Kris Wu surprised everyone when he topped the US iTunes chart earlier this month. For someone who has no North American profile, a lot of people, including Ariana Grande and her side, believed he manipulated the charts. As the 28-year-old star now made it on Billboard's 200 Chart, it only proved that his Chinese fans would do everything to boost his new album's, "Antares," sales.
Kris Wu got accused of using bots to boost "Antares" sales. But according to the South China Morning Post, the only organized effort to make his new album climbed music charts was by his Chinese fans.
Chinese fans spent a lot of money to help Kris Wu topped the US iTunes charts. No music promoters or even programmers lent him a hand to get this achievement.
This practice Chinese fans made for Kris Wu is not an unusual sight in China. This culture has even gone beyond buying their favorite stars' albums. They now engage in different mass activities to boost their idols' chart positions, brand equity, and influencing their "artistic decisions."
This Chinese fan culture can take different forms. They join online forums, launch campaigns to promote their favorite idols' latest projects and buy multiple copies of their new releases, like what happened to Kris Wu's case.
The Chinese fan culture turns into a multibillion-dollar economy. This move becomes a great success that even Chinese brands are trying to benefit from it.
Many celebrities turn their fans and fan-club members into their instant social media subscribers. Hence, a recent estimation revealed that the Chinese fan culture could worth as high as US$15 billion by 2020. It is something that foreign celebrities and brand will have a hard time to compete with.
Meanwhile, Kris Wu's "Antares" now debuted at No. 100 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for November 2017 amid chart manipulation controversy. Nielsen Music revealed, via Billboard, the former EXO member's LP "arrived with 8,000 equivalent album units earned" in the week ended on November 8. About 5,000 from the total figure were album sales.
"Billboard and Nielsen Music have been working to validate the accuracy and legitimacy of the sales volumes that were reported for Kris Wu last week," Nielsen Music's representative said in a statement. "As with all instances when providers are unable to validate sales, Nielsen decides on a case by case basis whether streaming or sales activity is chart-eligible."
