‘Music streaming all-out attack,’ the dangerous shard of K-pop

“Do Not Loop Dynamite,” said BTS on Billboard (@BTS＿Bilboard) on Twitter, BTS’ English account, in a recent post. It was liked 16,000 times and retweeted 5,900 times. “Dynamite Survival Kit” is an A to Z online guidance for avid fans.

It contains strategies that fans can use to have influence over the billboard chart by consuming BTS’ new song “Dynamite” on music streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music and YouTube. Some 1.4 million fans are following this account. The official account of ARMY, BTS’ fandom, follows it as well.

Its guidance on consumption of Dynamite is meticulous. The strategies include: Only two-thirds of streaming from a paid account is reflected when you are using a free account, You can sign up for a free trial of a paid account through this URL, Create and share a playlist including several other songs along with Dynamite because listening to Dynamite on repeat gets less counts and Use gift cards when gifting Dynamite on iTunes so that it would be reflected on Billboard’s single chart.

“The ‘music steaming all-out attack’ culture of some fans in Korea has spread to overseas,” said an industry insider. There are numerous accounts for ‘full-scale attacks’ and ‘fund-raising.’ Fans of popular K-pop idols other than BTS have these accounts, too.

“It is chart manipulation that harms other artists,” said experts. “It could damage the image of K-pop and affect the public confidence towards Billboard charts.”


imi@donga.com