A group that debuted one year ago just landed two MTV Video Music Award nominations, and it’s not even the strangest nomination on this year’s list — a literal cartoon also made the cut. The 2026 VMA nominations dropped Tuesday, and once you dig into who’s on the list, it’s one of the clearest signs yet that American award shows are running out of room to keep K-pop in its own lane.
Wait, who is CORTIS, and why does one year matter?
CORTIS is a five-member boy group under BIGHIT MUSIC — the label that also houses BTS — that debuted in June 2025. On August 19, they picked up their first-ever VMA nominations: Best New Artist and Best K-pop, both for their single “REDRED.” The Korea Herald confirmed they’re the first K-pop boy group to debut in the 2020s to be recognized by the VMAs at all.
For scale: BTS debuted in 2013 and didn’t win its first VMA (Best Pop, the first Korean act to do so) until 2020 — seven years in. CORTIS got its first VMA nod in about fourteen months.
Is the hype backed up by real numbers?
Yes. CORTIS’s second EP, “GreenGreen,” has spent 14 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 — the longest run any K-pop boy band debuting since 2020 has managed on that chart. Most rookie releases spike and vanish within weeks; this one’s still holding at No. 110 more than three months later. It’s also crossed 700 million cumulative Spotify streams as of August 18, still adding roughly 1.8 million a day. That’s a long tail, not a one-week fan-vote bump.
What is “Best K-pop,” and why does it feel like a side room?
MTV created the Best K-pop category in 2019, acknowledging the genre’s US chart presence without forcing voters to weigh it against English-language pop. Since then it’s stayed a tight club: BTS (2020, 2021), Lisa (2022, 2024, 2025), Stray Kids (2023). This year’s lineup is stacked — CORTIS’s “REDRED” against BTS’s “SWIM,” BLACKPINK’s “JUMP,” Lisa’s solo “Dream,” KATSEYE’s “PINKY UP,” and LE SSERAFIM’s “SPAGHETTI” (feat. j-hope). Six nominees, all K-pop, mostly fighting each other instead of the rest of the chart.
So did anyone break out of the box this year?
This is the actual story. Several acts landed nominations outside Best K-pop, up against the whole industry:
- BTS’s “SWIM” is nominated for Song of the Year, the top category, no genre carve-out.
- HUNTR/X’s “Golden” is also up for Song of the Year — and HUNTR/X isn’t real. It’s the fictional girl group from Netflix’s animated film “KPop Demon Hunters,” voiced by EJAE, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami. A cartoon act is now up for the same trophy as BTS.
- KATSEYE’s “PINKY UP” is nominated for Best Choreography.
- Lisa’s “Dream” picked up Best Pop, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing nods — three categories with nothing to do with her being a K-pop soloist.
Seven K-pop-linked nominations, spread across six categories, only two of them the “designated” K-pop slot. That’s the shift: the genre isn’t just winning its side competition anymore, it’s showing up where everyone else already is.
Why should anyone outside the fandom care?
Because award shows are lagging indicators, not leading ones. By the time the VMAs let a genre out of its dedicated box and into Song of the Year, the actual culture shift already happened in the streaming numbers years earlier. What’s new isn’t that K-pop is popular in America — that’s old news. It’s that the industry’s own sorting categories are visibly straining. A cartoon idol group competing for Song of the Year against real pop stars isn’t a gimmick nomination; it’s a sign that “who counts as a real artist” gatekeeping is eroding fast. HUNTR/X doesn’t tour or give interviews, doesn’t exist outside a screen, and it’s still in the room.
For a rookie group like CORTIS, a Best New Artist nod next to names like Malcolm Todd and Myles Smith means voters are comparing a Korean boy band directly against Western newcomers, not as a genre exception. A win would make them the fastest 2020s-debuted K-pop act to go from “who?” to an actual VMA trophy — and nobody could call it a fluke.
Best New Artist voting stays open through the live broadcast on September 27; every other category closed September 25. If you want a rooting interest this fall, CORTIS is a genuinely fun one to watch — and you don’t need a decade of K-pop history to get why it matters.
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Sources:
- Cortis earns two MTV VMA nominations one year after debut — The Korea Herald
- BTS, BLACKPINK, CORTIS, LE SSERAFIM, KATSEYE, and HUNTR/X Nominated for 2026 MTV VMAs — Soompi
- BTS, HUNTR/X and Blackpink’s Lisa Lead K-pop Nominees at 2026 MTV VMAs — Korea JoongAng Daily
- MTV Video Music Award for Best K-Pop — Wikipedia