Seoul, South Korea – Known as ‘The Streamy Awards’ of Asia, WebTVAsia Awards 2016 honoured this year’s biggest digital content creators and visionaries with a stellar lineup of Asia’s most well-known stars in Seoul, South Korea at the Korea International Exhibition Center (KINTEX). The Awards theme, ‘Celebrate Asia’ saw Japanese comedian, Piko Taro, who became a global viral sensation with his dance hit “Pen Pineapple Apple Pen,” headlined the event together with Korea’s megastar K-pop group, SNSD (Girls Generation).
The Awards, organised by WebTVAsia, a digital media entertainment company that is active in 12 countries across Asia, were attended by celebrities who command a combined attention of 250 million fans on their social media. This year, among the 150 nominees selected from the 12 countries, Piko Taro and Thai super creator Bie The Ska took home the two biggest awards: Piko Taro for ‘Freaking Awesome Video of the Year’ and Bie The Ska ‘Channel of the Year’. Three highly promising starlets to look out for in Asia, S. White (Taiwan drummer), Jannine Weigel (Thai teen singer) and Michiyo Ho (Malaysian online pop artiste) shared the “Breakout Creator of the Year” title.
K-Tigers from Korea literally kicked off the Awards show with a high-energy taekwondo dance performance. This was followed by Korean rising star girl group, Momoland who performed, “JJan! Koong! Kwang!” their hit song. Japan’s comedy pop band Radio Fish then vowed the audience with their 45-million YouTube hit, “Perfect Human”. In between the performances, the awards for the ‘Most Popular Channel’ and ‘Most Popular Video’ were presented to the winners from Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan.
The evening turned to a more solemn note after the presentation of the next round of the ‘Most Popular Channel’ and ‘Most Popular Video’ to winners of these respective countries – India, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong – were presented when Thai singer Keng Tachaya recited a poem to honor and to pay tribute to one of Asia’s most beloved monarchs, the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. Klear, one of Thailand’s leading music bands moved the audience with their song, “Things”.
The night was not complete without the star in leopard print finally gave what the crowd wanted, his signature “PPAP”. It was a big surprise that made the audience go even wilder when the hosts called out Bie The Ska who then combined with Piko Taro to showcase a never been seen before “super PPAP” version. The Channel of the Year winner’s own Thai PPAP parody itself hit a spectacular 8 million views. WebTVAsia also streamed the Awards show live on WebTVAsia’s official YouTube channel, with exclusive curated updates on its official Facebook and Instagram accounts.
