Poster for “Herald K Awards with Twitter” (K-pop Herald)

K-pop Herald, an in-house unit under the nation’s largest English daily The Korea Herald, held the first-ever “Herald K Awards with Twitter” to celebrate the global popularity of K-pop.

Officially supported by Twitter, a total of 25 K-pop acts took awards in five categories: My Solo, an award for the best singer-turned-soloist; My Boys, the best male group; My Girls, the best female group; My Song, the song of the year award; and My Rookie, the rookie of the year.

Voting for the My Solo, My Boys and My Girls categories was held from July 25-30. Fans voted on the My Song and My Rookie winners from Aug. 8-13. Each tweet of the category’s specific hashtag was counted as a vote for the online awards.

The first edition of the event saw 3,245,841 votes in total on Twitter.

Lisa and Rose of girl group Blackpink were ranked first and third for My Solo, respectively, with 896,580 and 150,588 votes each. BamBam and Jay B of boy band GOT7 came in second and fifth, recording 302,053 votes and 60,050 votes each. Kai of EXO took home fourth place with 62,198 votes.

Boy band NCT Dream won the best K-pop male group award, with some 78,263 votes in total. Rookie boy band T1419 sat at No. 2 with 54,923 votes, while NCT 127, a boy band under the NCT umbrella, came third with a total of 46,967 votes. GOT7 was ranked fourth with 29,327 votes, and WayV, the China-based group under the NCT unit, came in fifth with 22,364 votes.

Meanwhile, Secret Number took home the best K-pop female girl group award, with 76,940 votes from global fans. Rookie band Dream Catcher garnered some 38,187, while Ive, who debuted in November 2021, came third with 20,144 votes. Weeekly was ranked fourth with 4,982 votes, and Kep1er won fifth place with a total of 4,688 votes.

Lisa also took the song of the year for “Money,” from her first musical project "Lalisa,” while BamBam notched the second spot with “Ribbon,” his solo debut single, with 464,535 and 430,166 votes, respectively. NCT Dream took the No. 3 spot with “Hot Sauce,” the title track of its first LP. GOT7’s “Encore” sat at No. 4 with 56,940 votes, and Rose’s solo debut song “On The Ground” came in fifth with 28,328 votes.

In the My Rookie category, T1419 took home the top award, racking up 40,279 votes. K-pop powerhouse JYP Entertainment's two rookie groups, Nmixx and Xdinary Heroes, came in second and fourth with 35,917 and 9,223 votes, respectively. Boy band Omega X ranked No. 3 with 32,366 votes, and Ive came in fifth with 8,715 votes.

On the sidelines of the event, a campaign titled “What's Your K?” was also held to engage more fans in the online event. Those who took part in the campaign during the last week of July replied with #WhatsYourK, #ThisIsMyK and #HeraldKAwards on Twitter. The three hashtags, which came with a custom-designed purple "K" emoji created for the campaign, became real-time trending hashtags.

(junheee@heraldcorp.com)