MAMA 2024 (Mnet Asian Music Awards) is on the horizon. The awards ceremony will kick off at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles (USA) and continue for two days in Osaka (Japan).
This marks the first time the Asian music awards are being held in the United States, which has left fans both surprised and excited, eagerly anticipating the thrilling events the show will bring. Previously, the annual ceremony has taken place in various cities across Asia, including Singapore, Japan, and Vietnam.
According to the organizers, this year’s theme is “Big Blur = WHAT IS REAL?”. Audiences can expect surreal experiences and visually captivating performances, showcasing the fusion of art and technology.
Holding MAMA in the USA for the first time, the producers continued expressing their ambition of becoming the “Korean Grammys.”
However, Mnet still received backlash from netizens. The primary reason is the unresolved problem in every MAMA season. Most of the time, the problems have to do with the show’s fairness, or lack thereof, in calculating votes and awarding prizes.
For example, during the audience voting period, MAMA announced closing the voting system to screen fraudulent votes. The number of deleted votes varied from artist to artist. Nonetheless, The disparity of removed votes could reach millions. This caused artists with top votes to fall to the bottom. Many fans reported on their votes being deleted even though they had proof that their votes were legitimate.
More recently, MAMA also came up with new award categories with no clear purposes or criteria. Netizens believe this is a shady business between entertainment companies and MAMA to get their artists more wins, and, as a result, more achievements.
There is also no persuasive argument when it comes to choosing a winner. In 2015, Park Jin Young was awarded “Best Male Artist” even though he did not perform as well as Yonghwa and Kyuhyun nominated for the same category. In 2014, Sistar won “Best Female Group” against two top girl groups at the time, Girls’ Generation and 2NE1. MAMA 2023 sparked controversy by omitting ENHYPEN from major nominations and was accused of “robbing” TREASURE and EXO’s bonsang.
While MAMA issues statements every year claiming they will strive for more equality, the award show rarely keeps its promise. This has led to a visible decline in public interest. Hence, the most MAMA can do is to improve their show’s quality.
Source: k14
