Fans Praise Friendly Interaction Between EXO, Winner And iKON Members At MAMA 2014

Although "fan wars," or the ongoing battle between fans of different groups or differing opinions, is a common trend in K-pop, the 2014 MAMA Awards shows that the same may not apply to K-pop artists themselves.

Members of EXO from SM Entertainment as well as WINNER and members of iKON from rival Hallyu record label YG Entertainment were in attendance. During the event, fans captured several instances of friendly interaction between the competing boy bands.

"I don't understand why some fans have difficulties accepting that their idols like other groups' songs or even the members," wrote Angelay77 in the comments section of the video streaming website YouTube.

"Can't they be good friends even though they're from different companies?"

On the girl group end of things, both 2NE1 and Girls' Generation made their comebacks within a week of each other, leading many observers like Billboard to highlight their comebacks as a rivalry of sorts.

"We learn a lot from 2NE1 and we even follow their dance moves in the waiting room," said Girls' Generation's Sunny last year. "We always wanted to thank them for always showing great performances on stage and we will continue to follow them."

In a similar vein, Minzy notably thanked Sooyoung, Tiffany, YoonA and Hyoyeon from Girls' Generation in the "thank you" section of 2NE1's 2010 album, "To Anyone."

Despite the appearance of friendliness between competing groups, 2015 could bring more rivalry between WINNER and EXO.

On Wednesday, SM Entertainment revealed a video teaser indicating an impending comeback for EXO. When YG Entertainment released their own teaser image for WINNER two days later, observers immediately launched comparisons between the two.

"If it's from YG then I wouldn't be surprised if he's bringing WINNER back to compete with EXO," commented cuban_nerd on the Korean entertainment website allkpop. "He did that this year several times."

Check out iKON's Bobby and B.I dancing to EXO's performance:

Tags
SM Entertainment
EXO
iKON
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