Hot100 : A hard truth to swallow

The Billboard Hot 100 is one of the most prestigious music charts in the world, tracking the most popular songs in the United States. 

Park Jimin from huge pop group BTS created history becoming the first Korean soloist to peak at number 1 with Like Crazy, which was released in multi versions, including an English one. However, the song was out of the first top 10 list in the second week. This left his fandom very alarmed and angry. 

Over the years, BTS fandom aka ARMY well knowns for their basless accusations trended several hashtags calling Billboard ‘corrupt’ ‘xenophobic’ ‘racist’ on Twitter, Monday April 11. However, a closer examination of the chart’s methodology and current charting shows that these accusations are falses. 

The Billboard Hot 100 is a chart that tracks the popularity of songs based on their sales, streaming, and radio airplay. The methodology is purely objective, relying on data from a variety of sources, including Nielsen Music/MRC Data, Billboard’s own surveys, and other third-party data providers. The chart’s rankings are based purely on the data collected, without any subjective or discriminatory factors coming into play. 

As an exemple let take a look at the current and well diversified top 10. Nigerian artist Rema celebrated his second entry on the Billboard Hot 100 with his single “Calm Down,” featuring Selena Gomez who debuted at #91 and slowely rised to the top #10. SZA with her smash hit “Kill Bill” to Boy’s A Liar, Pt. 2 with PinkPantheress & Ice Spice…

BTS fandom need to realize in addition to being the biggest xenophobes themselves that mass buying will never be the right way to achieve genuine success among general public.