Sajaegi! This is now the big issue being thrown by the Korean netizens to the girl group TWICE after the netizens found out about a suspicious rise in sales for the group's album, Eyes Wide Open.
The Hanteo Chart has now released a statement regarding the netizens' accusations with the girl group.
The Eagle-Eyed Netizens
On October 28, a Korean netizen shared a post of screenshots of TWICE's album sales. In the post, it pointed out the drastic rise it took. The netizens first mention how the group could average around 100,000 album sales for their first week sales ever since KNOCK KNOCK.
Meanwhile, the new album Eyes Wide Open only took a minute to sell 80,000 copies. The controversial post claimed that the jump is too big for their records. With the assumptions, they accused the girls of committing sajaegi.
Furthermore, some netizens also commented on other TWICE albums. They noticed sudden jumps on the charts due to their album sales. They shared about Fancy You being able to sell 20,000 copies in just a day. This caused TWICE to jump higher than BLACKPINK's Kill This Love. With these unexplainable jumps, the netizen accused the girls of sajaegi.
So what is Sajaegi?
In the music industry of South Korea, sajaegi is when a company or an artist moves unethical and proceeds to illegal methods to boost its ranks in music charts. This illegal method can be done in several ways: bulk-buying their CDs or using bots or computer farms to keep streaming their song to help them rise in the music charts.
The Korean netizens vehemently claimed that TWICE is doing this anomaly. With this, many malicious comments and posts were received by the group.
Hanteo Chart On The Hot Seat
It appears that Hanteo has been receiving inquiries regarding the netizens' concerns. The music chart platform stood up and clarified that TWICE did not commit sajaegi and did not do any actions to manipulate the charts.
Read the full statement of Hanteo Chart here: