Can Anyone Make Sense of the Final Results of MAMA's Worldwide Fans Choice Voting?

  • So as you might know, the voting for MAMA's Worldwide Fans' Choice Top 10 just closed, and you can see the results here on MAMA's official web site.


    I don't follow award shows all that closely, but I just assumed that the artists with the largest fandoms would have the most votes.


    But how do you determine fandom size? For me, I simply look at physical sales as a proxy.


    After all, only serious fans would purchase albums right? And only serious fans would bother to vote in a MAMA poll right?


    Well it turns out that's not necessarily the case, as apparently, the type of people who purchase albums is different than the type of people who vote!


    In the table below, I've listed the voting results, as well as the Gaon physical sales of the latest major Korean release for each artist:


    Rank
    Gen Size Artist Votes Received Gaon Sales
    Latest Major Korean Release
    Sales Needed Per 1% Attending
    1 3 7 BTS 16.99% 2,955,990 Butter 173,984 No
    2 4 8 Stray Kids
    15.84% 1,285,799 Noeasy 81,174 Yes
    3 4 7 Enhypen 7.54% 1,181,961 Dimension: Dilemma 156,759 Yes
    4 3.5 7 NCT Dream
    7.36% 1,015,549 Hello Future 137,982 Yes
    5 3.5 10/9 NCT 127
    6.93%
    1,283,801 Favorite 185,253 Yes
    6 4 12 Treasure 6.91% 350,986 The First Step: Treasure Effect 50,794 No
    7 4 5 TXT 6.71% 744,956 The Chaos Chapter: Fight or Escape 111,022 Yes
    8 3 9 Twice 6.26% 632,506 Formula of Love: O+T=<3 101,039 No
    9 3.5 1 Lisa 6.25% 762,923 Lalisa 122,068 No
    10 3.5 13 Seventeen 6.22% 2,059,091 Attacca 331,044 No
    11 3.5 1 Rosé 6.17% 618,876 R 100,304 No
    12 4 8 Ateez 3.21% 732,923 Zero: Fever Part.3 228,325 Yes
    13 3.5 6 Astro 1.81% 309,750 Switch On 171,133 No
    14 3 9 EXO 0.74% 1,334,682 Don't Fight the Feeling 1,803,624 No
    15 3.5 6 iKon 0.28% 55,254 I Decide 197,336 No
    16 4 5 Itzy 0.20% 487,607 Crazy in Love 2,438,035 Yes
    17 3.5 11 The Boyz
    0.20% 638,555 Thrill-ing 3,192,775 No
    18 3 5 Red Velvet
    0.15% 360,070 Queendom 2,400,467 No
    19 2.5 1 IU 0.15% 393,007 Lilac 2,620,047 No
    20 4 4 Aespa 0.09% 549,133 Savage 6,101,478 Yes


    As we can see, physical sales are not that strongly correlated with voting results, which implies that the people who buy albums and the people who vote are somehow different in nature; they are not the same type of fans.


    For example, Seventeen sells almost six times as much as Treasure does, yet Treasure beats SVT in voting.


    We also have the case of million-seller EXO, who lose out to Astro, a group with only a quarter of EXO's sales.


    And then there's Aespa, who have sales almost at the level of Twice and Rosé, yet do significantly worse when it comes to voting. IU, Red Velvet, and Itzy are almost as bad in this regard, with poor voting results despite strong sales.


    In addition, for those interested in statistics, I actually performed a linear regression on the data, and found a R-squared value of only 0.4904, which means only about half of the observed variation in voting can be explained by physical sales.


    What am I missing here? What is the "hidden variable" that can explain such a disparity in voting results between artists with similar sales?


    ----------

    Edit: I've gone ahead added columns for artist generation and group size, which may be helpful. More importantly, for each artist, I've divided sales figures by votes received in order to determine the amount of album sales needed for each 1% of votes received. These numbers are shown in the second-to-last column, and can be seen as an indicator of how "hard-working" a particular fandom is.

    ----------

    Edit 2: I've added a column to the far right indicating whether or not the artist is attending MAMA this year, based on this AKP article.

    Edited 4 times, last by wsoet ().

  • it's also because the twitter hashtags count I think?

    and as well that you could only pick one group now so for example if some normal girlie is fan of two boy groups she could only vote for one

    another point is that any hardcore fan can have about 8 or even 10 different accounts connected to mwave website which means you can use it and vote x times for one group, or you can split those votes into two groups etc.

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  • lol sales are heavily influenced by:

    - number of versions an album has

    - the number of members of the group

    - the purchasing power /stratrgy of the fanbase

  • I'm just speculating.


    But could it have to do with differentiation of those in the fandom. Perhaps on age?


    Say.... Younger teen portion vs older established fans.


    Both buy albums.


    But perhaps teens care more about the "social media voting aspect" and perhaps care about that level of validation and will spend their effort pursuing it.


    While an older demographic might not be as mmotivated by such aspect, and are content to buy albums buy have less inclination or concern with fan validation measures.



    Just spitballing.

  • it's not shown on the MAMA site

    THANK YOU FOR VOTING! (TWITTER VOTE is continuing)

    Thank you for everyone who votedTwo hearts
    Voting on Official Website and Apple Music Playlist is closed!

    * TWITTER VOTE is continuing during the live broadcast of 2021 MAMA


    mama.jpg

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  • Good work.


    Your assumption of physical sales with fandom is not incorrect.

    Who else but fans would bother to buy physical albums, is a logical question.


    But, things are changing,

    Even for fans, physical albums aren't as appealing as they used to be - they are still an inconvenience, old tech - maybe companies should start trying NFTs with special material as fan MD.

    But voting is in line with digital world

    And of course albums cost money, while voting is nearly-free.


    COVID, has changed things, there has been an uptick on album purchase in general. Even IU who was never strong on physicals, Lilac sold very well.

    I think Chinese market has made a large difference in the last years when in it comes to albums.

    But now that CCP is cracking down on that, I expect album sales to go down.


    So the original correlation between physical sales and fans, is correct, but just reducing in extent - that is masked by COVID and Chinese policies vagaries.

  • People just have too much time and btw. MAMA made so much money on this. There was like over 40mil votes and every vote is an ad, if you take $0.01 per ad that's over $400k x 2 rounds so they made around $1mil just from this.

    YOUR DAILY DOSE OF TWICE

    ktbiwAh.gifNIJXpPq.gif

  • 3rd gen bgs fans are done with voting for their groups, they are not that passionate anymore

    exactly. if we would judge on album sales, bts should have had 4/5 times the votes other groups have, but number 2 isn't even that far away. Most 3rd gen bgs fans seem to have mellowed out a lot, voting wise.

  • exactly. if we would judge on album sales, bts should have had 4/5 times the votes other groups have, but number 2 isn't even that far away. Most 3rd gen bgs fans seem to have mellowed out a lot, voting wise.

    exactly like my tl on twitter barely talked about MAMA voting until only really the last day... we also had so much other stuff to focus on as well such as the concerts,amas and bts in LA.

  • exactly. if we would judge on album sales, bts should have had 4/5 times the votes other groups have, but number 2 isn't even that far away. Most 3rd gen bgs fans seem to have mellowed out a lot, voting wise.

    It's not even album that compare. Some have doubt play album sale here. Take a look at BTS engagement on Twitter, 1 member posting a picture has around 2 to 2.5 mil likes and the engagements are insane when compare to stray kid barely crossing 150k likes. There many more metrics to compare but you get the picture.

  • In short, the bigger deal a daesang would have been to a group, the more motivated their fans were. This usually means younger groups, but also explains arohas voting more than exols.

    Also, after some days it became obvious who stood a chance in voting and who didn't. (Only Stray Kids' votes got any close to that of BTS, and the third group usually had about half the votes SKZ had.) I believe fans of other groups realised this too and kind of gave up.

  • It's not even album that compare. Some have doubt play album sale here. Take a look at BTS engagement on Twitter, 1 member posting a picture has around 2 to 2.5 mil likes and the engagements are insane when compare to stray kid barely crossing 150k likes. There many more metrics to compare but you get the picture.

    But Stray Kids members don't even post on Twitter?

  • and maybe not every fandom are going crazy about voting


    i know a lot of MY didn't vote because we are sure to secure the roty award at MAMA and our target is the rookie grand slam now and aespa have big digital so we have hopes that they can get another award maybe

    but i know that a lot of GG fandom vote like crazy because they knew that this award might be the only one that their favs might win at MAMA

    ✩We Born with the X-Gene✩

    #aespa from GOMAWO TAEYEON #aespa from GOMAWO TAEYEON #aespa from GOMAWO TAEYEON

  • THANK YOU FOR VOTING! (TWITTER VOTE is continuing)

    Thank you for everyone who votedTwo hearts
    Voting on Official Website and Apple Music Playlist is closed!

    * TWITTER VOTE is continuing during the live broadcast of 2021 MAMA


    mama.jpg

    I mean that Twitter votes aren't shown on the site, because they're being counted for a longer period than the website voting.

  • But Stray Kids members don't even post on Twitter?

    Huh. I don't think this is relevant. I am not sure I am specifically mention members posting on Twitter. It doesn't really matter it iss the company post or the members post. It's the whole engagement you got out of their main Twitter accounts.

  • Buying albums cost money. Voting costs free time.


    It's still good to have a well balanced fandom that can both buy your albums like crazy and at the same time be hardworking and very dedicated to the point of bringing you to the top in votings where you win awards

  • The result does make sense to me. SEVENTEEN is a third generation group so, their fans might not interested in this kind of voting anymore. Also Treasure might not have a lot of album sales compared to other group but isn't because they didn't release full album and cmiiw, they didn't have one yet recently. If you look at their YouTube views, they had lots of views meaning they do have a lot of fans. Also, if you look at their concept and the way there're promoting, they are bound to have a lot of younger fans. Younger fans tend to engage in social media more.

  • They are at different stages in their career


    4th gen boy groups know that its the best chance to get a daesang in a major show

    how does this make the chance of getting a daesang bigger? I believe you tho, just asking

  • Huh. I don't think this is relevant. I am not sure I am specifically mention members posting on Twitter. It doesn't really matter it iss the company post or the members post. It's the whole engagement you got out of their main Twitter accounts.

    It is relevant though…?

    You brought up social media to compare the sizes of the fandoms. Stray Kids don't use their Twitter, it's basically for teasers and for the company to retweet articles and to post one or two pics after a music show. They post personal content to Instagram, where they have 17M+ followers and consistently get 1-2M likes on everything they post within a day. I'm just saying this to show that your comparison made little sense.


    And you did specify members posting:

    1 member posting a picture has around 2 to 2.5 mil likes

  • Arohas were very organized with their voting and regularly reminding people to vote. I only follow about four Astro twt accounts vs. about 30 NCT ones and I saw way more reminders to vote every day from Arohas. They were also signal boosting by posting reminders in several languages. They worked hard to get Astro to 13. :pleading:

  • I'm so thankful for the artist-fan relationship Stray Kids and stays have :cryingk:

    I didn't mention before in the thread, but I think the way Stray Kids members behave when they win awards definitely play a role on STAY's dedication to vote for them.


    They value every little reward in the career and recognition, even what K-pop stans would call irrelevant, they treat like they've just won a grammy. They will make multiple vlives, spam bubble for days and even mention this in multiple interviews/fan contents.


    It doesn't matter If It's a minor award in a minor award show or a important award in a major award show. If It's one of the biggest weekly music shows or one of the smallest. They will show a significant level of importance.


    They are constantly showing their humbleness and gratitute. So Stays already feel motivated out of nowhere imagining their reactions.

  • how does this make the chance of getting a daesang bigger? I believe you tho, just asking

    Let me answer, because this is the only category with fan voting if I not mistaken. So, it is like free daesang given by fans. Moreover, none of this 4th gen bg able to beat bts number in sales and stream, so they're automatically out from aoty and soty. This is their only chance to beat Bts and IU to bag that daesang.

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