On Tuesday July 23rd, MTV revealed the nominations for its 2019 Video Music Awards (VMAs)! While other parts of the world are excited to vote for their favourite artists, K-Pop fans felt cheated!

For the first time in history, MTV VMAs have added a new category in this year’s line up, which is ‘Best Kpop’! BUT, if you thought that the expansion of the category would excite the fans of the music genre, then think again.

K-Pop fans, especially BTS’ ARMYs have taken over Twitter and other social media to express their disappointment and dissatisfaction towards the discriminatory acts towards K-Pop artists.

Despite being nominated for four categories for the VMAs — ‘Best Collaboration’ (with Halsey), ‘Best Art Direction’, ‘Best Choreography’ and of course the new ‘Best Kpop’, ARMYs using the hashtag #VMAsRacist to exhibit their outrage that VMAs purposely create another category just to remove BTS in top categories like ‘Video of the Year’, ‘Artist of the Year’ or ‘Best New Artist’.

imagine faking a whole ass category bc u can’t bear seeing ur fav artists lose #VMAsRacist pic.twitter.com/kn2fAqte0b

— yourlocalmagicshop (@junghoseok749) July 24, 2019

Anyways… At the end, BTS still outsold and stays winning ?#VMAsRacist pic.twitter.com/GQZNMIFtZI

— ㅓ.ㅗ.ㅗ.ㅡ. (@XXIVKHopeWorld) July 24, 2019

The debut of the K-Pop category isn’t the first time VMAs has had a division for a specific ethnicity or global region of origin in mind; they have had a ‘Best Latin’ category. However, some ARMYs still contended that represents racism acts too.

The ppl who aren’t understanding that there’s a problem with a Kpop category and that “we should just be happy they’re even nominated” ? those ppl clearly never had their accomplishments snubbed based on race meanwhile Kpop artists are out here being DISRESPECTED #VMAsRacist pic.twitter.com/vZlqPEhqMS

— jinhyuk ? jungmo (@_rayofhobi_) July 24, 2019

#VMAsRacist .. y’all really made A WHOLE CATEGORY TO limit bts with the success that they deserve pic.twitter.com/r7HHEBxZKU

— dayanara ♡ (@vscohoseok) July 24, 2019

Less vocal about the new category however are the fans of other groups that are nominated for the award. BLINKs, MONBEBEs, YOUNG ONEs, NCTzens and EXO-Ls are excited to see their favourite artists get extra attention from audience out of South Korea.

blackpink really the only gg nominated for best kpop for the vmas…YALL KNOW WHAT WE HAVE TO DO pic.twitter.com/X9Hmf8Ki7u

— ? (@addictyves) July 23, 2019

The other five nominated acts are Blackpink, Monsta X, Tomorrow X Together, NCT127 and EXO.

Do you think ARMYs are overreacting? Or they are doing the right thing to prove that their favourite deserves to be nominated in major awards?