BTS was recently awarded the Choice International Artist award which should have pleased their legions of fans called ARMY all around the world. However, ARMYs were dissatisfied over how the K-pop group were treated during the awards ceremony.
A devoted fandom
It was no secret that ARMY is one of the most devoted K-pop fandoms in the world. BTS has credited their fans constantly for bringing their music to an international scale.
BTS leader Rap Monster, in an interview with Idolator, said that it was the combination of their accessibility through social media and the hard work of their ARMY in translating and streaming their music, that made the K-pop group such a global hit.
"It’s such an honor to be rated ‘popular’ on global level. We’re very grateful to our fans around the world," Rap Monster said. "It is also very exciting for us because such popularity motivates us to be better artists who always try to come up with better music."
In the recently concluded Billboard Music Awards, BTS achieved a milestone when it became the first K-pop act to receive an award in the prestigious music show. BTS bagged the Top Social Artist Award, winning over international superstars like Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendez.
On the first date of voting alone, ARMYs managed to crash the Billboard Music Awards servers because of the volume of votes. By the voting’s end, the fans posted a record number of 300 million votes to seal the win for their favorite, BTS.
As a testament to ARMYs consistency, BTS has never left the Billboard Social 50 chart since it entered last October and maintains a strong foothold on the # 1 or # 2 spots.
Teen Choice Awards
After the Billboard win, ARMYs wanted to keep the momentum going for BTS and campaigned actively to have the Bangtan Boys nominated for the Choice International Artist Award of the Teen Choice Awards.
ARMYs actively campaigned to nominate the K-pop group which they easily secured.
However, come awards night, what should have been another feather to the cap of BTS became the subject of much criticism. The K-pop group won the Teen Choice Award surfboard for their category but ARMYs observed that the announcement seemed rushed and anticlimactic -- a far cry from the boys’ epic BBMA moment, Popcrush reported.
I wasted 2 hrs of my life for a 5 sec mention at the END. pic.twitter.com/sUzEXxHs22
— Glass판다 (@glasspandita) August 14, 2017
Fans complained that Teen Choice Awards deliberately left the award until the end of the show to keep viewers tuned in but when the time came to give the award, presenters Bella Thorne and Marshmello rushed through the announcement and hurried to end the show.
