Accusations of Water Army Bot Voting Against Fandoms of Hyeri and Kim Hye Yoon for 2025 Baeksang Popularity Award
So this is getting messy and I’m not informed as to how to manipulate online voting for awards so this is just sharing the accusations being thrown around for the 2025 Baeksang Awards public voting for the Popularity Award. And this type of fandom fighting has happened in prior years with this award so it’s a new thing, just with different players. This year’s big fight is with the fandom of idol-actress Hyeri against actress Kim Hye Yoon. Hyeri was leading the vote for a week but has since been overtaken by Kim Hye Yoon (who was third but also leapfrogged over IU), and the number and speed of her voting increase has been called into question by Hyeri’s fandom as using bots. But netizens are also accusing Hyeri’s fandom of bot voting and manipulation as well, perhaps just not doing it as well as Kim Hye Yoon’s fandom lol. Baeksang has in response instituted one email address/one IP/and click to prove not a bot, but it hasn’t slowed down Kim Hye Yoon’s increase which in one day was 100,000 votes. This award is so silly anyway but these type of accusations really taint it and also make the actresses look bad regardless of who wins.
Much ado about nothing if you ask me. I really do not care about these fake award shows. All of the ladies are pretty popular and liked by the public and everyone of them deserve the number one spot so whatever
All these fightings are never good for any artistes.
I am just happy to watch Hyeri out of the shadows of her ex-boyfriend. She almost became invisible when they started dating… only after they broke up, she started being herself again. Her chatshow is popular, her drama is doing well and she is giving positive energy to many youngsters.
What a weird accusation, as if it was his fault!
Many people can get overshadowed by their partner, some by choice…her ex is a good actor and Hyeri kept herself in background when they were dating. Now they have broken up, we know she was very sad about it. But she has since turn that into positive energy and push herself to focus on her career. I really find that a great thing. It inspires youngster to not allow negative energy to affect their lives and move on.
Did the ex do anything wrong? I dont know nor do I care as that is between themselves. I only know they broke up and she moved on positively. And I am happy to see her out of the shadow of that relationship and person she loved.
@Rina, dont read comments so negatively. There is not accusations at all. Just stating facts.
So does that mean IU is the exception and it is just hyeri and Kim hye yoons fans cheating? Weird.
I’m sure IU’s fan aren’t innocent either, but it’s hard to say she’ll lose to the other 2. We are talking about the biggest star of last year incoming to this year, top earner/advertiser, and went on a world tour.
I was there at her Chicago concert and it was packed.
I may not join any fanclub. But I am fond of IU’s singing and some of her dramas. I would pay to go to her concert.
@lil, lucky you!!
In relation to how IU does in other exercises like Gallup, Forbes etc., her having huge number of votes is expected and is consistent. Whereas Hyeri & Hyeyoon while having immediate spike due to their dramas true year, do not have the kind of stature IU has. So their numbers are unexpected.
Even by recency bias, IU’s hit is more recent than Hyeyoon’s.
IU topping anything in K-drama or K-pop is no surprise, she has been doing that for decades.
That’s why not much suspicion against IU votes.
Was Lee Hye Ri even in anything in the last year? (She may have been and I missed it?) I can understand Kim Hye Yoon since Lovely Runner falls into this Award’s time period and IU is a no-brainer after Tangerines – and maybe even the re-airing of Scarlet Heart Ryeo.
Kim Hye Yoon’s fans are a really dedicated group from what I’ve seen, so the voting increase is likely a result of them getting organised.
She’s in Friendly Rivalry which aired earlier this year.
Friendly rivalry, her gl drama gained her lot of new fans. Well you know how queer fans are usually more dedicated
I saw this online poll. WNBA and NBA voting. Where one of the biggest WNBA player and NBA player were neck and neck through the voting and then all of sudden the NBA player shut up in voting out of no where. The poll admin, release those votes counts per day and said they would not count the votes that all of sudden increase in crazy #. In the end, the WNbA player won (which was Caitlin clark by the way).
Like where do these fans find these services of bots voting?
I saw that one fan had 5 email addresses and used them all to vote for KHY 6 times then posted on twitter for everyone to copy.
What a pointless award and voting system…we know these celebs are popular by looking at their follower numbers already.
From what I experienced, old fans organized email account to use from months ago. Then just dm dedicated fans on twitter to help login into these and vote.
Yes I was guilty of such acts lol
I didn’t know how they got the email address tho
These three actresses have got over 5 million votes by now and see a daily increase of 1 million votes lol! The fourth-placed actress has only 30 thousand votes. How could that be normal? By comparison, the top male actor Byeon Wooseok has only over 1 million votes, and his votes increase slowly but steadily. Usually it is the male actor that gets much more votes.
There’s probably no close competition in the male category. If there is I bet similar thing would happen.
I am LOLing at this situation, but definitely agree that male actors usually have higher numbers.
All this for a popularity award? Such loser behavior.
I see “vote for Hyeri” post on Facebook all day ,it’s kinda annoying.
Someone must have paid for advertisement in facebook…
IP addresses can be easily masked by VPN. VPN providers change clients’ IP addresses all the time to shun tracking.
The popularity award is perhaps the most pointless one in such prestigious Baeksang, like anyone serious about performing art would care about it LOL. I personally don’t find any of the two top runners in this category appealing either visually or acting-wise. Their dramas aren’t that fascinating to me either. TBH, Kdrama has been lacking in rom com or any other genres the past one year. It just started to get interesting in 2025. I hope to see more emerging products and actors that truly deserve popularity awards.
That culture in that country is so blatant and ridiculous you don’t even want to bother tbh. It’s the same for kpop. Bots in streaming, voting etc is so rampant. Popularity doesn’t even mean that anymore. It just means how who pays the most. It doesn’t matter if the artist is the worst singer or actor in their country. So blatant, so shallow.
I hoped iu would win, but damn I don’t think there’s any point on winning this now. Would rather see her win best actress
Basically Hyeyoon fans are voting nonstop. After Baeksang added capcha and bot filter Hyeri’s votes gradually declained I saw at twiter somehow Chinese fans many of which was huge fans of GL drama she last was into couldn’t vote after this.
Also HY fans were very nice to other fandoms and asked vote for her. I voted for her from 4 email accounts last few days didn’t have much problem.
But catfight at Twitter was quite amising all 3 girls fans accused eo of using bots but considering that voting for Hyeri’s stalled after Baeksang capcha you can do the math