BTS Fans Accuse the PCAs of Being Rigged
The People’s Choice Awards aired on Nov. 10. The PCAs nominated BTS for three awards: Favorite Group of 2019, Concert Tour of 2019, and Music Video of 2019. The group did not win any of the awards. BTS rarely loses fan-voted awards, and ARMY expressed confusion and disappointment over the final results. Now, BTS fans feel that the 2019 PCAs were actually rigged against BTS.
BTS led the polls on social media
Before the PCAs, E! heavily advertised BTS in commercials for the awards show. After BTS lost all three awards to Blackpink, ARMY posted their disappointment at the possibility E! used BTS to draw in viewers.
“At this point, we need to just know, with US TV awards shows, unless BTS is actually present, they will be used in promos for clout and to gain viewers…,” wrote a Twitter user.
Fans of nominated artists could vote on social media or on the PCAs website. After the voting period ended, social media accounts kept track of the results from the polls on Twitter. Once voting was completed, BTS led in all three categories they were nominated in.
In the Music Video of 2019 category, BTS ended with 40,380,100 votes on Twitter with a lead of over 19.6 million votes over Blackpink. BTS earned 25,831,400 votes in the category for Group of 2019. In comparison, Blackpink earned 3,300,420 votes in the category. For Concert Tour of 2019, BTS ended with 19,038,500 votes on Twitter and Blackpink ended with 7,195,340 votes.
Fandoms allegedly used fake email addresses to vote for the PCAs
For the PCAs, social media votes were not the only votes that counted. Fans could also vote for nominees online. The results from online voting were not accessible to the public. After the show’s results, BTS fans posted screenshots of Blackpink fans encouraging others to vote using invalid emails. This tactic is nothing new, and in 2018 fans of Harry Styles encouraged fellow fans to vote online for the PCAs using fake emails.
“YOU CAN VOTE 25 TIMES PER TWITTER ACCOUNT/PER DAY FOR THE #HarryStyles #TheStyleStar #PCAs DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME DOING INVALID VOTES! DO YOUR 25 TWITTER VOTES FAST & GO VOTE NONSTOP FOR THE TOUR/MALE CATEGORIES ON THE SITE USE MULTIPLE (fake) EMAILS,” wrote a Twitter user in 2018.
It’s unclear if the results from using invalid emails were successful. Before announcement of the results, some fans speculated that the PCAs would not count votes from invalid emails even if the votes were not rejected.
“Like I said they are probably going to delete votes from this type of emails exactly how BBMAS deleted all the votes from invalid emails #TheGroup#BTS#[email protected]_twt,” a BTS fan tweeted.
BTS fans think the PCAs may have rigged the awards show
After researching online, ARMY found the rules of voting for the PCAs. According to the official rules on the E! News website, NBC Universal has the right to select the winner in certain circumstances.
“The nominee who receives the highest number of valid votes in each category, as determined by Administrator and as described above, will be deemed the potential winner of the category; provided that in the event of technical or reporting difficulties with the Voting Methods, or in the event two or more nominees receive the same number of votes such that the finalists and/or winner(s) cannot be determined, or for any other reason NBCU deems appropriate, NBCU reserves the right to make the final determination as to which of the nominees will be declared the winner of the category,” reads the official rules.
According to this statement, NBC Universal can select the winner in any category if a winner cannot be determined from voting or “for any other reason NBCU deems appropriate.”
BTS fans expressed why they felt NBCU rigged the PCAs on social media
During and after the PCAs, ARMY trended #ThePeopleChooseBTS on Twitter. While some fans tried to keep the situation positive and focused on BTS’s achievements, others vented their frustrations on social media.
“They really tried to make us believe ARMYs lost a fan voted award and now we discover they pulled the K-Award card saying the organizers still have the final say,” one fan tweeted.
“So ur telling me bts, a group whose tour grossed $51m dollars and had 384k attendees, lost to bp whose tour grossed $3.6m dollars and had 24k attendees? A whole joke,” a fan wrote on Twitter.
Other BTS fans expressed that they are not upset that Blackpink was the group that beat BTS. Instead, fans are simply frustrated at the possibility BTS were unfairly snubbed at the PCAs.
“Armys are mad not because Blackp*nk won. Armys are mad bcos clearly we were in the lead, with huge gap in numbers, and still BTS was robbed of the awards,” a fan tweeted.
