Why I Hate Music Shows, Part 4: The Ugly Hierarchy of Fandoms

If you’ve followed my rants and ravings over the past weeks, then I hope that you’ve at least begun to question the efficacy of the Kpop music show. Of what use is a non-live broadcast of musical performance where nothing is gained by the competition and the judgment is suspect? The answer, I would argue, is, very little.

But the number one reason why I don’t support music shows has, in some ways, nothing to do with the shows themselves, or with their supposed usefulness or importance. The biggest issue with music shows is that the ugly hierarchy of exclusivity it creates between and among fandoms harms the wider Kpop community.

Intra-fandom Strife

Kpop fans interested in attending one of the popular music shows will learn very quickly that there’s no central repository or marketplace for tickets. If you want to see your favorite idol, you need to be prepared for an early morning, a long wait, and for a complete stranger to measure your worth as a fan and assign your place in the Kpop caste system.

Music show producers do not intentionally create hierarchies within fandoms. If anything, the only intentionality that the producers display is a desire to avoid responsibility over fans as far as possible. Producers delegate the whole process of determining which fans set foot inside their facility to the various fandom managers. The producers set the number of fans that will be allowed to attend, and then leave the fans to organize themselves.

Over time, this has developed into a very specific system whereby each fan is assigned worth, mostly based on fandom membership and the fan’s spending power. A typical queue for entering a music show will first prioritize official fandom members who have bought the new album, have proof of a digital download, and sometimes even an official poster. Within the subset of individuals who meet that criteria, a more traditional method of first-come, first-in-line is used. The next few sections of the line will also favor official fandom members who may not have purchased all of the new gear. Basically, the less money you’ve spent, the further down the line you’ll be. Finally, after all official fandom members have taken their place in the queue, then, and only then, will non-members be allowed to join. And again, preference will be given to spending power. Have the new album, proof of download, and a poster? Great, you’re in line ahead of the person with only the album. Make sense? Priority one is for official fandom members, priority two is for spending power, and priority three is for how early you get there.

Let’s talk first about priority one: official fandom membership. Favoring official members sounds fairly normal. If a fandom is only given a certain number of tickets, that fandom will naturally want to assure that those few tickets go to devoted fans. But in some cases, this only serves to cover a more subtle form of discrimination. For example, some fandoms have not accepted new memberships in several years (e.g. SHINee, for one), meaning that there is an implicit value assigned to the length of one’s fanship. Moreover, in the case of a closed fandom, there is no way for a new, devoted fan to accelerate his or her worth. Tough luck, in other words. The person who registered as a fan years ago, who may or may not have maintained their earlier level of enthusiasm, who may or may not have bothered to buy the new album, this person will always be valued as more worthy than you.

But no matter, you can still prove your worth in dollars. Buy more swag than the fan next to you and you’ll be assigned a spot in line ahead of them. Again, while this practice seemingly makes sense, it rewards the view that the “true fan” is the one who spends the most money on their bias. This is an ugly way to treat human beings. It equates them with “consumers,” with credit cards and spending potential. Yes, purchasing an album is a way of supporting your bias. A piece of that revenue (a very small piece) goes directly to the idol, and allows him or her to continue performing. But not every fan has the spending power to buy three new albums per year, digitally download in duplicate, and purchase various fandom swag. Not everyone is so fortunate. And for those fans who do struggle with money, who wonder if they should buy groceries or the newest album, I say this to you: Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not a fan, or that their existence as a fan is more important than yours. If that means not attending music shows, then don’t attend music shows. There is no reason to support such an institution.

The truth is that the current method of queuing fans for music shows creates a nasty hierarchy of perceived fan worth. For some, the allure of being “important” is so strong that they would rather be a big fish in a small pond. Those fans are likely to hop from debut group to debut group, constantly seeking a position of power as a “first,” “original,” or “true” fan.

This admission system also serves to entirely bar entry for many. If your fandom is assigned 250 seats and 300 official fandom members show up, there’s a good chance you’re not getting in. And for the casual fan, don’t even think about it.

Inter-fandom Strife

Given all the (perceived) pressure for Kpop groups to “win” music shows, some level of animosity between various fandoms is to be expected. There is constant speculation and accusation regarding cheating, most of it leveled at the other, overly-aggressive fandoms (never one’s own!). And this bad blood will often spill over into message boards and comment threads, where so-called representatives of various fandoms will condemn or support various other groups in a confusing, Disney-version of a faux-political battle-royale.

But this isn’t the type of inter-fandom strife I worry about. There’s so much vinegar and hate on the internet that we often forget about or ignore some of the more worrying in-person variations. For example, when attending a Kpop music show, fans are warned against cheering too loudly for another group. Think that Red Velvet performed well and deserves your applause? Think again. You’re in the SNSD section. Shut it down.

And this is not to pick on SONEs or any other group. All fandoms do this, and it is a direct result of the admission practices described above. It would be considered bad form and a strict “no-no” to pretend to be a fan of another group only to attain a seat. Because there are no general admission tickets, because there are so few seats assigned to each fandom, because it is so difficult to get into a music show, fans will naturally turn against any member of their group who may be seen as having snuck in under false pretenses. I’m sympathetic to that point of view. What bothers me is that Kpop music shows, through their own laziness and irresponsibility, have created a system which discourages the audience from regarding the performers with even a basic level of respect, and which lumps individual audience members into broad categories irrespective of their own self-determination.

The best example of the synecdochic treatment of audience members as representatives of their entire fandom can be found in the ban on taking photos. Presumably, this ban exists because the show isn’t broadcast live, so photos being posted during the recording would be seen as a “leak” and further evidence of the show’s shambolic formatting. The punishment for violating this ban, though, is the barring of all members of the fandom from attendance. This might sound like a fair measure, and one that would keep everyone in line (the members of each group become the enforcers of the rules). But it also equates individual human beings with the broad category of their fandom. Surely we would stand up and revolt in the instance that the prosecution of an Italian shoplifter led to the imprisonment of all Italians. What does a broad categorization have to do with individual action? Would we really expect Italian citizens to be the enforcers of honesty in all Italians? Would that even be possible? What is to stop one rotten apple from ruining the bunch? Nothing, of course. Aside from Kpop music shows’ poor understanding of how morality works, they make it so much worse when they equate one VIP with all VIPs.

The simple fix, of course, would be for music shows to open their tickets to the general audience. Sell tickets (or give them away) like any other event or venue. Set a date and time when the tickets will go on sale, and let fans click a button on their computers or phones. Yes, tickets will sell out in a matter of seconds. But think of the time-savings as compared with waiting in line for hours. More importantly, opening up tickets creates a system where any fan could feasibly attend.

Fans of every variety could show up to witness and celebrate the music they love. Foreign fans, casual fans, fans that have more than one bias. Music shows would benefit from all of these groups, as an audience which wants to watch and hear Kpop no matter which artist is performing will be a much better audience than one which wants the other groups to get the hell off the stage so they can watch their own bias already.

This system wouldn’t necessarily be perfect. Music shows would almost have to get rid of any sort of fan voting, as it would be weighted in favor of the larger groups (more fans = more people clicking on the link to buy tickets = more chance of attendance). But, hey, live fan voting was broken to begin with, so nothing lost there. The biggest drawback from opening up tickets to general sale would be that fans would no longer be able to sit in the same section as their fellow supporters.

Some will argue that these fan sections aid in the organization of fan-chants, and creates a general camaraderie. Creating fan sections is a common element to nearly all sporting events, after all. And I would be willing to buy into that argument if music shows operated anything like sporting events (see parts 1 and 2). But they don’t. These are semi-live performances put on by the top-charting idols. The competition aspects are completed before the performance begins, and any “live” judgment is entirely subject to bias. During the show, there is really no need for an outpouring of specific support. Your bias would probably rather have an entire arena cheering for them than one small section in the corner of the venue. There’s no need for enmity between fandoms, as there is no active competition between artists.

It would help tremendously, in fact, if music shows were treated as entertainment rather than competition. Yes, go, attend! Cheer because your bias walks on stage! Be entertained! But do not confuse spectacle for competition. The person next to you who cheers for a different artist is actually on your side. Both of you love Kpop. Both of you should heartily enjoy the whole show, not spend three minutes in orgasmic, asphyxiating ecstasy only to spend the next three hours giving all other groups the stink-eye.

And that’s my biggest beef with Kpop music shows. They simply haven’t taught us how to love the music we claim as our own. Instead, music shows have given us division, derision, and inhumane exclusion. I think it’s about time that stopped.


Zander Stachniak is a southern-born, Chicago-based writer who first discovered Kpop through ShoutCast Radio. His biases are f(x) and Block B.

Why I Hate Music Shows, Part 3: The Format

In parts one and two of the series, I took a critical look at whether or not we could consider music shows to be actual competitions. Today, I’m turning my attention to the format of the shows to discuss how they use (and abuse) spectacle, illusion, and co-presence to create a show that is anything but live. And while that might be fine for certain kinds of television, it’s antithetical and harmful to one based on “live performance.”

It’s a grand illusion.

What is a live broadcast? Most people would define it as a direct broadcast from the source with little or no time-delay. A live broadcast maintains a high degree of authenticity. If this is happening live, the thinking goes, then there is no chance for the performance or the results to be doctored. And that concept of authenticity is incredibly important for things like sporting events and live performances.

It shouldn’t really come as any surprise that Kpop music shows are not live. There are fairly obvious signals if you pay attention to the broadcast. And yet, each of these shows assumes the posture of a live broadcast. They pretend. And this isn’t really that weird. There are hundreds of shows that adopt the rhetoric of live TV while still being pre-recorded. It’s all to create an illusion called co-presence, where the viewer is able to believe that he or she is connected to those on television through time if not space. A perfect example in Western culture is the late night show, typically filmed in the afternoon and then broadcast later against backdrops of the city skyline at night.

Creating the illusion of live TV is not necessarily a problem. Kpop music shows, however, aren’t any good at maintaining the illusion.

The format ruins the spectacle.

Television is based around spectacle. A spectacle, from the Latin “spectaculum,” is a public show, especially one that is large-scale and designed for entertainment. Before the advent of TV and internet, these public shows required physical presence. Nowadays, the spectacle includes both the live audience and the viewers at home, joining them together in co-presence. For that joining of audiences to work, the illusion of live broadcast must be maintained.

Kpop music shows struggle with this part, and that has everything to do with the format they employ. For a typical broadcast, a music show will first begin with the pre-recordings, which start early in the morning. Many groups will pre-record their entire performance, and the producers work hard to fill the seats with screaming fans throughout the day. They hustle fans in and out to ensure that the right fandom is screaming their fanchant for the right group. Even the MCs pre-record much of their script.

The idea here is that the producers will splice all these pre-recordings together along with the small portions of the show that are done live. The problem is that this splicing is clumsy and ruins any chance at co-presence. Every week, the viewer at home will watch a group perform one song, then, without even a commercial break, magically be on stage once more in a different outfit, in front of a different background, performing a different song. Obviously, one (or maybe both) of these has been pre-recorded, but the Kpop music shows make no effort to hide this fact. For the viewers at home, this ceases to be a spectacle in which they can believe they are a part.

And it’s even worse for the fans in the audience. While these pre-recorded segments are airing live, the various groups will come out on stage, wave their little hats, and blow a few kisses. “Look,” they seem to say to the audience, “Look what we did while you weren’t here.” Sometimes those recordings were made as much as a week ahead of time, following the recording of the prior week’s show. For all their production value, Kpop music shows ruin their potential as spectacles by failing to maintain the illusion of live broadcast and co-presence for both the live audience and the viewers at home.

The music is painfully, dreadfully, not live.

Aside from the issues of format and illusion, the Kpop music shows produce very little that can be considered “live music.” And for a show that is based around showcasing musical performance, this is wholly unsuitable.

The most frequent discussion around live performance typically centers around the issue of lip-syncing. The argument goes something like this. Those who believe that lip-syncing is an acceptable part of live performance typically cite the high degree of difficulty of Kpop dances, claiming that the required movement and heavy-breathing naturally affects vocal performance. To give fans the best performance possible, groups should be allow to lip-sync. Those on the other side of spectrum, however, see no reason to alter vocals. For what reason, they might ask, would we watch our idols perform live if not to hear their live vocals?

The co-Producer of Show! Music Core, Park Hyun Suk, famously weighed in on this issue by claiming that his show would be taking steps to eliminate lip-syncing. In an interview he claimed that, "Ultimately, one needs to sing at least 50% [of the song] live...K-pop is now influencing the world. As much as it is receiving a lot of interest, the standards of the international fans will also get higher.”

And he is right about one thing. Kpop is receiving much more scrutiny these days, and an inability to sing live is sure to draw negative criticism. But this viewer cannot help but note the hypocrisy in Park Hyun Suk’s statement. Not only is he ignoring the fact that the majority of all music shows are pre-recorded and, therefore, no different from lip-syncing; not only is he promoting a definition of live music that sets the bar at a dangerously low threshold of 50%; not only is he unaware that his own show films live performances in the same style as music videos, thereby creating a desire in the audience for the same level of vocal enhancement heard on the album; but he is also ignoring the fact that it is impossible, as in literally not allowed, for a Kpop artist to play an instrument live on stage.

Toy instruments make for pretend performance.

None of the Kpop music shows make it possible for artists to play live music on their shows. That might sound like an issue that only applies to rock bands. The big name group import their synthesized tunes from a factory somewhere in the Nordic peninsula, after all. But the very reason why idols are allowed to lip-sync at all is because there is no opportunity for live instrumentation. No live instrumentation means that a MR (music recorded) track must be piped into the sound system, and from that point it is all too easy to start adding pre-recorded vocals. Just a section here and there quickly becomes the majority of the song.

For groups that actually do play instruments, they have zero ability to translate that into live performance. This was painfully obvious with Wonder Girls’ recent comeback in which the women took up instruments that looked very much like the toys they were. The instruments were not connected to the sound board, and Wonder Girls did not waste much effort on acting. No matter that Wonder Girls actually can play their instruments; on a show like Show! Music Core, they are not allowed to plug them in. And the same is true for more established bands like Nell and CNBLUE.

Wonder Girls performing "I Feel You" on Show! Music Core

Maybe what is so disturbing about this inability to accommodate live instrumentation is that there is no reason for it. The producers will, of course, cite the difficulties involved in set-up and breakdown for multiple bands. But this is misdirection, pure and simple. The average comeback stage is every bit as time-intensive in terms of production value.

Furthermore, if we are willing to accept the format of Kpop music shows as being pre-recorded, then where’s the problem? Set them up early, record them early, and break them down early. If that’s not good enough, a two-stage system is an easy fix. Ultimately this lack of live instrumentation is limiting for Kpop artists. Their only option right now, though Park Hyun Suk and his peers won’t want to admit it, is to rely on pre-recorded music.

The joy of watching our favorite idols perform on stage should be the ability to watch them, live, in real-time (or at least the illusion of real-time), using their own vocals and (if desired) playing their own instruments. The problem is that the Kpop music shows make this impossible with their draconian format.

Join me next week for the final part of the series in which I take on...fandoms!


Zander Stachniak is a southern-born, Chicago-based writer who first discovered Kpop through ShoutCast Radio. His biases are f(x) and Block B.

Why I Hate Music Shows, Part 2: System of Judgment

In part one of the series, I explored how music shows fail to satisfy two of the most fundamental requirements of a meaningful contest: positive reward structure and even competition. Today, I’ll tackle the rules and system of judgment of Kpop music shows. Rules are important to any competition. The methods by which performers will be judged must be performance-based, quantifiable, publicly disclosed, and subject to review. Without these basic conditions, there’s no contest.

Premature Judgment

Let’s start with the conceit that Kpop music shows judge the performance of the idols that appear each week. To my knowledge, none of the shows we’re discussing actually make this claim, but the insinuation is almost overwhelming. Week in and week out, we gather the top artists in Kpop and, after seeing them perform, subject them to a system of ranking whereby a “winner” is chosen. This sounds very performance-based. However, a closer look at the system of judgment will show that the majority of points assigned to the performers in all six shows are awarded prior to the “competition” ever taking place. Passing judgment prior to the performance, as you might be able to guess, does not make for a very strong competition.

But aren’t we forgetting about live voting? Yes, it’s true that several of the music shows incorporate live voting into their results by assigning it a percentage of importance, each in their own arbitrary fashion: Inkigayo (10%), Music Bank (0%), Show! Music Core (15%), M! Countdown (10%), Show Champion (0%), and The Show (30%). Obviously, The Show is a huge outlier at 30%. Consider that in Inkigayo and M! Countdown, 90% of the results are pre-determined. And given that only the top three artists are eligible for live voting, this method can only ever hope to determine the winner in an extremely close contest. For Music Bank and Show Champion, the winner is known before the show even begins. At best, this is premature. At worst, this is the apotheosis of meaningless competition.



Where the Points Don’t Matter!

All but one of these shows uses what is called a majoritarian voting scheme (i.e. voting for your favorite, rather than ranking each choice in order of preference). Majoritarian schemes are weighted heavily in favor of the largest source. For example, since there are so many millions of views on YouTube, this site would be overwhelmingly important in comparison to album purchases, where a strong showing for the entire year might net a group 80,000 purchases. Which leads to the weighting system that every music show uses, a complex scale designed to proportionalize votes, views, and purchases that is absolutely and completely arbitrary. How much more important is a stream than a YouTube view? 5% more important? How about 7.2%? Why not 14%? The truth is that any weighted system is organized under the bias of its creator.

Show! Music Core is the only show using something other than majoritarian voting, with viewers required to vote for two artists at once, not just their bias. It’s a nice idea, that the second vote might actually be an unbiased indication of who deserves to win. But, of course, fans have learned a way around this system: they don’t vote for the better artist for their second vote, they vote for the one less likely to beat their bias. Or, they coordinate and split their votes between the other artists to mitigate this effect. It is, once again, an imperfect system which only serves to make the margin of victory much narrower.

To be fair to music shows, a perfect voting system does not exist, the proof of which fact earned Kenneth Arrow a nobel prize in 1972. But that tidbit is not meant to excuse music shows. There is always an element of error in any contest, whether it be in judgment or application of the rules. But the arbiters of the contest are not expected to throw their hands in the air and give up. The onus is on them to create a meaningful contest that performers want to compete in and fans want to watch.

Music Show or Music Chart?

It would be much more appropriate to label music shows as hosting live performances of the top songs on the Kpop music chart. In other words, no competition involved. After all, each of these shows are, without exception, tracking two things: sales and fan engagement.

Music charts, just like search results on the internet, are a form of rank aggregation, the social welfare function of which is precision and recall. When you search the internet for Chicago Bulls, you’re not likely to be seeking the history of meat-packing in the early industrial midwest. Google and others have reviewed the millions of other searches for this term to determine the most relevant information. Similarly, music charts are not designed as a competition. They are designed to quickly and precisely tell us which song has the most plays, purchases, or hashtag mentions. Competition is irrelevant.

The True Nature of Hallyu Economics

If you’re living in Korea right now, you’re probably not reading this. If you’re anywhere else in the world, there’s a portion of some music shows that you simply cannot participate in (e.g. voting in Inkigayo or Music Bank), and an even bigger portion that is extremely cumbersome.

All music shows use the Hanteo and Gaon charts to measure album and single purchases and streams. And the only vendors which report their sales to the Hanteo and Gaon charts? You guessed it, Korean vendors (along with some various Asian vendors). While many of these sites are not accessible to foreigners, some are, albeit in Korean. Signing up for an account on Melon, for example, requires the help of a step-by-step tutorial and a whole lot of patience. I’ve tried.

It might surprise you that even with the huge popularity of Kpop in the international community, none of these music shows have made any movement to get the global community involved. They are surprisingly unwelcoming to non-Koreans. That’s not necessarily a reason not to watch, but it does raise an interesting question. Given the popularity of Kpop abroad, why do these music shows not want to reach out to the international audience?

The answer is economics. First, international viewers are unlikely to be able to watch the live broadcast inside of Korea. If you’re not watching live, then the broadcasting company isn’t making money off of advertisements. And if they’re not making money off of you, they really don’t care. There’s no incentive for KBS and MBC and the rest to encourage international participation in the show. And second, this is all part of former President Kim Dae-Jung’s initiative to make Korean culture a major export. That initiative laid the foundation for today’s Kpop, and it’s hard to imagine that President Kim Dae-Jung did not have economics in mind. In terms of export, selling a single on Melon is a lot different than selling it on iTunes (and, no surprise here, iTunes does not count in the Hanteo or Gaon charts). Whatever influence the government holds over major entertainment and broadcast companies in Korea, that influence is likely wielded to ensure that as much foreign money as possible is brought into the country in exchange for the Hallyu export. Apple’s notorious 30% cut isn’t what President Kim had in mind.

Opacity and Lack of Oversight

Oh, there’s plenty of other issues with the voting system of Kpop music shows. They are notoriously opaque when it comes to disclosing how the votes, views, purchases, etc. are counted and weighted. Many shows do release a weekly count of the points at the end of the night. However, they do not release anything close to raw data.

Instead of showing how many SMS votes they received, how many YouTube views, etc., these shows release adjusted numbers with no explanation as to their relationship with raw data. Proprietary information, maybe. But for viewers of the show, it means that there is no check against corruption. There is no openness. And that ruins any chance at positive competition. When the performers and fans cannot be assured of a fair contest, there is no reason to compete.

This opacity also lowers the importance of these shows as music charts. If we can’t understand what these charts are measuring, then they lose their usefulness as barometers of success. If I can’t understand how Big Bang’s Inkigayo win on August 23 (11,000 points) compares to INFINITE’s July 24 win on Music Bank (6,770 points) or to Exo’s June 18 win on M! Countdown (9,238 points), then of what use are these shows?

Inkigayo, Music Bank, Show! Music Core, M! Countdown, Show Champion, and The Show are all desperately trying to create drama to entice us to turn on the TV. They all deliberately obscure the results of what should be a fairly straightforward music chart. In attempting to turn these music charts into a faux competition they’ve created an unwieldy beast that, if we’re not careful, might just gobble Kpop whole. Please, I beg you, let’s not feed the beast.

Join me next week as I take a look at the format of music shows. That can’t be too bad, right?

Zander Stachniak is a southern-born, Chicago-based writer who first discovered Kpop through ShoutCast Radio. His biases are f(x) and Block B.

Why I Hate Music Shows, Part 1: Meaningless Competition

During the promotion cycle, Kpop idols perform almost every day as part of a series of music shows. Inkigayo, Music Bank, Show! Music Core, M! Countdown, Show Champion, and The Show all purport to be a barometer of success in the Korean music industry. The idols perform as much as six times a week to screaming fans, hundreds of them live and millions over broadcast TV. The fans go wild. They vote. Idols win. They thank us. They cry. The only problem? All of it is meaningless.

Look, I’m no grouch. I’m no anti-fan and I can’t stand netizens. But I’ve got a major bone to pick with Kpop music shows, and I’m going to spell out my gripes in a multi-part series. Why? Because someone’s got to do it. More seriously, though, music shows have earned their importance in the sphere of Kpop through our rabid and unthinking attention. If there’s even the smallest, tiniest chance that turning a critical lens on these music shows could force them to change for the better, then I believe we’ve got to try.

In parts one and two of the series, I’ll explore how music shows fail to satisfy the three basic requirements of a meaningful contest: positive reward structure, even competition, and publicly disclosed and quantifiable methods of judgment.

No Positive Reward Structure

One of the first tenets of a meaningful contest is that there be the promise of a real reward for the winner. Even among friends, the first question after a challenge is suggested will inevitably be, “what will I win?” The promise of a reward ensures that there is ample motivation among all competitors. This reward can take many forms, the most common of which is either a monetary prize or some kind of exclusive recognition. Often it is both. For example, the winner of the Pacquiao / Mayweather, Jr. fight won the title of welterweight champion, a snazzy emerald-studded belt, and a percentage of revenue estimated to rise to a cool $700 million. That kind of money is an extreme case, yes, but even the winner of the Dota 2 Championships in Seattle this past month was competing for a prize of about $18 million. Money, as most of us can attest, is a real motivator.

Monetary prizes from Kpop music shows, on the other hand, are organized under the category of “talent fees.” In other words, a group or artist might get paid to appear on the show, but that fee has nothing to do with winning or losing. More problematically, the fee is low enough that smaller entertainment agencies have repeatedly complained that the fees do not even cover the cost of preparations for appearing.

But money isn’t everything, right? Increasingly, in the modern era, the monetary prize has become secondary as part of the reward structure. Yes, there is a monetary prize for winning the Champions League in European soccer (about $60 million goes to the club), but for the majority of players, the money they earn through advertising deals or expanded contracts is worth far more than victory in that particular competition. These tangential earnings make monetary rewards much less important in many modern competitions. But tangential earnings, not being directly tied to the competition itself, cannot be treated as a factor in meaningful competition. Lebron James and Steph Curry did not face off in the NBA finals for the chance to represent Nike in TV ads. Instead, for many contests, recognition is the main reward.

Consider the Olympics, a competition which offers an amusingly small amount of cash to victors (Americans earn $25,000 for gold). However, the recognition which these athletes receive is great enough that a significant reward structure is still in place. Positive recognition in competition is based on earning the exclusive right of some superlative moniker (e.g. “gold medalist,” “champion,” “world’s greatest,” etc.) for a specific period of time. And that period of time must be sufficiently long that the victor is able to benefit from such a title, typically at least one year (this is where those tangential earnings come into play).

Compare that to the recognition earned by winners of Kpop music shows. Champion for one week is not a sufficiently powerful motivator. And when you consider the number of music shows every week, and how the cast of competitors hardly changes from day to day, for many groups, it’s more likely they will be considered champions for a day. A single day. To put this in perspective, every fan of American football could tell you who the most recent Super Bowl champions are. I doubt any Kpop fan could reliably tell you the winner of Show! Music Core for any specific week in the last year.



Furthermore, it is unclear whether a single victory in a music show would have any bearing on potential earnings through advertisement or sponsorship deals. While a victory does represent some measure of success, it is hardly a recognition that offers any kind of exclusivity when there will be upwards of three-hundred victors in a single year. There are much better measures of success in the music industry, including album sales, streaming numbers, concert tickets, and size of fandom. Even tangential rewards are an unlikely result from music shows.

Unfortunately, the only real reward structure for Kpop music shows is a brief validation and fleeting “good feelings” for the victor. Those are not un-powerful things. We’ve all seen the videos of idols breaking down into tears after their first victory. But those feelings must be extremely short-lived when the idols are expected to perform in an almost identical competition the very next day. Is it any wonder that we talk about burnout and the need for idols to rest after the promotion cycle? The only reward seems to be that they were allowed to compete in the first place, a dubious reward to be sure.

Lack of Even competition

Okay, so the motivation to win might be lacking in music shows, but at least we still get to witness our idols duking it out in a fair competition. Right? Um, sure, if your idea of a fair fight is to pit Exo against a nugu in a popularity contest. Anyone familiar with Kpop music shows will be aware of one very simple fact: the biggest groups almost always win.

Let’s get one thing perfectly straight here. There is no judgment of music, talent, or performance on any of the Kpop music shows. The victor is determined purely based on purchases, views, and votes, none of which is an inherent indicator of the quality of the release. These three factors are, however, indicators of popularity and of fan engagement.

The Kpop groups with larger fandoms have an obvious advantage in music shows. And if you don’t think about it too hard, that makes sense. If you have more fans, you must have earned them through your music, so it’s an earned advantage, right? Completely fair.



Yes and no. In an even contest, there must be rules and mitigating factors in place that level the playing field. Just because the New York Yankees have more money and more fans, it doesn’t mean they start the game with more runs. It doesn’t mean that if their fans buy enough commemorative bobble-head dolls and ice-creams in plastic replica caps that their team stands a greater chance of winning on that day. But in music shows, purchases, views, and votes are all easily manipulated by fandoms, and the group with the most fans will almost always win.

Engagement matters too. As we’ll see in part two, many of the factors that influence outcomes are spammable. Five million YouTube views does not mean five million unique views, and twenty thousand album sales does not mean twenty thousand unique sales. A well-organized fandom can challenge a larger fandom and win. The only problem here is that the largest fandoms in Kpop (e.g. SONEs, EXO-L, ELFs, VIP, Shawols, etc.) are also the most organized.

What I’m really getting at here is that the performance of the idols on these music shows is in no way related to the results of the contests. A popular group could give the worst performance of their lives and still come out on top. That’s because almost all of the “points” awarded in music shows are based on factors that happen outside of the competition. The music shows are a facade, a veil. They masquerade as competition, but are nothing of the sort.

But what, then, are music shows? Are they a weekly tally of the most popular group? Well, no, because the popular groups tend to avoid one another to ensure no embarrassment is meted out. The music show, to give one definition, is a weekly affirmation of the established groups over their subordinates. It is a repeated reinforcement of the status quo and the current power structure that exists in Kpop. It is a constant reminder of the Kpop hierarchy and of our place within that system (very, very low - we are the mob, granted only the right to be entertained). But expecting even competition? Not a chance.

Stay tuned for next week’s post, in which we’ll tackle the system of judgment!



Zander Stachniak is a southern-born, Chicago-based writer who first discovered Kpop through ShoutCast Radio. His biases are f(x) and Block B.