As of January 4, Taeyang’s latest posts are flooded with comments, mostly from international fans.
Notable among these comments are those criticizing Taeyang while mentioning BTS.
Recently, during a CNN interview on New Year’s Eve, Taeyang was asked: “You and BIGBANG are considered pioneers in making K-pop a global phenomenon. How do you feel about seeing K-pop take the world by storm today?” Taeyang replied: “Fortunately, many junior artists who followed in our footsteps were able to open doors to the global market and perform on world stages. It’s not that we gave them these opportunities, but we can feel that our efforts have contributed to this, which makes us happy.”
After the interview was released, some BTS fans started leaving comments like “BTS led the way“,”How can you claim to have opened doors when you had nothing?” AND “BTS are the true pioneers“, criticizing Taeyang.
Debuting in 2006, BIGBANG set records with their 2012 mini-album “ALIVE,” becoming the first Korean album to enter the Billboard 200 chart and the first Korean singer to do so, paving the way for international success.
Taeyang and G-Dragon’s solo albums subsequently also charted on the Billboard 200, and since then, K-pop idols appearing on the charts have become commonplace.
Despite Taeyang’s clarification that “It’s not like we were the ones who gave away these opportunities“, these critical comments have sparked a reaction from Taeyang’s fans, who are now defending him.
Meanwhile, Taeyang is currently on his “THE LIGHT YEAR TOUR” world tour, which runs from August 31 last year to February 22.
