In recent years, K-pop groups have continuously hit new records in album sales, leading netizens to question whether they’re cheating or not.
Recently, a post on a forum with the title “I want to let everyone know about how to cheat on Gaon (Circle) and Hanteo charts recently so I am writing this” has attracted attention.
The OP’s post is as follows:
“Recently, the easiest way to judge an idol is to look at its digital score and album sales. I think weekly album sales are the most important, followed by digital music scores. The total Gaon chart in simple words is the amount of bread that the factory produces.
1,000,000 copies sold on Gaon = 1,000,000 pieces of bread produced.
For Hanteo, 1,000,000 copies = actual sales
240,000 pieces at a convenience store is equivalent to 100,000 somewhere etc.
So Gaon doesn’t record the first week of sales.
(The company can make 2,000,000 breads if they want.)
According to this way of thinking, naturally, I will also assume that the data on the Hanteo chart in the first week is the official data, right?
But it’s also possible to cheat on Hanteo.
Companies will pre-purchase a large number of albums and then distribute them during fansigns which will be held later. You can notice that some groups have not recorded an increase in album sales even though they have already held fansigns. That is, if groups have held fansigns and album sales are still increasing, that’s okay. If a group held a fansign but the total number of albums sold remained unchanged, they cheated.
First-week data fraud: The type of buying albums in bulk and then organizing a fansign to deal with those albums.
1. The data is decreasing or standing still, but in the first week, it increases by 2-3 times.
2. Organized too many fansigns, there were even fansigns held right before the comeback. They’ll just keep holding fansigns until all these albums are sold out.
3. If they can’t sell out the album in the above way, they will sell it together with the album in the next comeback and give it along with the goods.
4. They will just continue this “crime” loop.”
Below the post, netizens excitedly commented:
- Then after the first week, if the album sales are still increasing steadily, it’s not a problem, right?
- There are many other ways to cheat on Hanteo, the above method is just one of them
- That’s why I don’t care about the first week’s album sales, just look at the totals later on, I wish people were less deified about the ‘first week’.
What are your thoughts on this matter?
