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[r/KpopIdolAwards] SABOTAGE at the Idol Awards
🧐Detective-Doofus - 20 hours ago
Ok friends, strap in, this is gonna be a wild one. I’ve been screaming into the void on Twitter, but no one wanted to listen before.
But now! Ohhhhh boy, now I can finally say, I told you so.
It’s been 2 days since the disaster that was the International Idol Awards (IIA), and I have so many things to say.
And, seeing as this is the internet, I thought I’d compile my thoughts into a very handy numbered list.
1. Who the fuck are the Saja Boys?
I’m not even kidding, who are these guys?
- There’s no training academy boasting about 5 recent debut artists
- We don’t know who their production company is!!
- Google results on their group name shows their first mention is from 15 days ago (Aug 15)
- There is no registered trademark for the name “Saja Boys”
- They don’t have a website?!
- The first date of creation for the Saja Boys on TikTok, Insta, Twitter or WeVerse is from 14 days ago (and WeVerse was actually 10 days ago!)
- Soda Pop became available for streaming 9 days ago (Aug 21)
- No individual social media’s from the boys, just from the group
- (This one annoyed me) in a recent TikTok, Abby mentioned having 50 million fans in their fan club…what fan club? It doesn’t exist. They didn’t even have 50 million subscribers on TikTok; they had 50 thousand. Does that mean Abby didn’t know the difference between 50 thousand, and 50 million?
2. Why does it matter that they didn’t exist until 2 weeks ago?
Good question, glad you asked. Because the IIA are meant to have RULES.
You can go to their website right now and see what their nomination rules are. This is not a secret.
The rules for “Song of the Year” are so simple, I don’t understand how people missed this!
To be eligible to win SoTY the song needed to be released before July 1 and needed to chart in the Top 100 at some point before nominations closed.
May I remind you when Soda Pop first debuted. That's right, not until August 21, over 6 weeks AFTER the cut off date. (It did hit the charts on Aug 25, and the highest it reached was 18th).
Do you know why SoTY needs to be released before July 1? It’s because that’s when nominations close!!!
The Saja Boys weren’t even NOMINATED!!!
Holy shit guys, I have been screaming about this on Twitter, and it’s like no one cares.
The nominations for IIA closed on July 1.
The nominees were announced on their website, and on Insta, Twitter, TikTok, etc on July 8.
Guess who does not appear in the nominations? That’s right, the Saja Boys! They didn’t exist yet!
The nominees announced on July 8 for SoTY were:
FF4L - Darker
Huntr/x - How Its Done
Hypur - Moon Rising
Psychfur - Real Maniac
SPF100 - Gotta Be
Soci8ty - Energy
Twice - Strategy
Venomnom - Young and Spicy
8 nominees, with songs all released prior to July 1!
You can go to the IIA website right now and still see this list of nominees!
So why the fuck were the Saja Boys suddenly being announced as the frontrunners for an Awards season that they DO NOT QUALIFY FOR?
3. Is everyone here very stoned?!
What the heck was happening on Awards night?
The show's introduction (weird meteor crashing to earth and all) decides to introduce Huntr/x versus the Saja Boys like some type of death match (ngl, I did laugh at the “but one snowflake is probably the best”)
- Why is there no mention of any of the other nominees?
- No red carpet? Usually there’s at least an hour of red carpet footage as nominees and industry officials compete for the most ridiculous outfit (imo)
- Opening performance: usually starts with last year's World Wide Icon of the Year. (I know Huntr/x did technically perform first, but why were the Saja Boys announced first?)
- Lighting failure: from the looks of it, over 80% of the stage lights had cascading failures, causing a near complete blackout. Apparently this could have been caused by a power surge, or the cooling fans failing
- The broken glass falling onto the stage would have been between 600°C and 900°C, and if that hit the performers or the audience, it could cause extreme burns and lacerations
4. Why did the Awards announce Huntr/x disbanded?
The Idol Awards suffered a catastrophic power failure, causing the on stage performers to quickly evacuate in the aftermath of falling glass.
As the reigning champions, Huntr/x is allowed an 8 minute performance slot. They’d used 5 minutes, starting with Golden, and then the new song “Takedown” (unofficial title).
In the last 4 years, Huntr/x has always done a 3 song medley, so it is not a stretch to say that there was meant to be a third section of their performance.
Zoey tweeted yesterday that the third song was the mid section of “What it Sounds Like”, which they ended up debuting at Namsom Tower.
Mira took to TikTok yesterday and said “the performance was meant to be a metaphor. Like one minute, you’re flying high (Golden), then losing to your inner demons (Takedown), and then finding strength with your people (WISL). No clue why the IIA decided that their power failure halfway through a performance piece meant we were disbanding.”
5. Was someone at IIA being blackmailed?
That’s the only thing I can think of, genuinely.
Why were the Saja Boys suddenly being touted as the “heart stealing newcomers”?
Following the power failure, which was maybe 10 minutes after the show started, the concert hall was evacuated, and IIA is suddenly announcing the show is cancelled due to “the Huntr/x public breakup”. Like, bro, no, it was cancelled because there’s molten hot glass all over the stage.
It would have taken hours to replace the lighting rigs (assuming they had spares), and recalibrate the settings.
The IIA tv presenters then start listing off the “winners” in different categories, and who is suddenly announced as winning? The Saja Boys. Again, for categories they were not nominated in, and are not eligible for.
Even if you tried to argue that they could have won for Best New Artists of the Year, they were not nominated.
I can only assume that someone in IIA was being blackmailed to sabotage the awards, and boost the Saja Boys to fame.
6. But….why though?
It’s been 2 days since the awards, and the Saja Boys have seemingly vanished from the face of the earth.
No new posts, no new announcements. The song they introduced at Namsom Tower is not available anywhere (not even a shaky phone cam version).
Soda Pop has been removed from Spotify and Apple, with no real explanation.
The Soda company who was doing brand sponsorship has heavily discounted their remaining stock.
(Also, as a reminder, the Saja Boys did NOT own their trademark, so who even knows if the Saja Boys agreed to the brand deal)
Was someone trying to make a bunch of money on merch with no licensing fees?
Was someone trying to dethrone Huntr/x after 5 years of IIA wins?
Was someone trying to make commentary on the dangers of parasocial relationships with K-pop groups?
Who knows.
But, please, please, I beg of you, do not let this insane series of events pass by without at least some level of caring.
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🫠 KPFan_420
Holy shit, I thought I was the only one who’d noticed they weren’t nominated! Why has no one else been posting about this?!
⬆️ 284 ⬇️
🍪 Cookiesandcoke
I’m pretty sure some mods were deleting posts about it. One of my friend got banned from r/SajaBoys for daring to mention it. Their fans were feral!
⬆️ 107 ⬇️
😈 SajaStan
Ok, just so you know, members of the Pride are NOT feral, we have been having perfectly respectful conversations with people. Hunters have been coming into our space, and making all kinds of accusations. Like, it’s not Jinu’s fault that they’re so talented that the IIA decided to make an exception this year!
There’s no proof of anyone blackmailing people, and frankly, it’s irresponsible for people to be throwing out these sorts of accusations. OP, you should delete this post.
⬆️ - 156 ⬇️
🫥 Zutara4ever
lol, SajaStan out here beating exactly none of the allegations.
⬆️ 47 ⬇️
🐝 BeeYourself-12
Me 5 minutes ago: oh, this person is a conspiracy nutter
Me 3 minutes ago: uh….this person might be onto something
Me right now: holy shit, the IIA was definitely sabotaged
I hadn’t considered that Rumi running off stage was because of insanely hot glass raining down around her.
Why the fuck did the IIA announce Huntr/x disbanded? Holy shit, they are gonna be sued out the ass for slander.
I didn’t pay much attention to the nomination phase of IIA, but OP is right, the Saja Boys were never nominated. What the actual fuck happened?
⬆️ 69 ⬇️
🔥 Fires-of-Mount-Doom
I refuse to upvote at the perfect number.
But also, I too went on this exact journey.
I’m not a Hunter, so I was initially pretty happy to see someone break their streak, but this is not the way.
⬆️ 17 ⬇️
🍄 Yoshi-Mushi
I am also not a Hunter, and wanted to see their streak break, but wow, this is insane.
⬆️ 2 ⬇️
🫥 Zutara4ever
They didn’t own their own Trademark?! That is crazy pants.
EDIT: ok, so I went to check, and the Trademark for the SajaBoys is currently pending registration by…drum roll please… Serotonin Soda Company.
The freaking Soda company is trying to claim the trademark.
Is this all some giant marketing stunt gone wrong?
⬆️ 642 ⬇️
🦷 Toothless-1606
How is that even legal?!
⬆️ 42 ⬇️
🫥 Cookiesandcoke
I’m pretty sure it’s not 😂 but, if the actual Saja Boys are dumb enough not to trademark their own name, then it’s lowkey hilarious that the Soda company is trying to snipe it.
⬆️ 12 ⬇️
🐦⬛Magpie
I’m a Hypur girlie, and our subreddit has been silent about the awards for days. It’s been completely dead, no chatter, no speculation.
None of the other nominated groups were even doing promo for the awards night. Compare it to last year, and it feels insanely quiet.
Is it possible for everyone to have simultaneously forgotten that other groups were nominated?
⬆️ 1,027 ⬇️
🤡 Mass-psychosis-404
Do you mean some sort of mass psychosis?
⬆️ - 212 ⬇️
🐦⬛ Magpie
Get off my post, reddit user mass-psychosis. But also, yes, that’s exactly what I mean.
⬆️ 56 ⬆️
🦷 Toothless-1606
Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do
⬆️ 12 ⬇️
🍒Cherry-coconut-0461
Was anyone else at Namsom that night? I still don’t really remember what happened.
It’s weird no one has footage of either new song from Huntr/x or the Saja Bons.
Edit: yes I’m aware of the typo, no I will not fix it.
⬆️ 15 ⬇️
🐝 BeeYourself-12
I was there, I have selfies from before the songs started, and then nothing for hours.
Not to sound like a total stalker, but I would have expected to have dozens of shots of Abby on stage, but I don’t have a single one.
⬆️ 1 ⬇️
😈 SajaStan
Same, except I would have been taking photos of my husband Jinu.
⬆️ - 2 ⬇️
🔥 Fires-of-Mount-Doom
I have photos from after the Huntr/x performance, but they’re kind of blurry.
Rumi looks like she has silver streaks on her face and arms, but I don’t know if that’s my camera playing up, or something else.
With the details about molten hot glass burns from the lights exploding at IIA, is it possible that Rumi got hurt?
⬆️ 9 ⬆️
💜 RyuRumiNation
I don’t want to think about Rumi getting hurt!
I’m so mad that someone could have intentionally caused the lights to explode while the Huntr/x girls were on stage.
Is it possible that this was more than just sabotage? Was it an attempt to seriously hurt Huntr/x?
⬆️ 412 ⬇️
🧐Detective-Doofus (OP)
I was considering adding this in as a speculation. Overhead lighting like that gets safety tested every time there’s a performance. Something happened to those lights.
I don’t want to speculate on who or what caused it though.
⬆️ 273 ⬇️
🫥 Cookiesandcoke
I, on the other hand, have no issues speculating on who caused it.
Saja Boys were industry plants given the task of taking down Huntrix.
When they realised they wouldn’t win, they set up a scenario to make Huntrix look bad, sabotaged the lighting rig to end the awards show early, and then redirected the audience to Namsom Tower.
Someone out there really hates Huntrix.
Too bad for them, Huntrix don’t miss and Hunters don’t quit!
⬆️ 922 ⬇️ ⭐️7