The calm before the storm is over, and before BIGBANG and EXO’s first meeting on a music show where they battle it out for the trophy, fans are butting heads, both with each other – ever since the music videos for the two groups were released – and with the music shows – namely SBS “Inkigayo” and Mnet “M!Countdown.”

“Inkigayo” and “M!Countdown” had it coming, though; both apparently couldn’t handle the pressure of doing the same thing that they do every week again this week, and royally screwed up, so now they’re facing the wrath of V.I.Ps and EXO-Ls. (Slow clap.)

The first stumble: On June 8, EXO’s song “Love Me Right” was missing from the voting list for a crucial seven hours. Someone at “Inkigayo” must have gotten an earful. The production team apologized to fans, and said, “We sincerely apologize for our mistake to fans and viewers who intended to vote for the artist in question.”

The solution: “Inkigayo” announced that they would be accepting e-mail votes for seven hours on Wednesday, June 10, from the period of 12-7 a.m. Cheers to the poor intern still counting e-mails.

The second stumble: Well into the voting period, BIGBANG’s song “BAE BAE” was changed to “BANG BANG BANG,” effectively nulling all the votes that had previously been made for “BAE BAE,” although, according to the “Inkigayo” production team, they did not make any mistake.

They explained via a viewer forum, “The songs that get listed for the preliminary vote every Monday come from the top 60 of the ‘Inkigayo’ chart and artists that were on the show the previous week. On the afternoon of Wednesday, new releases from Monday through Wednesday, and new releases from artists appearing on the show get added to the list. Of the artists that were listed on Monday, if they have a new release, the old song gets replaced with the new.”

A total of three days of votes were lost with the song switch, as well as the ability to vote for those who had already done so.

An hour away, across the Han River from SBS at Mnet, “M!Countdown” was also dropping the ball on things.

“M!Countdown” held its preliminary votes internationally, in Japan and China in addition to Korea. However, the voting window, supposed to close at 9 a.m. on June 8 for all three countries, did not close for Japan, and remained open.

Mnet confirmed on June 10 to CBS NoCut News that the voting window did not close properly, and that Chinese fans who became aware of this fact bypassed the IP restriction to vote through the Japanese site.

“However,” Mnet stated, “only the votes made before 9 a.m. will be reflected in the final count, and those made after the fact will not be valid.”

Such, folks, is the power of BIGBANG + EXO.

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