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| - Analysis: K-pop singers at Hanteo Music Awards most likely didn’t encounter a foul smell
The 31st Hanteo Music Awards, which took place on Feb. 18 in South Korea, will probably go down in history as a bizarre edition of the award show.
Beyond the music and K-Pop artists at the glitzy evening, what made headlines were the supposed images of the event showing a poop-smeared floor, which we debunked previously, and three singers allegedly covering their noses because of the foul smell.
These images can be found on X (also here), and online media outlets like She.com and Korea Star Daily, which has gained thousands of interactions. Hundreds of users have been discussing it on multiple subreddits as well (for example, here and here).
Annie Lab looked through some video clips from the Hanteo Music Awards and found that the gestures of the three singers captured on camera were unrelated to the claims about the alleged foul smell in the room.
The two men featured in the social media posts and entertainment websites are members of the same boy band, ZEROBASEONE.
We found a Douyin video of Zhang Hao of ZEROBASEONE (who is seen in the upper right corner of the collage) uploaded by a fan on the night of Feb. 18.
It shows Zhang coughing with his fist covering his mouth while greeting fans cheerfully. Other members and people surrounding him appear to be acting normally. Shortly after, Zhang also stops coughing and does not show any visible signs of encountering a foul smell.
Annie Lab was able to find another fan video, on the YouTube channel CoatingCAM, with a wider shot taken at the same time as the Douyin video.
Zhang can be seen seated and coughing while no one around him in the video appears to be covering their noses or reacting the way people would to a foul smell.
His fellow group member, Han Yu Jin, whose image was also used in the claim, also appeared to have been simply coughing.
A Douyin clip showing Han at the music ceremony led us to a longer video of ZEROBASEONE’s acceptance speech for the Artist of the Year award. In the video, Han is seen coughing behind the mic right after calling out to the fans.
Below is a comparison between the viral photo (left) and the acceptance speech video from Bilibili (right)
The female singer in the collage is Winter from the girl group aespa.
We looked through a series of videos showing her covering her mouth during the event and concluded that she was likely to be reacting to the overcrowded audience area.
South Korea experienced a devastating crowd crush during Halloween festivities in the Itaewon neighbourhood in 2022 that killed more than 160 people and injured hundreds.
The risk of crowd surges seems to be in the minds of many artists and fans during the event, according to their social media posts and artists’ reactions we can see in those videos.
In the CoatingCAM video, we can see Winter covering her mouth with her left hand a few times during the ceremony (at 2:05, 6:25 and 8:07).
Winter appears to be monitoring the situation in the audience area, along with other artists. They look to be pointing in the direction of the audience, standing up to get better views, and requesting help from security personnel.
Shortly, some staff can be seen handing out water bottles to the audience while many artists seem to be gesturing to the fans below to step back.
One of the packed standing viewing zones was in front of the main stage and extended to the area for the singers to be seated.
An audience who went to the show described on X that they got pushed by other excited fans when ZEROBASEONE won the first award.
This user also said it was not the rumored foul smell that the singers reacted to but people “falling right in front of the idols due to the pushing.” The user went on to say he or she did not smell anything weird there.
Annie Lab reached out to a Weibo user, who took the photo of Winter at the event that was widely used in the claim. Although she did not see what prompted Winter’s facial expression, she told us in a message that there were fans jostling for space and quarrelling. She said she didn’t encounter any foul smell.
Many fans, netizens and online media coverage described this year’s Hanteo Music Awards with words like “chaos,” full of “horrible incidents” and “hot mess.” Some raised concerns about the security and the audience’s safety. A member of ZEROBASEONE also addressed the safety concern during an acceptance speech.
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