This is the sixth and final statistical report on the #FightForWonho hashtag campaign. April 9, 2020 was the last day of this project, so it is time to review the final results and how was the path of bringing Wonho back.
What was #FightForWonho?
On October 31, 2019, it was announced that Wonho was leaving Monsta X to not affect the rest of the members of the group by being accused (without evidence) of using marijuana. Starting on November 1, different Monbebe groups around the world organized a daily hashtag campaign demanding that Wonho return to Monsta X and that Starship Entertainment defend both him and the rest of his artists from defamation and cyberbulling.
The strategy was to use two hashtags (one in English and one in Korean) every 12 hours to get the attention of Starship Entertainment, the media, and the general public, as these issues are common within the kpop industry and threaten the lives of artists.
On March 13, 2020, the news was released that Wonho had been released from all charges after 5 months of investigation, in which no evidence was found to incriminate him.
On April 9, 2020, the news was released that Wonho was returning to the world of music as a soloist after signing an exclusivity contract with Highline Entertainment, a subsidiary of Starship Entretainment. That same day, their official Instagram, Twitter and Fancafe accounts were opened. It was an exceptional event, since it is not common in the kpop industry to be given a second chance so soon to someone who deviated or seemed to deviate from the strict standards of their culture.
Wonho stated in the official press release: "I really appreciate the fans for giving me this opportunity."
Methodology
The goal of this research was to record the popularity of Monsta X and Wonho worldwide, to demonstrate that they are internationally valued artists. On one hand it would be proof for the artists to observe that they did not lose the support of their fans despite the difficulties. And also to show that Monbebe did not agree with Wonho's departure from the group, or that he abandoned his artistic career because of false accusations.
For this report, I logged all of the daily hashtags used on Twitter from November 1, 2019 to April 9, 2020, as well as other additional hashtags that were implemented for special projects in support of Wonho. I collected the hashtags from the Twitter accounts of Monbebe Entertainment and MX7 Protection Squad (if you are interested in seeing detailed information on each of them, I recommend checking the Twitter thread of @merebyeoltameni).
I used the GetDayTrends site to review each of the hashtags and record how many of them were worldwide trends, what position they got in the world trends ranking, how many and which countries were trending, and how many tweets they got (this ONLY on trending hashtags worldwide and only during the period of time that they were, since that is the information provided by the site in question).
Before sharing the results of the entire campaign, I will briefly present the numbers obtained during the month of April.
Hashtags and participating countries in April
From April 1 to 9:
Total hashtags posted: 38
Total world trends: 3
Hashtag that reached the highest position in the world trends ranking: #WonhoIsBack (5th)
Hashtag that was a national trend in the largest number of countries: #WonhoIsBack: 25
Number of countries that registered hashtags in their national trends: 27
The top 10 countries with the highest number of national trends:
1. Brazil: 20
2. Mexico: 19
3. United States: 13
4. Malaysia: 11
5. Turkey: 10
6. Philippines: 8
7. Belarus: 5
8. Puerto Rico: 3
9. France: 3
10. Belgium: 3
Global trending hashtag with the most (approximate) tweets: #WonhoIsBack with 58,000 tweets.
Wonho's return
On April 9, 4 hashtags were published to celebrate Wonho's return as a solo artist:
- #WonhoIsBack
- #WonhoWeAreAlwaysHere
- #원호야_몬베베는_늘_널_응원 할거야 (Monbebe will always support you, Wonho)
- #OurProducerWonho
The most successful hashtag was #WonhoIsBack reaching 5th place in the world trends ranking, it was a national trend in 25 countries and had an approximate of 58,000 tweets during the time it was a world trend. It was followed by the hashtag #원호야_몬베베는_늘_널_응원할거야, which reached 35th place in the world trends list, was a national trend in 12 countries and had a total of approximately 21,900 tweets while trending worldwide.
Results of the 6 months of the fight
Number of hashtags:
- November: 121
- December: 122
- January: 120
- February: 101
- March: 129
- April: 38
- Total of the 6 months together: 631
Total countries that registered hashtags in their national trends:
- November: 58 (For reference, there are 195 countries in the world; that is, just over a quarter [29.74%] of the countries in the world had at least one hashtag in national trends during this movement.)
- December: 30
- January: 38
- February: 52
- March: 47
- April: 27
Hashtags that were a national trend in the largest number of countries:
- November: #FightForWonho with 57
- December: #StickWithMX7 and #YoListenStarship, both with 19
- January: #MonbebeAreStillHere with 36
- February: #HBDToWonho with 50
- March: #WonhoIsAlmostHome with 46
- April: #WonhoIsBack with 25
Highest position achieved in the world trends ranking:
- November: #FightForWonho (and 13 other hashtags) in 1st
- December: #TogetherForWonho in 3rd
- January: #MonbebeAreStillHere in 1st
- February: #HBDToWonho in 1st
- March: #WonhoIsAlmostHome in 1st
- April: #WonhoIsBack in 5th
Important #FightForWonho facts
- The #FightForWonho movement lasted 161 days.
- At least one global trend was achieved every day from November 1, 2019 to January 13, 2020. This means that 74 consecutive days of global trends were achieved (the lowest position Twitter considers for a global trend is 50).
- Monsta X first entered Billboard's digital sales chart with 'From Zero'. The song took first place in the ranking thanks to a massive purchase project to support Wonho's work as a writer and songwriter.
- In addition to the hashtags, many projects were done around the world to endorse Wonho and demand his return. In the beginning I thought about keeping a record of these, but soon I recognized that this mission was far beyond me. Several people dedicated themselves to creating summaries of them and here I share some of those tweets.
- Among them are the rental of billboards around the world, the rental of custom buses in Korea, the protests outside the Starship Entertainment building, the gathering of more than 480,000 signatures in a Change.org petition, the social media campaigns, the meetings of fan clubs in different countries, the donations to different organizations (especially UNICEF) and both the adoption of endangered animals and the purchase of stars on behalf of the members of Monsta X.
- Several items of clothing worn by Wonho were sold out in stores, as was the case with the ZARA shirt he wore in the 'Follow' video. This was done as a gesture of affection to the artist and also to demonstrate Wonho's commercial value.
To finish, I share a table with the 58 countries that participated in this project and the number of national trends that they registered from November 1, 2019 to April 9, 2020. At the end of the table I will also include a personal comment on the general and personal value that I rescue from this fight, in case you are interested in knowing my opinion.
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I ask that if you use these data, you give credit to Lilian Pérez and Monsta X Mexico. If you want to share it with Starship Entertainment, Epic Records or Highline Entertainment on their social media or via email, I invite you to do so. Before, I also extended the invitation to share this information in the Monsta X Fancafe, but this time I consider that it would be more correct to do it in Wonho's.
Author's note
Although it is evident that I consider myself a Monbebe (for what other reason would I have been willing to spend almost half a year working on these statistics?), I tried to write the reports in the most objective way possible with the intention of whoever read them could get their own conclusions.
Of course, over the months we had less and less global trends, national trends, high ranking positions and number of tweets. That was a bit depressing to watch week by week, although I was aware that the decline was logical in a movement that spanned for so many months. But it was really encouraging to see those spikes in trends when a hashtag connected more with the fans or when something happened and they got back to first place despite the elapsed time.
This is a fact: Wonho returned to the music industry THANKS TO YOU, thanks to the support of each of his fans around the world. Working on these data was tiring, much more than I imagined when I proposed the project to the Mexican fanclub. But at no time did I regret doing it.
This experience, despite the sadness that brought me at first, gave me much hope. It showed me that it is possible that thousands of people who do not even know each other or speak the same language can organize to fight for their ideals. It was incredible proof that "normal and not famous" people are not powerless. That’s why Wonho thanked Monbebe for this second chance.
I am aware that this movement will not change the world, it will not end wars or stop the climate crisis. But it did renew my faith in collective efforts, that demanding justice is something that can start small and become big. And I have no doubt that Monbebe will take that attitude to other parts of their lives. I also hope, I seriously hope that this has been a first step on the way for the kpop industry to recognize that idols are as human as any of us.
Believe me, Monbebe's perseverance and Wonho's strength inspired me so much that I even got a new tattoo in their/our honor. I never want to forget that I was part of the Monbebe revolution that gave back his life to someone who was wrongly accused.
If you have been here since November 1, 2019, if you left and returned, if you used the hashtags, if you participated in other projects, if you donated to buy ads, if you voted, if you streamed, if you left messages of support for Monsta X and Wonho on social media, whatever you have done during these more than 5 months… Thank you. You should know that you did excellent, no matter how little or how much you think you did. All efforts added up and paid off.
Yes, I know our main goal was for Wonho to return to Monsta X. But considering the context of the industry (we have iKON's cruel BI example), Wonho may have disappeared or it may have taken years for him to convince Korean society that he deserves a second chance. But no, it took months and he came back with an agency contract. So I would never think that we failed in our mission.
Personally, I will respect any decision Shownu, Wonho, Minhyuk, Kihyun, Joohoney, Hyungwon and I.M make, as long as it is their own decision. I will also support them as a group and as soloists. Wonho was a victim of defamation and he leaving the group was unfair, but I do not consider that Monsta X is worth less without him or that he has less value as a soloist.
Atte. The already-not-so-young gothic Monbebe.
(Oh, and if someone asks me what my credentials are or why I considered myself suitable enough to carry out this research - which I am aware is not as accurate as I would have liked - I am a graduate in Communication specialized in written journalism. And I'm also very nerdy.)
Archive of previous reports
