Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
As a part of an engaging interview Epik High did with Tamar Herman for Forbes, one interesting tidbit that somehow didn’t make the article was about how Tablo and the group deal with awards shows and how those awards shows work.
There was a lot said in the room that day, but this has been something that I keep thinking about since it is year-end award season. It didn’t really fit into the piece but I wanted to share this bit from the transcript. pic.twitter.com/ESj3KPZScv
— Tamar Herman (@TamarWrites) December 28, 2018
Yeah, so nothing new revealed, but nice to see it cemented as reality for anybody who for whatever reason still didn’t believe this was how it worked. Believe it or not, they’re out there.
As I was reading through the comments about Tablo’s thoughts, one popular rebuttal on the K-pop subreddit did kind of surprise me, and the misunderstanding of the criticism of awards is understandable if that’s genuinely what they thought people like me were cynical about.
Yeah, Tablo definitely didn’t do what the last sentence says, and he in fact was quite diplomatic about things. Regardless, I don’t think anybody’s argument (or certainly not mine) is that the awards season is meaningless to the artists themselves or to their fans or even for marketing/ratings purposes. By all means, they should celebrate that and be celebrated and make money or whatever. Have fun.
Rather, the meaninglessness comes into play when talking about the merit of the award and what it’s supposed to represent. If the award would not be given to an artist if they’re not popular enough or they’re not going to attend or for any other asinine reason like that, then it obviously has to impact the integrity of said award. Because at that point it’s clearly less about what it’s supposed to represent and more is simply a trophy for a quid pro quo business deal. And that’s absolutely not something fandoms should parade around as evidence that oppars and unnirs are amazing musicians or whatever, starting fanwars that results in people getting doxed and shit. Like it doesn’t even really mean anything. My god, ease the asshole.
Plus, Korean music shows/awards are generally even worse than the major events international fans are accustomed to, because while shows like the Academy Awards and Grammy Awards are also more about politics than merit, at least they aren’t almost entirely based on whoever “outsold”. Or worse, making up categories to fabricate a way to give attendees some kind of award. It’s why while it’s valid to criticize something like the Korean Music Awards, the reason I even bother covering those results and not the rest is because at least it’s based on critics voting and not just based on various means of calculating popularity. Like is it truly interesting to find out that BTS, EXO, TWICE, and the like are popular? Like no shit they’re popular. The more interesting and more relevant angle is the subjective debate about who had the best music, videos, and even branding. That’s also how you find new things to enjoy rather than just affirming
for a goddamn month that popular artists are popular.
Furthermore, we could get into how these awards things are just industry circlejerks intended as a cynical attempt to boost sales and pat themselves on the back for being good people while doing insanely fucked up shit behind the scenes, but that digresses from the point of why people have issues with the awards themselves so we can skip that discussion.
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All that complaining aside, it’s a lot of fun to grab popcorn and watch stans melt down about this stuff and do shit like calling the Blue House, so by all means continue.
