With the start of the online voting for the 32nd Seoul Music Awards, some voting teams of ARMYs and STAYs revealed their plan to "boycott" the ceremony.
Here's what happened.
32nd Seoul Music Awards Opens Online Voting For Nominees
On December 6, the 32nd Seoul Music Awards (SMA) finally opened its mobile voting for the public. The categories, which will require online votes as criteria, include the main award (Bonsang) Rookie of the Year, Popularity Award, K-Wave Award, OST Award, Trot Award, Ballad Award, and R&B/Hip Hop Award.
Among the aforementioned categories, the winners of the Popularity Award (domestic voting result) and the K-Wave Award (overseas voting result) will be selected purely by fans' votes. While the remaining awards will be determined based on judges' evaluations, album and song sales in 2022 as well as 30% on mobile voting.
Nominees were particularly selected from artists who released albums and sound sources from January to December 2022 based on the Hanteo Chart.
The first round of voting for SM will be held from 12 p.m. KST on the 6th to 11:59 p.m. KST on December 25. The second round of voting is from noon on the 27th to 11:59 p.m. KST on January 15, 2023.
Currently, Lim Young Woong is reigning in the Bonsang category, LE SSERAFIM in the rookie award while BTS sits atop K-Wave award category.
Stray Kids, BTS Voting Teams Announce Plan To Boycott Voting For Seoul Music Awards
Many K-pop fandoms are attempting to secure a title from the awards ceremony for their favorite artists, but the "boycott" movement of some voting teams is drawing attention.
Starting with Stray Kids, one of its voting teams with 36.5k followers announced on Twitter its decision not to push through with Seoul Music Awards poll.
In an official statement, it released on December 6, it laid down 3 reasons they decided not to participate.
First, they brought back the incident last 2021 where winners were said to be decided already even prior to the end of the voting period, reflecting that the awards don't properly consider the 30% criteria from mobile voting.
The voting team also decided to reserve their ruby chamsims for IDOLCHAMP and monetary resources for Stray Kids succeeding comebacks.
📣 NOTICE: Seoul Music Awards (SMA) pic.twitter.com/OsCG1Te6ZG
— TeamSVS (@TeamSVS) December 5, 2022
Similar to them, some voting teams and fanbases of BTS also declared a boycott of the vote, saying:
"There was no feedback and no apology for the damage suffered by the fandom every year."
However, it is known that overseas fandom continues to vote.
If BTS win, all members will win. We are not going to let other members lose, all SEVEN of them will receive the thropy as a BTS. You can vote as your preference but BVB will stand on our ground to always support BTS as a group because we are mainly OT7 fanbase, thank you 💜.
— BTS Voting Brigade (REST) (@votingbrigade) December 6, 2022
Meanwhile, The 32nd Seoul Music Awards ceremony will be held on January 19, 2023, at KSPO DOME (formerly Gymnastics Stadium) in Olympic Park, Songpa-gu, Seoul.
READ MORE: 32nd Seoul Music Awards Nominees Revealed (2023) + How to Vote
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Written by Eunice Dawson.
