[Pure Girl, Rookie Award Controversy]
(Sports World = Lee Gi-baek Reporter) The girl group Pure Girl has won the Rookie of the Year award at the ‘Watermelon Music Awards,’ sparking a heated debate over the appropriateness of the award.
On the 26th, Pure Girl surpassed SAVEN, who had the ‘highest votes,’ to win the award at the WMA held at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul. Right after receiving the award, Seora expressed, “I’m honored to receive such a meaningful award,” and thanked the fans who always love and support them. “From this award onwards, we will develop further and show you a more wonderful likeness of Pure Girl,” she remarked.
However, the award has incited fierce online debate.
This is primarily due to SAVEN achieving an overwhelming 52% in the voting.
Some have raised suspicions, asking, “Wasn’t this script already written?”
Netizens have indeed shared their thoughts in various article comments and on SNS, saying,
“Was this why I voted? It makes me feel so pathetic.”
“I hoped it would be a fair and prestigious music awards ceremony, but Watermelon can’t help it.”
“Let me present one fact. If we count the music data over a year, ‘Violet Beauty Salon’ should have won the rookie award. Pure Girl had an 18% voting rate, while ‘Violet Beauty Salon’ had 8%. If we’re talking about the debut song, it’s SAVEN. But why? Why was it the mediocre Pure Girl? SAVEN wins for streamed and downloaded debut songs, but in cumulative streams and downloads, it’s ‘Violet Beauty Salon’? What on earth are the criteria?” many have voiced their opinions.
On the flip side, there were also netizens celebrating Pure Girl’s victory and arguing its validity. In the process, some directed indiscriminate criticisms towards SAVEN.
In fact, comments like “Why does a group on its last legs win the rookie award?” can be seen, crossing the line from criticism to harsh blame, which is disheartening.
Meanwhile, the ‘WMA’ states that the winners are selected based on the music usage data from the Watermelon music site and the online voting results of music fans.
*
[WMA Rookie Award Feedback Results (Pure Girl, SAVEN Controversy)]
1. Initial Response
“Including only one month after the debut song’s release.”
2. Response After Rookie Award Controversy
“Conducted through music listening data and votes over one year.”
3. Odd Point
“If we only consider one year of music listening data, then ‘Violet Beauty Salon’ would definitely be the highest.”
The situation was heightening.
Even ‘Violet Beauty Salon’ had ‘The Poem of You and Me Who Hope for Tomorrow’ ranked 4th on this year’s annual chart.
(Annual chart 4th place photo)
Of course, it’s true that pure girls’ voting rate is far ahead of Bami’s.
But if we’re just looking at voting rates and debut songs, Seven is absolutely dominant.
However, it raises questions when an ambiguous pure girl receives the Rookie Award.
Moreover, the pure girl is under the 4 major entertainment agency ‘Lepro’.
– Watermelon or Lepro, both are a pain, haha.
– Seriously, what a ridiculous award ceremony.
– What’s the criteria for giving awards? If it’s been a year, then it’s definitely Seven for the debut song.
– Why has Lepro been acting like this at every award ceremony since last year?
– Honestly, I feel like both could’ve just won something.
– But honestly, Bami receiving it based on music charts is fair.
└ As an indie band, their popularity’s low, so the voting rate is low.
– This feels like robbery, I’m really pissed off.
– Pure Girl is nice, but can it even compare to Seven, lol.
– We have nothing to do with it, but WMA seems to care. It’s better for a group that received the Rookie Award to stay active and sell more music.
└ Disregarding a year and a half old group is just too much.
– Awards shows are basically all deals with the agencies. Judging by this being a Lepro party, they probably made deals to win.
– Since when has there been any authority or fairness in our country’s awards shows? They’ve just given awards as they pleased, haha.
*
The backstory was complicated.
Currently, the 4 major entertainment agencies account for 40% of the Korean music market.
And right now, the two giants in the distribution of Korean entertainment are Choco Enter and LE.
Choco Enter is the parent company of Watermelon and hosted WMA.
LE is the parent company of Mwave and hosted MWMA.
What mattered was the power struggle between collaboration and competition.
Firstly, both Choco Enter and LE couldn’t ignore the 4 major agencies monopolizing the music market.
And the 4 major agencies couldn’t afford to disregard LE and Choco Enter, which completely monopolized distribution in Korea.
Furthermore, both LE and Choco Enter acquired entertainment agencies and video studios as subsidiaries, allowing them to autonomously handle all processes from content creation to distribution.
In the end, WMA and MWMA had long become a music festival and a business arena for the 4 major agencies and the two distribution giants, rather than authoritative award ceremonies.
Of course, the groups with overwhelmingly successful results that occasionally emerged couldn’t be ignored.
Anyway, MWMA awarded the Rookie of the Year to our project group ‘Seven’ from Mwave, making ‘Pure Girls,’ a group from the fourth largest agency ‘RepRo,’ forfeit their chance at the award.
Instead, ‘Pure Girls’ would receive their rookie award at WMA.
There were additional circumstances, like the rivalry between the hosting companies of WMA and MWMA.
Choco Entertainment was steadily losing talent from its higher-ups, and the competing activities of both companies were increasingly overlapping, intensifying the competition.
Naturally, from Choco Entertainment’s perspective, they wouldn’t want to give the rookie award to ‘Seven,’ which is associated with MWMA and is a project group.
But since they couldn’t only compete, they collaborated by distributing our debut song through ‘Choco Entertainment,’ yet business was business at the end of the day.
Of course, they were notoriously dismissive even to the country’s top solo female singer who won the grand prize; to them, ‘Seven’ was just a flash-in-the-pan group.
It really hit me again how in the entertainment industry, what matters are agency power and sheer recognition.
In a world full of absurdity and injustice, I found myself in despair.
Hah.
“Do-hee, stop posing and come take some pictures!”
“It’s been ages since we’ve had cake~”
…What do you know?
The members seemed to have calmed down since winning the rookie award at MWMA.
“As someone who knows Do-hee well, I can predict that she’s lining up her awards in her head.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yeah, it’s written all over your face.”
…Wow, they really do know me well.
“Do-hee~ Let’s take a picture together!”
Truthfully, they all seemed to enjoy this moment while I, apart from them, was feeling left out.
Even Sara Unni was surprisingly away from me, snapping selfies like crazy in front of the trophy.
In the end, it seems the true Rookie of the Year will be decided at the Gold Disk Awards.
I better win at least at the Gold Disk.
Sigh…
But the song from Violet Salon was really good.
I usually like indie band songs, but man, that song was really good…
*
It wasn’t like the Gold Disk Awards were happening right away.
The Gold Disk would take place in a month.
Meanwhile, there were still various music festivals, including the ones from the three major networks SBC, KBC, and MBS, as well as numerous awards left to attend.
And to practice for the special stage of the year-end performances, we arrived at the rehearsal studio of Lepro, the agency of the group ‘Pure Girls.’
“But wow, this rehearsal studio is massive! The ceiling is three stories high!”
Among the four major agencies, Lepro, the wealthiest of them all, had an impressively large rehearsal room.
Three members were already there.
It seemed I was the last one to arrive because I was busy filming an advertisement.
“Hello, I’m Do-hee Lee from Seven! Nice to meet you!”
Our special stage team was named ‘Magmaks.’
It was a team formed solely of the youngest members from various rookie girl groups that were nominated for this year’s Rookie of the Year award.
The members were as follows:
Minju from Navy A, 18 years old.
Natsuyo from Catch One, 17 years old.
And of course, Lucy from Pure Girls, who won the Rookie of the Year award at WMA, also 17 years old.
Lastly, of course, there’s me, Do-hee… a middle schooler.
While I’m glad to debut at a young age, sometimes I can’t help but feel a bit regretful.
Anyway, I didn’t think Pure Girls had snatched the Rookie of the Year award from me, so I had no plans to avoid those members.
After all, Pure Girls were victims facing unjust criticism.
It’s the organizers and the agencies with issues, not the members; what crimes have they committed?
I’m not a child, and I can separate public and private matters.
I just wanted to maintain a reasonable business-like distance while being amicably friendly.
“Wow, your skin is so nice!?”
“Let’s get close, older sister!”
Of course, it seemed I was a bit late.
Lucy from Pure Girls kept sticking close to me since a while ago.
In fact, all the temporary team members were sticking close.
“Wow, you look like a real doll! But I’ve been watching ‘Attack 3’ during my breaks! We’ll be seeing each other often, so let’s be close!”
“Hello! I’m really a fan too!”
Everyone was in a cozy atmosphere, doting on the new youngest member.
It’s nice to be liked, but… sigh.
After a few hours of practice, the awkwardness disappeared, and the team members who had gotten closer to each other felt no hesitation in being physical.
“Wow, Do-hee’s cheeks are so soft!”
“Come on, yours are too!”
“Still, I think middle schoolers are softer, right!?”
Even when we gather among the youngest, it’s still tough being the youngest.
Could you please stop touching me already…?
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