Just saw an argument in the unpopular opinion thread about how streams apparently mean nothing because it's just the fandom streaming obsessively but album sales are super valid measures of a group's popularity :clown: Yes, KPOP groups make a lot more money from tours and album sales than streams. But if streams and views were not important then why: 1. Do companies spend a fortune on play-listing and YouTube ads? 90% of fourth gen groups use ads like crazy. IVE was on all the KPOP playlists on Spotify with Love Dive, Aespa was on NMF and all the KPOP playlists with Illusion. 2. Do companies go to such insane lengths to create TikTok challenges and videos for comebacks? It was kind of funny reading the copium from bitter losers here in anons when MONEY and Eleven went viral on TikTok and did well on the charts, dismissing both songs as "only popular because of TikTok." Do people not realize how much TikTok currently influences music trends and that kpop companies would literally kill for any of their groups to get a viral TikTok hit? I mean come on do you really think TXT invited the entire industry to HYBE to film TikToks for their last comeback just for fun? 3. Are the biggest KPOP groups the ones with the best streaming numbers? Can we stop dismissing streams just because your faves do not have good ones lol (and, no, zero KPOP groups except BTS and to a lesser extent Blackpink actually have good streams, not even Twice. I really do not care that they are the most streamed gg in 2022 when the gap is now like 500K streams per day with a group that has 23 songs and has been on hiatus for 2 years. Their last comeback has not even reached 80M).