Simon Cowell‘s viral announcement has left many K-Pop fans irritated.
Simon Cowell is an English television personality, entrepreneur, and record executive known for his part in creating some of the biggest musical acts. Of these, the most famous is undoubtedly One Direction.
The then five-piece group was formed on The X Factor and shot to superstardom before the departure of Zayn Malik in March 2015 and their indefinite hiatus, which began in 2016.
It seems this hiatus has affected Simon Cowell directly, as his newest announcement mentioned them by name.
In an interview with Rolling Stone published on June 4, Simon Cowell stated that he was looking for the next One Direction, saying no boyband has reached the same level of success.
“Every generation deserves a megastar boyband and I don’t think there has been one to have the success of One Direction in over 14 years. The industry tends to focus on solo artists – so it usually takes someone from outside to put a group together.”
— Simon Cowell
Many K-Pop fans took offense to this, calling out Cowell’s “western-centric” perspective purposely leaving out the success of K-Pop groups. Some even recalled Cowell’s own reaction to BTS’s success, when he mentioned wanting to create a “UK-Pop group” to rival them.
this is hilarious because a lack of boyband omnipresence is, like, an entirely western viewpoint https://t.co/67nfcgHcPZ
— lucy ford 🍊 (@lucyj_ford) June 5, 2024
this the same man that was threatened and wanted to create “uk-pop” in 2019 when he saw bts selling out stadiums and breaking records LMAOO😭 https://t.co/lhtnv7rdWR pic.twitter.com/EHhgjUrI0q
— ` (@cuntmin_) June 5, 2024
These call outs are for good reason — BTS have broken several records set by One Direction, including the most followers on Instagram and X, and the global event cinema record.
The group has also outperformed One Direction musically, including breaking their record for the most views on a YouTube video in 24 hours and having more number 1s on Billboard‘s “Hot 100” chart, in addition to others.
While the group’s active times have not continued to overlap, it is apparent that Cowell’s statement did disregard BTS (and several other popular groups).
I’m not even saying this as a stan, how oblivious and ignorant do you have to be to not see bts as being … dare I say above one directions level of popularity. Lmao https://t.co/EooNjxDXdp
— dr. onew fan (@perfectcows) June 4, 2024
“BTS is the most streamed group on spotify, the best selling group to debut this century, the best selling act to debut in the 2010s decade, the most awarded group of all time, the most viewed group on youtube, scored 6 #1s on the hot 100 in a time span of 14 months. i could go… https://t.co/nfG7sZ1H1p“
— victoria (@facebypjm) June 4, 2024
look i’m not a fan of bts but ain’t no way this fuck ass white man said there’s boyband since 1d to have that much success when bts is right there ?? and i can 100% bet his group is gonna be all white with a token brown or black boy and it’s absolutely giving racism https://t.co/MP4helQiPI
— areeba¹²⁷ (@enchanting2meet) June 4, 2024
