Although the post was immediately deleted, it still made BTS fans extremely angry.
Billboard recently released an article about Suga BTS’s upcoming variety show titled SuChwiTa . The article simply mentioned Suga’s solo activities and promoted the first guest RM by the leader who is about to release a solo album.
However, fans are reacting to Billboard for continuously treating BTS badly.
BTS is now the world’s top boy band, regularly topping Billboard’s music charts, showing the incredible popularity of the 7 boys. BTS is also overwhelmed with new records that no international artist has yet achieved.
But even though BTS and K-pop in general have become more popular in Billboard’s charts, fans have repeatedly denounced the magazine for “discriminating against Korean artists”.
Most recently, fans have voiced their frustration with a new event that Billboard announced called The-K Billboard Awards, advertised as an event to honor “the brilliant achievements of artists. K-pop artists based on the Billboard charts”.
Fans expressed displeasure when Billboard said that there should be a separate award program for Korean artists, while the country’s music industry is spreading around the world.
ARMYs were particularly upset by the statement of Mr. Bik Hwang, the executive director of the place that launched The-K Billboard Awards . Although BTS is active and continuously achieving new levels of success, Mr. Bik Hwang suggests that they are “looking for the next BTS”.
“This is part of our mission to find the next BTS. We will not limit nominations to festival-goers. Instead, we will strictly adhere to the scoring system of the festival. Billboard and honor the winners by visiting their studios if needed,” Bik Hwang told The Korea Times.
Now, ARMYs are criticizing Billboard, not because of the content in the article about Suga’s new variety show, but because of the original image Billboard used. Instead of using the image of the male rapper from BTS, Billboard posted on Twitter an article with an image of Youngjae GOT7 attached. Currently, Billboard has deleted the tweet and changed the image to Suga in the PROOF album .
But ARMYs, who have mastered the “evidence capture”, are frustrated by the wrong image of the character. Fans believe that Billboard has interviewed and contacted BTS many times, so there is no reason to get the wrong image.
This isn’t the first time BTS fans have been outraged by Billboard.
In 2021, ARMY boycotted Billboard magazine when it posted a sensational cover story for an exclusive photo shoot with BTS. The live interview asked BTS about chart manipulation, specifically fan engagement with sales.
“Through the medium, ARMYs have long exploited loopholes in the rules of music charts (including those of Billboard) to boost the sales performance of BTS’ singles” – content advertised by Billboard when the magazine was released.
Although ARMY had hoped that the Billboard article would highlight BTS’ enormous success, the reality turned out that interview questions were unacceptable, and fans assumed that Billboard wouldn’t ask any. Any other artist questions like that.
Fans are now calling for a boycott of Billboard for being “racist towards BTS” and “disrespectful to the artist”.