BTS set to perform at 2020 VMAs: A look at the long-standing beef between Army and 'xenophobic' MTV awards
The 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, also known as the VMAs, will for the first time ever, see BTS, the internationally popular K-pop group. Incidentally, BTS has received nominations for Best Pop, Best K-pop, and Best Choreography.
But the BTS fan base is not happy. Not with the K-pop band. But with the VMAs. A Fan wrote on Twitter on July 31, “How did BTS, the BEST SELLING ARTISTS OF 2020 not get nominated for artists of the year? they outsold all of the artists in that category. VMA's xenophobia is strongly showing here.” another fan wrote, “How BTS BangBangCon didn't get nominated for VMA's Best Quarantine Performance. U mean it only just BROKE A GUINNESS WORLD RECORD FOR MOST VIEWED ONLINE CONCERT, had over 750K VIEWERS and made over $26.2M! wow, the biased clownery.”
how did BTS, the BEST SELLING ARTISTS OF 2020 not get nominated for artists of the year? they outsold all of the artists in that category. vma’s xenophobia is strongly showing here 🥴
— sara⁷ (@flexbangtan) July 30, 2020
There are countless tweets like these. The xenophobia allegation is not a new one. Nor is the BTS army’s dislike for the VMAs. Let’s take a look at the history of this.
In 2018, fans were livid when BTS did not receive a single nomination. This was despite the fact that the K-pop group had in its bag that same year a successful album, chart-topping songs, and video that was a hit by all known metrics -- ‘Fake Love’. At that time, BTS fans took to social media to express their outrage at the snub, even accusing MTV of xenophobia. In fact, BTS did not even make an appearance at the VMAs, possibly because of the snub.
The following year, things only got worse.
In 2019, the VMAs introduced a whole new award category: Best K-pop. With the announcement of the nominations in 2019, the band received a nomination for Best Collaboration, as well as Best Choreography and Best Art Design. But BTS did not manage to get nods in the major categories. Instead, MTV nominated the group for Best K-Pop along with other popular K-pop acts like Blackpink and Exo. This, despite the fact that just days before, BTS hit collaboration with Halsey, ‘Boy With Luv’, was certified platinum with over a million sales.
As Vox pointed out in a report, this was not the first time MTV segregated international pop artists into their own category: the Best Latino Artist category is a good example of this. BTS fans, naturally, felt that MTV’s actions were, once again, xenophobic and even racist. They flooded social media with hashtags protesting BTS’s sidelining, the most prominent one being #VMAsracist.
They also went a step further. Despite the fact that BTS won the Best K-Pop category for ‘Boy With Luv’, and Best Group, fans of the group boycotted the show and instead hosted their own fan-awards show on social media called the BTS Music Video Awards under several hashtags, including #BTSMVawards and #BTSMVAs.
Aamina Khan, in a Teen Vogue editorial, wrote last year, “The VMAs aren’t the only awards show to group music awards by geographic location, but these decisions feel particularly out of place in a fan-voted award show that’s known for its big cultural moments. The fact that no K-Pop or Latin category-nominated artist was nominated in the three main areas, the fact they don’t even get to compete against artists with comparable (and in most cases, much fewer) viewing and sales numbers feels like an insult.”
So, it makes sense for BTS fans to not be happy with the VMAs. There is history there, and concerns that are more than legitimate. Of course, fans are unlikely to boycott the event this year. Especially because BTS is touted to perform their upcoming new single, ‘Dynamite’. But BTS fans, and K-pop fans in general, have been known to be creative with their anger. Only time will tell what they will do this year.
The 2020 VMAs will air live at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday, August 30 across MTV's linear and digital platforms from Brooklyn's Barclays Center.