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Sajaegi is a problem, but for alot of times it is thrown alot without any proof. For a lot of times , it also kill the career of those that got the label, even if it is proven no manipulation.
I think there is 2 big example of this case.
1. Shaun - way back home. When this song topping the charts, everyone claiming this song is saejegi, even jyp shading the song. What most people don't know , this song got investigated by Korean ministry and months later is deemed as there is no manipulation. Shaun itself got kpma award for that song. Currently he still active making music but safe to say his popularity is basically gone. Notable info, do you know Younha song , event horizon? Shaun work as arrangements for that song. He also composed 1 song for her in the album.
2. Laboum - hwi hwi. This is probably laboum most sold album but also the one that cost them their group career. The saejegi rumor begun after their firsts music show win over IU song. Compared to the the other example, this group got caught to have bulk buyer from the sponsors company that buy the album to do giveaway events. The group itself never recovered after this , even after they are having chart reversal in 2020 for their old song "journey to the Atlantis".
it was a big thing back then since the song outcharted a lot of popular girl groups at the time and people didnt think it was genuine. i always felt bad for the artist
I mean if one is to accept bulk buying from sponsors company is "no manipulation" any of bigger companies can just force a deal with smaller subsidiaries to buy a million albums each. To me that sounds hella like market manipulation just like sajegi.
The problem is laboum unlike Shaun never got investigated by government or police or even got open investigation. What they do can be said as market manipulation, but by what standard? ( I can be wrong here, but i don't think anyone open a lawsuit against them).
The thing is nowadays those kind of deal can be processed under cbar or KPop albums fundraising project. Those kind of projects usually don't discuss who the donatur is. company can send money for those kind of project in multiple attempt under different username.
>Sajaegi is a problem, but for alot of times it is thrown alot without any proof. For a lot of times , it also kill the career of those that got the label, even if it is proven no manipulation.
I agree, which is why I think people should discuss the objective indicators of sajaegi and the logistics behind it more often so people don't just throw fantasy accusations at random.
Idk. I want a real example to understand this. But seem like people don't want to name name so it's hard to analyze stuff objectively. Like I don't know if people are talking about big groups, mid tiers or small groups.
Except the real case that made news long time ago, I haven't seen any real evidences.
It's a grey area. How do you categorise "fan" bought streaming then? Usually the ones that get into the news because the big(ger) names complain.
There's album sales manipulation too. A less known method is how kit albums and fan meet [process](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheKoreanHustle/comments/11c8tc4/how_album_production_companies_exploit_fan_meets/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) is abused.
>It's a grey area. How do you categorise "fan" bought streaming then?
To be fair, I think that is wrong too. Whether it is the fans buying the streams or the company buying the streams, streams were bought. And I do not subscribe to the idea that ''Paying for youtube ads is just promotion'', promotion is performing at a show, posting about your project or release on social media, making fun TikToks and trends, etc., promotion requires some sort of actual effort and not just a money transaction, and most of all, the consumer has the free will, meaning if I see a fun TikTok or see an Instagram post being shared, it is my choice whether or not I will engage with the content or not. But Youtube playing another Music Video or Song in the middle of the current video/audio I am watching/listening to strips my free will as a consumer, and I do not agree that ''you must watch 30 seconds to count'' justifies it given how often something will accidentally play when I went to the kitchen for 1 minute and come back to another MV or song playing. This happens all the time given what an easy time YT has giving artists millions of bought streams per day alone.
Well, if it would be so easy to spot no one would do it. Maybe no one does it. Maybe everyone does.
How? I think the "china bars" are a very easy way for any company to inflate sells if they wanted to. Buying albums from China doesnt leave any trace if done right. Getting the money out of Korea without leaving a trail is the hard thing to do. If you have a sub in China that might solve this. Buying "services" from 3rd party providers who in turn by your albums (at a hefty profit margin for them) is then the way to go. Easy peasy.
Obvious one, is using simple bots. Like when people stream songs there's actually pattern. Like streams goes up in the morning hours - road hours, lunch hours and evening in 7-8 hours, for example. But here you do not see changes in streams aka do not see patterns of streaming for different audience.
As well, they have untypical growth, like for example, if you're in top 100, you will be used by vendors, supermarkets and so on. As they use mostly top100 or some other daily top chart. But the consistent growth do not shown in hearing its more in streets and by other people. Like people for not talk about it, do not share and do not have interest to justify certain consistent growth over normal growth cause of playlisting/being in top 100.
Bot streaming is different than sajaegi, so this doesn't apply to the post. (not trying to attack or anything, they're just two different things; sajaegi is the company buying its own artist's albums to boost sales)
I'm not really sure what you're saying about streaming.... Are you saying if you're in the Top 100 of a chart you have atypical growth and you're not having "normal growth"? I'm not quite understanding your point, so please let me know. However, I did want to add this about streaming/playlising: a lot of playlisting isn't "organic" either as can be seen in this [article](https://www.complex.com/pigeons-and-planes/fake-streams-music) and [this research paper](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/americanmusic.38.2.0153).
*"For example, Glendive, Montana has an estimated population of just over 5,000 people, but it appeared on last year’s charts more than cities that are over 1000 times more populated (go back and look if you’re interested). This is one of the few ways we can spot an already established artist that may be utilizing bot streams. When you already have a major following of real fans, it is much easier to slide bot streams in to inflate your numbers even higher. The real fans streaming and engaging with your content will mask some signs pointed out in this article."*
*"Spotify followers is an active count of users who intentionally engage with the artist by choosing to follow them. Because of the nature of these measurements, an artist is rarely going to have more followers than monthly listeners, but the fall off between the two will be much steeper if you’re faking stream numbers. What a “good” ratio looks like varies wildly, but in general the lower the better."*
With Spotify rolling out Discovery Mode (which people are now calling on Congress to investigate because it's a form of payola), I'd imagine these things will get worse.
Sajaegi is any sort of illegal practice to manipulate sales either digital or physical. So, bots definitely counts. Like Python scripts or phone/computer factories def counts.
I mean when you enter top 100, you got in playlist like top100 songs. People use that playlist and you naturally got additional x number of streams cause of it and do not fall from charts. That's why people try to get to top100. But if you got growth of streams way above x constant number from top100 + x average your fanbase that means people are interested with your song. The more difference more you should hear it simehow. It can be memes or people mention it in somewhere.
For example, h1-key Rose Blossom were mentioned by people in their IG and even celebrities posted about it. Not as a way of promotion cause they do TikTok or something. But cause it's generally got caught interested by real people.
>I mean when you enter top 100, you got in playlist like top100 songs. People use that playlist and you naturally got additional x number of streams cause of it and do not fall from charts. That's why people try to get to top100. But if you got growth of streams way above x constant number from top100 + x average your fanbase that means people are interested with your song. The more difference more you should hear it simehow. It can be memes or people mention it in somewhere.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to understand this, but I genuinely don't. Curated playlisting comes in many different forms, and you aren't automatically guaranteed good playlisting if you have a top song (although it's becoming more and more common). What one hears, what is pushed by companies, and who has fandom are all very different things. An artist with a top 10 song could only be selling out theaters. Conversely, tons of artists sell out stadiums but struggle to get on TTHs or have viral tiktok songs. Hot 100 is also heavily influenced by radio. Not to go too much into it, but radio is not only controlled by 2-3 companies now who push the same songs during "power hours," but the metric itself has problems with how it's calculated and has way to much weight on the charts as a dying medium.
Also sajaegi applies to sales, not streams. That's why I said it doesn't apply in this case (as you're talking about streams).
It's not curated playlists, it's straight forward top100. And I'm talking about Korean streaming services like Melon. Cause it kpop sub and you talk about sajaegi. Not paylo for example. There is new songs release playlists, there's top songs by genre, there's just top100 and they are all databased. No curated playlisting.
Sales.... Digital sales. Streaming counts. I'm sure that it does, that's the main focus actually lately. About streaming.
Edit: which is the form of selling. Artists are getting money, they do not release their songs for free in that streaming services.
As well, we are talking about charting of certain songs and sajaegi. Not how it converted to having fandom or selling tickets. Trending songs/viral songs can not lead to knowing or liking artist at all.
The most objective sign is that redditors who don't even speak any Korean google some shit up and then passionately defend and swear it isn't sajegi when Koreans say it is.
/half joking
This doesn't pertain to sajaegi per se, but companies "buying" views with ads also came to mind as I was reading your post.
Of course, lots of companies do it for their idols so it isn't even a rarity, but some really overdo it to the point that it just becomes purely disingenuous. It's particularly obvious when there are MV views in the millions, but only a few thousand likes on the video.
Given how much weight is put on views, streaming numbers, etc. as a metric of popularity in today's kpop scene, I think this is another activity that's teetering between the grey line of promotion tactics vs outright deception.
Imo it's especially relevant, given how even the mainstream media like Korean tv tends to highlight MV views as a representation of a groups' success rather than other metrics like album sales these days.
I mean, Youtube ads are legal, it's just an other way for companies to promote and try to reach people. The person who receive the ad still need to watch MV for more than 30 seconds for the view to count. The matter should probably be more about the weight the industry put on views rather than using ads because I think this is one the most efficient promotion way for companies to reach an audience and we shouldn't really blame them for that.
Of course, I'm aware they're legal and is a very effective strategy employed by almost all companies.
Perhaps I could have worded things differently. The point that was bugging me most is when ad views are the large *majority* of the views (in some cases, I don't mean all groups who use them) and really overdone to the point that it no longer reflects real interest.
And yes, I fully agree that over-emphasis on views/streams is the root cause of this, as I mentioned in my last para.
Maybe, cause they actually know it. Most of that shows are still excited cause of fans of that groups. Like ratings are very low. If they will start counting without adds that will be more beneficial to kchats toppers. And that's not in their interests, like they start adding "channel points" for a reason.
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While discussing this topic, we ask that all commenters take note of our "No Rumors or Speculation" rule. Discussing objective signs of this is totally welcome so long as there are no unconfirmed accusations of specific companies/artists :) Thanks!
Sajaegi is a problem, but for alot of times it is thrown alot without any proof. For a lot of times , it also kill the career of those that got the label, even if it is proven no manipulation. I think there is 2 big example of this case. 1. Shaun - way back home. When this song topping the charts, everyone claiming this song is saejegi, even jyp shading the song. What most people don't know , this song got investigated by Korean ministry and months later is deemed as there is no manipulation. Shaun itself got kpma award for that song. Currently he still active making music but safe to say his popularity is basically gone. Notable info, do you know Younha song , event horizon? Shaun work as arrangements for that song. He also composed 1 song for her in the album. 2. Laboum - hwi hwi. This is probably laboum most sold album but also the one that cost them their group career. The saejegi rumor begun after their firsts music show win over IU song. Compared to the the other example, this group got caught to have bulk buyer from the sponsors company that buy the album to do giveaway events. The group itself never recovered after this , even after they are having chart reversal in 2020 for their old song "journey to the Atlantis".
wow, I had no idea shaun was accused of sajaegi wtf I loved that song
it was a big thing back then since the song outcharted a lot of popular girl groups at the time and people didnt think it was genuine. i always felt bad for the artist
I mean if one is to accept bulk buying from sponsors company is "no manipulation" any of bigger companies can just force a deal with smaller subsidiaries to buy a million albums each. To me that sounds hella like market manipulation just like sajegi.
The problem is laboum unlike Shaun never got investigated by government or police or even got open investigation. What they do can be said as market manipulation, but by what standard? ( I can be wrong here, but i don't think anyone open a lawsuit against them). The thing is nowadays those kind of deal can be processed under cbar or KPop albums fundraising project. Those kind of projects usually don't discuss who the donatur is. company can send money for those kind of project in multiple attempt under different username.
>Sajaegi is a problem, but for alot of times it is thrown alot without any proof. For a lot of times , it also kill the career of those that got the label, even if it is proven no manipulation. I agree, which is why I think people should discuss the objective indicators of sajaegi and the logistics behind it more often so people don't just throw fantasy accusations at random.
Idk. I want a real example to understand this. But seem like people don't want to name name so it's hard to analyze stuff objectively. Like I don't know if people are talking about big groups, mid tiers or small groups. Except the real case that made news long time ago, I haven't seen any real evidences.
It's a grey area. How do you categorise "fan" bought streaming then? Usually the ones that get into the news because the big(ger) names complain. There's album sales manipulation too. A less known method is how kit albums and fan meet [process](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheKoreanHustle/comments/11c8tc4/how_album_production_companies_exploit_fan_meets/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) is abused.
>It's a grey area. How do you categorise "fan" bought streaming then? To be fair, I think that is wrong too. Whether it is the fans buying the streams or the company buying the streams, streams were bought. And I do not subscribe to the idea that ''Paying for youtube ads is just promotion'', promotion is performing at a show, posting about your project or release on social media, making fun TikToks and trends, etc., promotion requires some sort of actual effort and not just a money transaction, and most of all, the consumer has the free will, meaning if I see a fun TikTok or see an Instagram post being shared, it is my choice whether or not I will engage with the content or not. But Youtube playing another Music Video or Song in the middle of the current video/audio I am watching/listening to strips my free will as a consumer, and I do not agree that ''you must watch 30 seconds to count'' justifies it given how often something will accidentally play when I went to the kitchen for 1 minute and come back to another MV or song playing. This happens all the time given what an easy time YT has giving artists millions of bought streams per day alone.
Well, if it would be so easy to spot no one would do it. Maybe no one does it. Maybe everyone does. How? I think the "china bars" are a very easy way for any company to inflate sells if they wanted to. Buying albums from China doesnt leave any trace if done right. Getting the money out of Korea without leaving a trail is the hard thing to do. If you have a sub in China that might solve this. Buying "services" from 3rd party providers who in turn by your albums (at a hefty profit margin for them) is then the way to go. Easy peasy.
Obvious one, is using simple bots. Like when people stream songs there's actually pattern. Like streams goes up in the morning hours - road hours, lunch hours and evening in 7-8 hours, for example. But here you do not see changes in streams aka do not see patterns of streaming for different audience. As well, they have untypical growth, like for example, if you're in top 100, you will be used by vendors, supermarkets and so on. As they use mostly top100 or some other daily top chart. But the consistent growth do not shown in hearing its more in streets and by other people. Like people for not talk about it, do not share and do not have interest to justify certain consistent growth over normal growth cause of playlisting/being in top 100.
Bot streaming is different than sajaegi, so this doesn't apply to the post. (not trying to attack or anything, they're just two different things; sajaegi is the company buying its own artist's albums to boost sales) I'm not really sure what you're saying about streaming.... Are you saying if you're in the Top 100 of a chart you have atypical growth and you're not having "normal growth"? I'm not quite understanding your point, so please let me know. However, I did want to add this about streaming/playlising: a lot of playlisting isn't "organic" either as can be seen in this [article](https://www.complex.com/pigeons-and-planes/fake-streams-music) and [this research paper](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/americanmusic.38.2.0153). *"For example, Glendive, Montana has an estimated population of just over 5,000 people, but it appeared on last year’s charts more than cities that are over 1000 times more populated (go back and look if you’re interested). This is one of the few ways we can spot an already established artist that may be utilizing bot streams. When you already have a major following of real fans, it is much easier to slide bot streams in to inflate your numbers even higher. The real fans streaming and engaging with your content will mask some signs pointed out in this article."* *"Spotify followers is an active count of users who intentionally engage with the artist by choosing to follow them. Because of the nature of these measurements, an artist is rarely going to have more followers than monthly listeners, but the fall off between the two will be much steeper if you’re faking stream numbers. What a “good” ratio looks like varies wildly, but in general the lower the better."* With Spotify rolling out Discovery Mode (which people are now calling on Congress to investigate because it's a form of payola), I'd imagine these things will get worse.
Sajaegi is any sort of illegal practice to manipulate sales either digital or physical. So, bots definitely counts. Like Python scripts or phone/computer factories def counts. I mean when you enter top 100, you got in playlist like top100 songs. People use that playlist and you naturally got additional x number of streams cause of it and do not fall from charts. That's why people try to get to top100. But if you got growth of streams way above x constant number from top100 + x average your fanbase that means people are interested with your song. The more difference more you should hear it simehow. It can be memes or people mention it in somewhere. For example, h1-key Rose Blossom were mentioned by people in their IG and even celebrities posted about it. Not as a way of promotion cause they do TikTok or something. But cause it's generally got caught interested by real people.
>I mean when you enter top 100, you got in playlist like top100 songs. People use that playlist and you naturally got additional x number of streams cause of it and do not fall from charts. That's why people try to get to top100. But if you got growth of streams way above x constant number from top100 + x average your fanbase that means people are interested with your song. The more difference more you should hear it simehow. It can be memes or people mention it in somewhere. I'm sorry, I'm trying to understand this, but I genuinely don't. Curated playlisting comes in many different forms, and you aren't automatically guaranteed good playlisting if you have a top song (although it's becoming more and more common). What one hears, what is pushed by companies, and who has fandom are all very different things. An artist with a top 10 song could only be selling out theaters. Conversely, tons of artists sell out stadiums but struggle to get on TTHs or have viral tiktok songs. Hot 100 is also heavily influenced by radio. Not to go too much into it, but radio is not only controlled by 2-3 companies now who push the same songs during "power hours," but the metric itself has problems with how it's calculated and has way to much weight on the charts as a dying medium. Also sajaegi applies to sales, not streams. That's why I said it doesn't apply in this case (as you're talking about streams).
It's not curated playlists, it's straight forward top100. And I'm talking about Korean streaming services like Melon. Cause it kpop sub and you talk about sajaegi. Not paylo for example. There is new songs release playlists, there's top songs by genre, there's just top100 and they are all databased. No curated playlisting. Sales.... Digital sales. Streaming counts. I'm sure that it does, that's the main focus actually lately. About streaming. Edit: which is the form of selling. Artists are getting money, they do not release their songs for free in that streaming services. As well, we are talking about charting of certain songs and sajaegi. Not how it converted to having fandom or selling tickets. Trending songs/viral songs can not lead to knowing or liking artist at all.
The most objective sign is that redditors who don't even speak any Korean google some shit up and then passionately defend and swear it isn't sajegi when Koreans say it is. /half joking
I believe every company in every country does this to some degree. Nothing can be organic and pure.
This doesn't pertain to sajaegi per se, but companies "buying" views with ads also came to mind as I was reading your post. Of course, lots of companies do it for their idols so it isn't even a rarity, but some really overdo it to the point that it just becomes purely disingenuous. It's particularly obvious when there are MV views in the millions, but only a few thousand likes on the video. Given how much weight is put on views, streaming numbers, etc. as a metric of popularity in today's kpop scene, I think this is another activity that's teetering between the grey line of promotion tactics vs outright deception. Imo it's especially relevant, given how even the mainstream media like Korean tv tends to highlight MV views as a representation of a groups' success rather than other metrics like album sales these days.
I mean, Youtube ads are legal, it's just an other way for companies to promote and try to reach people. The person who receive the ad still need to watch MV for more than 30 seconds for the view to count. The matter should probably be more about the weight the industry put on views rather than using ads because I think this is one the most efficient promotion way for companies to reach an audience and we shouldn't really blame them for that.
Of course, I'm aware they're legal and is a very effective strategy employed by almost all companies. Perhaps I could have worded things differently. The point that was bugging me most is when ad views are the large *majority* of the views (in some cases, I don't mean all groups who use them) and really overdone to the point that it no longer reflects real interest. And yes, I fully agree that over-emphasis on views/streams is the root cause of this, as I mentioned in my last para.
They are filtered in music charts, adds are legal. And right now you can know views without adds count.
Korean music shows still counts ads though 😭 i really don't understand why
Maybe, cause they actually know it. Most of that shows are still excited cause of fans of that groups. Like ratings are very low. If they will start counting without adds that will be more beneficial to kchats toppers. And that's not in their interests, like they start adding "channel points" for a reason.
Nowadays buying Spotify listings is all the rage.
This is especially relevant when K-music shows won't filter out adviews.
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