Fans Furious After “2022 Genie Music Awards” Revokes 1.6 Million Votes For BLACKPINK

Fans are calling for a boycott of the award show.

The Genie Music Awards is set to return to an in-person ceremony with a live audience for the first time in three years on November 8 at Namdong Gymnasium in Incheon. Fans have been excitedly voting for their favorite artists in anticipation of the event.

Voting began on October 6 and is open to voters with an official Korean ID or a Korean phone number until November 3. While international K-Pop fans may not be able to vote for their faves in every available category, they can vote for the GMA Idol Plus Global Popularity Award.

Nominated for the GMA Idol Plus Global Popularity Award this year are 36 artists, including BLACKPINKIVENewJeansATEEZStray KidsPSYSEVENTEENBTS, and many more.

The Genie Music Awards selects winners based on Genie Music chart data, online voting, and judge evaluation. Votes have steadily been rolling in from K-Pop fans around the world, as they eagerly contributed to the chance of their favorite artist winning the global popularity award.

On October 19, Genie Music released a formal notice that they would be revoking votes for BLACKPINK and PSY, as Genie Music shared they had noticed “abnormal traffic” that they “recognized as fraudulent [votes].”

Formal announcement made by Genie Music

Genie Music announced that their solution to the alleged fraudulent voting would be to revoke 1,627,041 votes from BLACKPINK and 306,908 votes from PSY.

The decision was met with immediate outrage from fans, who had been tracking the votes for BLACKPINK and noted the votes had been steadily rising over time, which seemed to conflict with the claim there was abnormal traffic.

Before the votes were revoked, BLACKPINK was in third place overall with over 1.7 million votes; after Genie Music took away votes, the group dropped to fifth place.

Fans were bewildered, wondering how 1.7 million votes could be considered an abnormally high number when the poll was open to fans around the globe. Fans noted that the group even has a voting poll on Mubeat that has accumulated over 6 million votes, showing that the 1.7 million votes they held for the GMA Idol Plus Global Popularity Award weren’t an absurd number for the superstar K-Pop group.

After voting for BLACKPINK daily and seeing their efforts discredited and disregarded, fans began to trend “BOYCOTT GENIE AWARDS” on Twitter, with the number of tweets associated with the hashtag rapidly growing.

As fans continue to voice their anger at the situation, neither IdolPlus nor Genie Music has made any additional statements regarding the matter.

(From left to right) BLACKPINK’s Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa, and Rosé | @ygofficialblink/Twitter
Source: IdolPlus

Idols Done Dirty