So [someone] won [some award or whatever] at the MAMA awards and here’s how I feel about it.

“Hang on though…” I hear you ask – “as a musician and someone in the world of music, shouldn’t you care about ‘one of the most important events in the South Korea music industry’?”.

“But isn’t MAMA terribly important?”

Yeah well how about we look at how music awards are regarded in other parts of the world to get some perspective on this.

In the west the Grammys are supposedly the most important music award going, and nobody in the business with any brains really gives a fuck about that, either.  Maybe it’s because the Grammys have a reputation for having no fucking idea about anything regarding music, which one would think might be kind of important for a music award, but even more so it’s because it’s very obviously an industry circle-jerk.

I think the Grammys are nothing more than some gigantic promotional machine for the music industry. They cater to a low intellect and they feed the masses. They don’t honor the arts or the artist for what he created. It’s the music business celebrating itself. That’s basically what it’s all about. -Maynard Keenan (Tool), NY Rock Interview

(The Grammys are) like any awards ceremony, people slapping each other on the back, it’s basically the business saying “didn’t we do well?” to each other. – Lemmy (Motorhead), Metal, A Headbanger’s Journey Interview

Corpo-wisdom dictates that if any one guy sells thirty million records, when the kids come into the store to buy The Big Hit, they’ll also pick up something else.  This is called a “traffic-builder”.  Ever wonder why every year at the Grammys one guy sweeps up all the awards? – Frank Zappa, from The Real Frank Zappa Book

The awards aren’t about you, the music fan, or about what music is the best.  They’re about the industry patting themselves on the back.  Check out Eddie Vedder’s complete IDGAF attitude when his group Pearl Jam won a Grammy here:

(The audio is muted because the Grammys were quite butthurt at Eddie Vedder snubbing them so they’ve DCMA’ed the audio for anyone who tries to upload it anywhere, but he says “I’m gonna say something that’s typically me – I don’t really know what this means, I don’t think it means anything. That’s just how I feel. There’s too many bands, and you’ve heard it all before. My dad would’ve liked it; my dad died before I got to know him. He would’ve liked it, so that’s why I’m here. Thanks, I guess.“)

Public Enemy even saw the irrelevance of the Grammys before they were nominated for it three times in a row and lost out to the likes of one-hit wonders Young MC and Fresh Prince.  They knew that the Grammys would be listening to “It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back” (how could they not – arguably the most musically important album of the 1980s) but wouldn’t dare give them an award for something so musically left-field so they took the time to tell them to get fucked in advance:

Relevant part at 1:03 – there’s nothing like foresight.

“Oh, but there are other awards – what about the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, that’s important, right?”

Look around at any western music award ceremony and for every deliriously naive winner and every douchenozzle who is butthurt that them or their fave lost, there’s a whole legion of other people who are simply smart enough to realise that it’s all bullshit.

So why do k-pop fans care so fucking much?

If half the people who are actually winning these awards can’t even bring themselves to give a fuck, why do you?

Of course, I realise that’s not what it looks like to a k-pop fan.  K-pop awards are always full of polite acceptance speeches and extreme gratefulness because these young men and women who perform are company employees trained in PR and non-boat-rocking behaviour, but behind it all, it’s just another day with a dozen things to do and two hours of sleep.  It doesn’t mean a lot except to the exceptionally stupid.

By all means watch the MAMAs or whatever other award shows you want for the drunken frolics and (often lip-synced) performances… but caring about who wins is some serious over-investment of your emotions.  You could be using that time and effort for something meaningful, like acquiring illegal drugs, or getting into car accidents, or changing the world with mindblowing insights into gender politics.  Don’t waste your energy, kids.