These are reasons for Kpop’s anger towards MAMA 2017

Mnet Asia Music Awards (MAMA) is such a strange “case” in Kpop history. There’s no other music event that makes Kpop audiences mad and excited at the same time that much! Every year, when the voting system is open, fans encourage each other and vote hard every day for their favorite idols to have a chance to win at MAMA.

But then, everything keeps happening unexpectedly because voting is fans’ business while awarding is organizer’s business. The more fans expect, the more disappointed they get. Therefore, after ending, every MAMA season is always “thrown bricks” and hated by Kpop fans. This year, it’s not an exception. According to the final show in Hong Kong on 1 Dec, MAMA’s scandals as well as fans’ angers are too much to talk about! Let’s take a look at some highlights!

1. Votes of the audiences were not influential and mean nothing?

Simply, no matter which idols rank first based on audiences’ votes and that result accounts for 20-30% of the final result, the winner is always someone else. Moreover, based on all criteria and statistics, the winning idols are always not as good as the one selected by the audiences.
Evidences? For “The best male group” award, since the beginning, it was a competition between EXO and BTS, but finally Wanna One was the winner; “Best new female artist” award belonged to PRISTIN instead of Chungha, “Best male artist” award which was thought to be surely G-Dragon’s finally belonged to Zico…

Especially, we must mention EXO case, among 19 fan vote categories, they were the leader in 5 categories on the day voting system was closed. Finally, they only won 1 award! EXO-L tried their best, but MAMA

2. Added on speechless sub-awards

Though every award should be respected and supported, it’s hard for Kpop fans to appreciate when their idols get an award from MAMA.
Does anybody know anything about the “Style in music” award that Sunmi got? Though the female idol had an amazing breakthrough in the second half of this year with “Gashina”, she was not honored for “Best performance” or “The best artist” award but “Style in music”. Is this what she deserved to receive for attending the event this year?

Next, NCT won “The new Asian artist”? Really, MAMA? NCT debuted last year and already won the same award in the same year. This year, they got another “new” one just because they were invited to perform in the show and there was no official award suitable for them?
Moreover, at MAMA on 1 Dec, GOT7 also got 2nd award which was “FanChoice Favorite KPOP Star”. This award was based on global fan votes and published on the official website of MAMA, but it was given at… backstage. Strangely, MAMA was willing to hold the event in 3 countries with 4 shows in total; however, they had no stage to honor GOT7 nicely. It’s even hard for Ahgase to think about MAMA positively!

3. What were the reasons for BlackPink’s faces to be blurred out in red on the screen?

This made Blink and YG angry and publicly criticized MAMA strongly. According to many people, this was how MAMA’s organizer “played” on YG after being boycotted, while others thought that this was just an unexpected technical issue.

4. EXO had to perform before newbies, is this real?

Perhaps, MAMA’s organizer purposely arranged the performance of EXO before Wanna One for some reasons, or this was a private deal between SM/EXO and MAMA. However, in the audiences’ eyes, this was a disrespectful act towards the boy group of “Power”. Nobody believes that a top boy group who was experienced had to perform before a new group who has just debuted for 4 months.
The stage arrangement also shows something “wrong” when the organizer let BTS perform for almost 20 minutes, then immediately invited them to the stage to receive the award while they were sweating and totally tired.

5. Promised this, did that

Before the show, MAMA promised a lot to the audiences, but finally, they couldn’t do much.
In terms of Wanna One’s stage, the organizer introduced it as a special performance and that Wanna One would reveal the end of their MV “Beautiful” and give the answer for the connection between their 2 music products. However, the revealed MV only included very simple information: Kang Daniel found his motivation to stand up from the match stage and raised the cassette connected to “Energetic”. What made the audiences curious was the result of Ong Seung Woo’s accident, but it was not mentioned.

Secondly, is there anyone feeling satisfied with the stage combined with “modern performing technology” of EXO? In fact, the performance of EXO could be voted as the most disappointing stage of MAMA 2017. The group was still the same, still performed with all of their hearts, but on a dark stage with a number of dancers and a little fireworks at the end. That’s it. Perhaps, modern technology here was the stage platform which helped the group stand higher than other idols?

6. Not attending the show? Be a faded supporting role!

Does anybody believe that the part announcing “The best female artist” and “The best vocal performance – male artist” award only lasted for 30 seconds? In the middle of the program, MAMA’s organizer quickly showed a video clip announcing IU and Yoon Jong Shin to win awards, then immediately moved to advertisement. This made many audiences misunderstand that the organizer just introduced the awards’ nominees. But no, in fact, they already announced and “honored” the winners, both of them, in only 30 seconds!

Source: tinnhac