ONEUS fansigns for the new album promotion had reached 47 (both online and offline). Up to now, this number has increased to 51 and will continue to increase when ONEUS organizes more in the near future.

The Korean online community has been expressing concern over how ONEUS’s agency (and possibly many others) organizes too many fansigns even though they might exhaust the members just to increase album sales. Many people think that the Kpop idol industry is gradually becoming more bizarre, some even say that the action of ONEUS company is nothing more than “sajaegi” .

• “ㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ I’m an idol fan myself but our country’s album industry is really getting weirder and weirder”
• “47 fansigns for one promotion is too much”
• “Is this an online or offline fansign? Organizing this much will only put pressure on both fans and artists”
• “It’s crazy… If they make it this far, surely the fans will expect more for the next album, right? This is clearly an exhausting method”
• “What the hell? So they only sold 5,000 more albums after the first week…? It’s like the management company tried everything to set a record on album sales for the first week”