K-Pop has rarely shown its unity when it comes to its artists. Wars between fans are rampant in the industry, with people fighting amongst each other to showcase who the “best” artist is. With award shows right around the corner, fans are already displaying how fiercely they will fight for the chance that their artist will receive a “#1 rank”.

In the past, fans of artists such as Girls’ Generation have gone head to head with fans of Wonder Girls. There has always been unspoken conflict between fans of 2PM and fans of Jay Park. The list goes on and on, with new battles occurring weekly when rumors of dating or artists being rude to other artists appear. Fans jump at the drop of a hat to defend their artists and because of this, arguments are plenty.

One enormous trigger of these “wars” are the colors of balloons. FT Island came under fire when Super Junior fans became defensive over the original color of their balloons: pearl rainbow blue. Fans of artists in the same companies have even gotten into arguments, such was the case with The Grace and SNSD fans.

When Big Bang was nominated for the “World Wide Act Asia Pacific” category, many had no doubt they would win. Their competition, Taiwanese top star Jay Chou, Japan’s longest running boy group EXILE, the Indonesian Agnes Monica, Chinese singer Jane Zhang, and Australian acts Sia and Gotye were strong competitors, but Big Bang’s fanbase stood strong.

They were right. Big Bang won in their category and was then placed in a new category, MTV EMA “World Wide Act”. This would place them against the winners of every region, which meant they would have to beat out Lena (Europe), Abdelfattah Grini (Africa/India/Middle East) and Britney Spears (North America). This would be no easy feat and many began to doubt whether or not Big Bang could do it.

There’s no doubt that a large portion of each region would vote for their artist. Britney Spears, being a complete “worldwide act”, was a strong contender for the award. Would Big Bang be able to unite all of Korea as well as fans of other artists all across the world to win this coveted award?

The answer would be a resounding “YES”. MTV EMA announced that Big Bang had taken home the award, beating out even Britney Spears. It was an obvious show that K-Pop could be united as one, that fans could put aside all their hatred for any artist, just to show that K-Pop is going global and it will be making history.

K-Pop fans came together to cast a total of 58 million votes for Big Bang at the awards. This added up to 36% of the TOTAL amount of votes at the award. There were just over 158 million votes made at the awards. K-Pop fans, once again, proved how strong their power is when brought together.

K-Pop is spreading internationally, with SMTOWN finishing an enormous concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Billboard Korea holding their first “K-POP MASTERS” event in Las Vegas, and Jungle Entertainment holding their first family concert in Las Angeles. With countless more events to come in 2012, Big Bang’s win is one of many symbols of how strong K-Pop is.

Fans have shown how proud they can be of the victory, with international fans abuzz on Twitter saying how proud they are of the group and K-Pop in general. Fans of not only Big Bang, but fans of K-Pop as a whole are coming together to show how proud they are.

Comments on uber-popular website, Reddit’s “K-Pop” section also echoed this thought. Users were commenting on how proud they were of Big Bang. These comments came from not only VIPs, but also regular fans of K-Pop and even those who were just interested in Korean culture.

With the spread of K-Pop worldwide and the induction of these artists into more worldwide award shows, the need for fans to be united will arise once again. Fans seem to understand that when it really comes down to the wire, they will need to work together, not against each other. Big Bang has shown this to be true; although it was the marketing, pushing, and hard work by “VIPs” across the world, without the help of fans of other artists as well, there is no telling what the results could have been.

Submitted: Nov 07 2011 06:35 AM by Flowsion @ http://www.koreaboo.com

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