2023 VMAs Accused Of Being 'Rigged' After No BTS Member Gets Nominated

ARMYs are angry after BTS and its members' solo projects failed to secure a nomination at this year's Video Music Awards (VMAs). Some even accused the nominations list of being "rigged."

MTV recently dropped the nomination list for its annual music awards show, revealing several K-Pop and international artists who earned nods under various categories.

However, none of the BTS members who released solo music over the past year made it to the list, most notably under the Best K-Pop and Best Choreography categories. RM, Jin, Jimin, Suga, Jungkook and J-Hope released solo albums within the time frame before MTV unveiled the list Wednesday.

It is unclear why the internationally acclaimed K-Pop group nor its six members did not receive nominations, but the situation appeared to have disappointed several ARMYs worldwide. Some have even accused MTV of being "bitter" and allegedly rigging the list.

"The VMAS is so rigged by just the fact that [SEVENTEEN] didn't get nominated for best choreography as well as [NewJeans] for best K-Pop and BTS members for any category despite having more impact than most of the [people] there. Not to mention all the stunts they pulled out last year," one user wrote on Twitter.

Another commented, "Zero Nomination for BTS on VMAs... No Jimin. No JK. No RM. No Jin. No Hobi, all of them having Huge crazy achievements compared to others still no recognition... Now Tell me what's [easier] than getting rid of [nominees] that's obviously [going to] win [laugh out loud]."

"Oh, so the VMAS also thinks disregarding BTS is cute now? F—k you. We don't need your shit--s award when BTS has always been too good for y'all anyway. F—k you," a third user stated.

"#BTS paved the way for K-pop in VMAS," a fourth user opined, adding a compilation video of the BTS members' achievements over the past year.

TikTok user @.landonmark also gave a rundown of the situation, questioning why the members did not earn a nomination despite having several No. 1 hits on Billboard, dominating the Spotify music charts and breaking world records.

He described the situation as "wild" after Jungkook's single "Seven" featuring Latto did not make it to the Best Collaboration or Best Editing categories, the solo members failed to make it under the Best K-pop section and Jimin's songs got disregarded for Best Choreography.

The user, however, alleged that the VMAs organizers were "butthurt" because BTS' livestreams alone garnered millions of views, while their broadcast from last year only drew 3.9 million viewers, though it aired on 13 different channels. He captioned the video, "Make it make sense," and collected about 273,600 views across the platform.

Another user agreed with those sentiments and called out the VMAs for being "bitter" that BTS had more viewers than them.

Although BTS failed to secure nominations, its fellow HYBE artists SEVENTEEN and Tomorrow x Together (TXT) were able to secure slots. SEVENTEEN was nominated under the Best K-Pop category for "Super," while TXT earned a nod for Push Performance Of The Year.

The 2023 VMAs will be held at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Sept. 12.