Korean netizens have accused TWICE of sajaegi after noticing a suspicious rise in sales for their new album, 'Eyes Wide Open.' Hanteo Chart has since released a statement concerning the accusations made against the girl group. Read more about it here.
On October 28, a Korean netizen shared screenshots of TWICE's album sales and pointed out the drastic rise it took. They first mention how TWICE has been averaging around 100,000 album sales for their first week sales ever since 'KNOCK KNOCK.' However, 'Eyes Wide Open' was able to sell 80,000 copies in just a minute. They claim the jump is too big from their records and accused the girls of committing sajaegi.
The netizen also commented on other TWICE albums that saw sudden jumps on the charts due to their album sales. They mentioned that 'Fancy You' suddenty sold 20,000 copies in a day, causing them to jump higher than BLACKPINK's 'Kill This Love.' The netizen accused the girls of sajaegi due to the sudden jump.
What does sajaegi mean? In the South Korean music industry, sajaegi is when a company or an artist goes to unethical and illegal methods to boost their ranks in music charts. This is done in many ways, such as bulk-buying their own CDs or using bots or computer farms to stream their song to help them rise in the music charts.
Korean netizens were convinced TWICE had done this by bulk-buying their own album, and many malicious and slandering comments and posts were made about the group.
Since then, Hanteo Chart has released a statement clarifying that TWICE did not commit sajaegi and did not do any actions to manipulate the charts. It appears the company has received many inquires concerning TWICE and their sudden rise in album sales.
Their statement reads,
"Hello, how are you doing? This is the Hanteo Charts.
We have received many comments concerning a specific artist's album sales since last week. First, we would like to apologize for the delay in our reply, as we had to check the information carefully.
We have analyzed the data in great detail and checked that the album sales were gathered from over 20 different countries.
Many malicious, defaming, and insulting accusations and rumors were created due to these accusations. It is seriously illegal to spread unconfirmed information, create malicious rumors, and/or defaming a specific individual or group.
The post we speak of can bring negative impacts and cause harm to the artist, the fandoms, and the staff in their company. We believe that these negative effects should not happen to anyone.
We have collected the data from everyone along with data from our internal monitoring team We are preparing to take strong legal action alongside our legal team.
We plan to take strict legal measures against these malicious posts and activities to better the future of K-pop. We kindly ask all users for their support and cooperation to make the culture of K-pop even more beautiful.
Additionally, Hanteo Chart will be publishing the data by collecting information from around 1,000 offline stores and online stores as well. Please note that there is a clear difference between the Hanteo Chart results and other music charts.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Hanteo Chart."
With that, the girl group has been cleared of all accusations of sajaegi. It also appears that legal action will be taken the Korean netizen who made the posts and those who spread the fake information.
What do you think of the situation?
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Written by Alexa L.
