Kakao M Ent. questionable acts
While StarShip Ent. is no stranger to the general public of both SK and internationally for their controversial acts such as paying money to rig in their trainees on PD48 so that they can join I*ZONE and rigging out trainees to make room for their trainees or manipulating lists of fansign winners using IZONE members’ names and using their birthdays as their phone numbers then adding them to Cravity’s fansign winner list.
Many People are shocked to hear about the newly revealed controversies of Kakao M Ent. and the questionable things about StarShip Ent. Groups such as IVE, Cravity and Monsta X.
Kakao M Ent. which owns starship ent and many other companies were behind the hate, controversies and overall negative talk/articles that kpop girl groups got on online communities. They did this to Aespa, Lesserafim, Newjeans even the top 3rd gen girl groups such a Twice & Blackpink.
Newspapers in SK are printing articles in today’s paper about Kakao M Ent.’s reverse (negative) viral marketing using Idol Lab. Reverse viral marketing is when negative content is pushed via word of mouth.
Celebrities and idol groups affiliated with Kakao Ent. such as IVE, StayC and The Boyz receive favorable posts and those idol groups that are not affiliated with Kakao M Ent. are subject to negative or controversial posts (article name checks Lesserafim, Aespa, and New Jeans)
Many People believe that if Kakao M Ent. was willing to go this far to create fake hype and/or hate for groups on k-forums and articles its safe to say that they may have manipulated & inflated things such as award wins, charts and sales.
Kakao M Ent. owns the online music service MelOn and the MelOn Music Awards, 1theK (a music productionchannel that most groups publish their music videos on) and 1theK originals (content such as performance videos, covers and etc.)
The Melon Music Awards has a 1theK category and all the groups that have won it (StayC and The Boyz) are under Kakao M Ent.
Some korean netizens and international fans have pointed out how weird it is that Monsta X bagged a Best Male Group nomination despite the fact they didn’t make a comeback with noise or success to warrant them a nomination compared to other groups this Year like BTOB or Winner who did 10x better on MelOn.
Some speculate that Kakao M Ent. gave Monsta X a nomination undeservingly just because they are under their label. 😭
IVE’s album sales and chart positions have been talked about many times not adding up.
They had a reported total of 920k+ sales first week. So there should’ve been a significant amount of pre-orders, but none have been reported. They sold 460k copies their first day, 420k copies the next four weekdays, (and 40k on the weekend). So they were selling 100k a day that week but there have been no real time updates on receipts or group orders to prove those sales legitimacy.
Even with those amount of sales they didn’t sell or run out of inventory on any shops but StarShip Square (Their Own Web-store).
Hanteo/Gaon had them recording 1.1 million in sales in their fourth week, and they were still not out of inventory despite selling nearly 10-20k copies a day.
It was reported that their Chinese fan bases’ group orders only made up 1/3 of their first week sales (While Blackpink, Aespa and NewJeans made up 2/3) IVE’s biggest buying power comes from China so many knetizens were confused why their biggest sales power only made up 1/3 of their total sales.
Fans were claiming that 500k of the 600k sales are direct orders from Japan but BTS’ Map of the Soul:7 (2020) album only sold 500k in direct orders to Japan. Even Twice’s Yes or Yes (2018) album only sold 200k in the past three years there. How did IVE manage to sale more albums in Japan than the two biggest kpop groups there? If the 500k+ album sales which StarShip Ent. and Dives claimed most are legitimate and actually are from Japan why didn’t they chart high on Oricon chart but Kep1er, Lesserafim and NewJeans who sold less albums charted higher?
Their digital sales make no sense as well: They lack even 1/100 of the hype that Aespa, Blackpink, NewJeans and Red Velvet songs have but are breaking records on the level of BTS’ ‘Dynamite’, Twice’s ‘Cheer Up’, Brave Girls’ ‘Rollin’, and Black Pink’s ‘Ddududdudu’.
What’s even more suspicious is that groups like BTS and Blackpink have never been able to beat Lim Young Woong on the charts but IVE has managed to beat out the power of Lim Young Woong’s fandom to stay at #1 every time they are up against each other.