South Korea's BTS wins Billboard's fan-voted award two years running

晏文静 · 2018-05-23 · English translation

As Billboard's post rallying fans for this year's award put it: "This award is decided by you!"

On May 21, 2018, at the Billboard Music Awards in the United States, BTS won the Top Social Artist award once again.

Top Social Artist is decided by fan vote. The nominees are drawn from that year's Billboard Social 50 chart.

The Social 50 measures how much an artist is talked about on social platforms and how often their music is streamed and clicked. But the platforms it counts are, you could say, "restricted" for Chinese singers — they are YouTube, Vevo, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, iLike, SoundCloud, Instagram, Vine and Tumblr.

Once the shortlist is out, fans vote, and the winner is picked from the vote together with the Social 50 chart. As Billboard's post rallying fans for this year's award put it: "This award is decided by you!"

BTS is a seven-member boy band launched in 2013 by the South Korean company BigHit Entertainment. Measured by the heat of their support, BTS fans have never cooled off.

In 2016, Forbes named BTS the most retweeted artist on Twitter. That May, Twitter released its first emoji of a K-pop act, designed after the group.

That October they reached No. 1 on the Billboard Social 50 — the first K-pop act to get there. They also finished sixth on that year's YouTube Music Global Top 100 artists chart.

In 2017, a single tweet of theirs drew 502 million retweets and likes, making them the most retweeted star of the year.

Up against the Korean group for the award were Justin Bieber, Demi Lovato, Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendes — all young, popular Western musicians.

Justin Bieber won an American Music Award for his first solo album back in 2009, and took Top Social Artist every year from 2011 to 2016;

Demi Lovato appeared in the children's series Barney & Friends at 6 and in the Disney film Camp Rock at 15, has topped the Billboard 200 albums chart, and acted in the American series Glee;

Ariana Grande made her name in the Broadway musical 13, saw her first album take the top of the Billboard albums chart on first-week sales, won the American Music Award for best new artist, and watched her third studio album, Dangerous Woman, land straight at No. 1 on the album charts of 10 territories — Britain, Australia and the Netherlands among them — in its opening week;

Shawn Mendes got noticed by posting cover videos online, and won several popularity awards in Europe and the United States in 2017.

But their fans' enthusiasm was enough: after Justin Bieber, BTS have now taken Top Social Artist two years in a row.

BTS member Park Ji-min accepted in the manner of a true pop idol: "This is everyone's award. Thank you from the heart, and I love you."

The full list of winners:

Top Artist:

Ed Sheeran