K-Pop fans are shelling out big bucks for a fleet of protest trucks, all to demand that female backup dancers get axed from their favorite boyband's music video

• Fans of the K-pop group Enhypen sent LED protest trucks to the group's company building.
• The signs called for the removal of female backup dancers from the group's latest music video.

Fans who disagreed with the choreography chosen for the K-pop group Enhypen's latest music video decided to do something about it.

Protest trucks with LED signs were sent to the office building of the South Korean entertainment company HYBE on Wednesday. This occurred two days after the release of Enhypen's latest song, "Bite Me," per the K-pop news outlet Allkpop.

The fans were requesting the removal of female backup dancers from the group's latest choreography. In the song's music video and stage performances, each singer of the seven-member group paired up with a female backup dancer during the chorus.

On Wednesday, photos of the protest trucks were uploaded on theqoo, a popular South Korean internet forum. "Remove the paired choreography with the female backup dancers completely. Only put the seven members on stage," an LED sign on a protest truck read.

"Belift Lab makes a fool out of waiting fans. The company that obstructs the future of singers. The company that doesn't have the will to grow. The label under HYBE with the least power," another LED sign read.

Belift Lab is the management label of Enhypen and is a subsidiary label under HYBE, which houses other famous K-pop acts, including BTS and NewJeans.

The song deals with themes of dark fantasy and tells the story of a man's desire to be with a person whose love can only be claimed through blood, according to Genius.

The vehicular protest sparked mixed reviews

"If the fans are saying they don't like it, do regular people really have a say if the fans are the ones spending the money?" a Korean comment on theqoo read.

"If they're just unhappy, isn't sending a truck a bit excessive? It's not even a moral issue worth criticism," another comment read.

Some fans have even sent protest trucks to show their support for the choreography.

"Bite Me choreography the best!" an LED sign on a truck sent by international fans of Enhypen, as seen in a Twitter post, read.

Protest trucks are becoming a staple in K-pop fandoms

Within the past month, at least three fleets of protest trucks have been sent to entertainment-company buildings.

A fleet was sent to complain about a K-pop group not releasing music for more than 530 days, and another was sent to call for the removal of K-pop group members who were previously embroiled in controversies, per Allkpop.

These LED protest trucks can cost around $220 to rent a day, according to the CEO of Ad Total, an advertising agency that rents out these trucks, per the South Korean news outlet The Hankyoreh.

These LED chariots seem to have an impact.

"Having trucks drive around definitely has an impact on us on many levels," an employee of a company who witnessed an LED truck protest last year said, per the South Korean news outlet Korea JoongAng Daily.

"People near our company who didn't exactly know what was going on became aware, and even our own staff — or worse, people higher up — asked the related teams what's going on. If the CEO or others become aware, then it gets serious for us," the employee said, per JoongAng.

As an industry that is easily impacted by shifts in consumer sentiment, these LED trucks can serve as a significant threat to K-pop entertainment companies as they bring people's "online voices" into real life, Kim Si-wuel, a professor of consumer-information science at Konkuk University, said, per JoongAng.

"Companies take utmost care to show the best version and image of themselves, so when consumers get people unrelated to the issue involved, it damages the companies a lot," Kim said.

Insider has reached out to Belift Lab for comment.