Mnet accused of encouraging toxic competition between K-pop fandoms with new program “Road To Max”
Mnet drives fans angry after introducing the launch of a brand new show.
Although survival reality shows such as the “Produce” series, “Idol School”, “Queendom”, “Kingdom”, “Girls Planet 999” are all famous and successfully attract attention of idols’ fans, Mnet often faces criticism for malicious editing, manipulating results, and nurturing toxic competition between fandoms to spark unwarranted controversies.
On April 21, Mnet announced the launch of a new online program called “Road To Max”. With the slogan “Promote Your Artist”, “Road To Max” is described to be a content through which fans can nominate and compete for their favorite artists to win special stages at M Countdown, KCON, and MAMA.
Immediately after Mnet dropped information about “Road To Max”, negative reactions from both Korean and international netizens were flooded. Mnet is once again being criticized for promoting unhealthy competition between fandoms by turning fans into “slaves” and making them go through a “survival concept” for idols to have opportunities to go on stage.
Moreover, netizens claim this is just going to worsen the issue of idols’ talents being ignored while popularity and hype are prioritized. If fans’ votes decide everything then it will be even harder for underrated and underprivileged idols with small fandoms from lesser-known agencies to earn these opportunities.
Some comments from netizens:
- I just hope this show flops
- This already sounds so trashy
- I don’t care. I’m not watching.
- So not idols, but fans are like contestants of a survival show now?
- They’re turning fans into slaves. They’re going to make fans pour their money into this.
- Mnet is just going to manipulate the final results anyway so what’s the point of this?
- This is just for nugu idols right because why would groups with big fandoms be a part of this if they’re already attending MAMA/KCON/Mcountdown by themselves?
