There’s been quite the fandom mess going on recently, which only got more ridiculous thanks to involvement from people within the music industry. Basically, Kris recently released his ‘Antares‘ album and he got accused by other fandoms of using chart manipulation to hit #1.

After a while, music news accounts started posting that his album had been removed from iTunes, thus fueling the outrage of other fandoms.

Kris Wu’s album and songs have been removed from the US iTunes Charts after accusations of boosted sales have surfaced. pic.twitter.com/NsoFkvyAUI — Music News Facts (@musicnewsfact) November 6, 2018

At the time, Kris’s album was in competition with Ariana Grande‘s “Thank U Next“, and a ‘Like’ of hers on Twitter led to speculation that Scooter Braun was pulling strings to take care of Kris and his supposed bots.

Then there was an alleged (he denies it’s real, apparently) Scooter Braun tweet that replies to an Ariana fan where he confirms to them that Kris was using bots.

As you can imagine, things devolved into an absolute mess from there. Basically all of the fandoms who have ever been beaten by Kris to the #1 spot on iTunes used this opportunity to lay into him and his fans. It was kind of a bloodbath, honestly.

One problem, though. Earlier today Scooter himself issued a groveling statement clarifying that Kris was never removed from iTunes, that the sales were legit, and that there were no bots.

For the sake of posterity.

Over the past few days I have become aware of an artist named @kriswu. Last night we had an opportunity to connect and talk and show respect. We learned of each other since many rumors have come out about both us in connection to his newest release. Kris is a great artist who on a global scale is a star. It was explained to he and I last night that because his release was held back in China for his birthday his fans went and got the music any way they could and that was US Itunes. Once the release in China took place the fans had their access. He has never been removed from the charts on iTunes. That is false. Those were real people from the US and international community and not bots like many have rumored. I have never wished anything bad for Kris nor any other artist and those saying otherwise are wrong. Any fans of anyone I manage who are using this opportunity to spread any sort of division or racism are dead wrong and I won’t stand for it. The music community is international and no longer held by borders. Kris happy birthday and you showed yourself to be a global star. Glad we got to connect and speak and keep your head held high. This is just the first of many achievements for you. And for those using my name for false rumors now you know exactly where I stand. Keep it positive.

Scooter was also on Twitter brown-nosing…

@KrisWu good talking. Happy birthday and keep your head held high. https://t.co/zBEjhX3Aol — Scooter Braun (@scooterbraun) November 7, 2018

…which at least led to amusing tweets.

scooter: kris wu used bots

us: repeat that

scooter: repeat what

us: u said kris used bots

scooter: i never said that

us: we have u on tape

scooter: kris is my friend https://t.co/nxU3TrQTCn — zoe (@lovesoris) November 7, 2018

Anyway, one can begin to understand the sudden change in tone after reading a statement about this mess from Universal Music Group China (Kris signed with UMG back in April), as they went as far as threatening legal action if people kept talking shit.

Ah, and the benefits of signing with a major label become quickly apparent. Does this get cleared up in this fashion if Kris were not with UMG? Probably not.

Anyway, excluding Kris himself, this mess turned out to be a rather terrible look for everybody involved.

——

Now if I may take a moment to be a bit petty, I’d like to point out that my inbox was inundated with mountains of shit from people making a big stink about this drama. They basically came at me for not covering a mess that I was not even aware was happening, as thankfully Western fandom drama doesn’t appear on my radar much.

Here’s amazingly probably the most rational sounding one:

They’re trying to drag me over an article I wrote back in fucking May about a fanwar between the fandoms of BTS and Kris, which also involved Kris being accused of chart manipulation, and I guess they figured that Western fandoms also making a mess legitimized their gripes or something. I dunno.

So I wrote a ‘Hate Me Now’ article addressing them, explaining that if they wanted me to admit that Western fandoms were also delulu about chart manipulation shit, then I would gladly do so. I also pointed out that I literally fucking wrote that it was likely fans of Kris did do chart manipulation shit with VPN or something.

Anyway, did Kris’s fandom manipulate the charts? Sure, probably. But mainly in the way that all fandoms manipulate charts, and every single K-pop fandom I’ve seen has step-by-step guides to help their faves game the system in terms of streaming, views, and votes. So honestly, for any fandom to complain about chart manipulation, it just rings hollow as hell to me (#JusticeForNilo2K18). Most importantly, does it even matter if they manipulated their location to get all the sales in the US? It’s still sales and iTunes still loves money, so of course they’re not likely to care about location bullshit.

That said, I questioned whether they had trouble reading because they had somehow missed the whole point of that article, which was that fandoms whining about chart manipulation stuff was hilariously hypocritical to me because they ALL do it in some form. It’s practically their damn hobby.

(DRAMA AHEAD) I'm not an ari stan or a kris wu stan but the racism rlly reared its head with this recent iTunes drama. Now the argument's turned from "he used bots" to "he used illegal vpns". I guess ppl are only ok with international VPNs if they benefit white women? Ok lmao pic.twitter.com/nFJX3An4vv — STREAM ANTARES ON ITUNES (@thefakeokeiko) November 7, 2018

After some replies to the article indicated that they amazingly still did not understand my point, I decided it wasn’t worth my sanity and nuked it. Unfortunately, things obviously escalated recently to the point where lawyer-y statements from relevant people were issued and shit. So here we are again, since it’s kind of a real thing now, and here I am again hoping people get what I’m saying.

Feel like it shouldn't be that hard to grasp that one can understand fandoms utilize VPN and also not care about it cause manipulating charts is like … basically what they all do for a hobby. — Asian Junkie (@asianjunkiecom) November 8, 2018

Oh, and on the Asian representation angle … yeah, I’ve truly seen how much you guys care about us Asian-Americans through your actions during this mess with all the gleeful co-signing on Western fandoms pretending we don’t matter or whatever shit. I know you guys are definitely invested in our future now. Appreciated.

compilation of sinophobic + racist remarks against Kris Wu. bc this is the reality for chinese who make it big in the west. they are faced with racial slurs, attacks on their culture, remarks telling them to stay in china, and the threat of a witchhunt against fellow chinese. pic.twitter.com/28OLMyiP8C — C-Ent Translations (@CEntNews1) November 4, 2018

So yeah, good job everybody.