Earlier this month, it was announced that NCT would collaborate with Starbucks, and an exclusive line of merch was released.
Fans quickly reacted to this announcement due the ongoing boycott of Starbucks in support of Palestine. Starbucks was not originally listed in the official boycott list provided by the BDS but has since been encouraged as a grassroots effort.
This ultimately led to a boycott of the collaboration being announced by fans.
NCT Fans Announce A Boycott Of The Group’s Latest Brand Endorsement In Support Of Palestine
However, the boycott might have also spread to things outside of the collaboration.
During a total boycott, fans often protest by avoiding listening to the group’s music on legal platforms and unfollowing the artists. We can see that the latter has occurred when looking at NCT’s official group accounts on X and Instagram.
Each of the group’s accounts saw a major decrease in followers according to social media tracker Social Blade, with the @NCT account on Instagram suffering the biggest loss at 674,370 over the last 30 days — a majority of which occurred beginning on May 29th. The NCT 127, NCT DREAM, and WayV Instagram accounts have lost 629,760, 633,210, and 455,340 respectively over over the same 30 day period.
Not only have the group accounts been affect — each of the members have seen follower losses.
Starting from May 29th, Taeyong, who seemingly spoke out against the collaboration, has lost 679,813 followers, while Mark Lee has seen a drop of over 988 thousand.
Checking through the rest of the members social media data, it can been seen that each has seen a drop of at least 500,000, and in some cases, close to one million.