Recently, a video circulated on social networks showing a large number of albums of the group CORTIS piled up near a garbage treatment area before being transported elsewhere.
The video immediately sparked discussions about the "mass album buying" culture that has existed for a long time in Kpop - where fans buy a huge number of albums mainly to exchange for the right to participate in giao lưu - autographing, collecting photocards (corner cards) or "plowing" on ranking achievements, instead of actually listening to music.
Many critics argue that such activities create misleading sales figures, losing the value of reflecting the true popularity of artists; not to mention causing serious material waste.
From the story of CORTIS's album being thrown in the trash, the public also questioned the group's sales performance.
As of May 10, CORTIS' mini album "Greengreen" had sold 2,313,291 copies on Hanteo in its first week of release. This is the highest first-week sales of any Kpop Gen 5 group, and also in the top of the Kpop albums with the highest first-week sales in history.
However, many viewers doubt this number. A post spreading on a famous forum questioned the group's sales. The post argued that CORTIS's actual popularity is not commensurate with the "huge" album sales for a rookie.
For example, pre-booking for CORTIS's pop-up event is quite easy, not falling into the situation of having to compete like other bands with large fandoms. Or CORTIS losing in a poll to groups with lower sales also makes their real reputation questionable.
In addition, HYBE Group (CORTIS's managing company) has been suspected many times of "exaggerating" album sales. Even former CEO of ADOR (NewJeans' managing company) Min Hee Jin directly mentioned HYBE's proposal to use the "pre-purchase" trick to push up album sales in the first week for artists.
Therefore, even though CORTIS is a rising group, doubts are inevitable. This controversy once again highlights the growing debate surrounding the obsession of Kpop with numbers and record-breaking achievements.
As album sales across the industry continuously reach unprecedented levels in history, more and more people are skeptical whether physical album sales still accurately reflect the real popularity.
In addition, CORTIS supporters also defended the group, saying that the group's online popularity is clearly shown through the strong increase in interaction on YouTube, TikTok and many other social platforms, proving that the group really has a great attraction to young international audiences.
On the other hand, fans believe that mass album purchases are already deeply ingrained in the Kpop fandom culture, so they cannot only target CORTIS, while many other best-selling artists also benefit from the similar fan-promoted album purchase model.
