Looking for idiots? Racists? What about insensitive people? Twitter is a good place to start.
Last night, South Korean pop group Girlsās Generation won YTMA Video of the Year for āI Got a Boy,ā beating the likes of Demi Lovato, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, One Direction, and Lady Gaga. Thatās some stiff competition, and Girlsā Generationās win is a big deal.
The award was based on metrics such as views, likes, comments over the past year. Girlsā Generationās winning video āI Got a Boy,ā and that video, which was uploaded last December, has over 74 million views, over 400,000 likes, and nearly a half a million comments.
Some people on Twitter were insensitive. Others were ignorant. Tumblr site Sanctuary and music blog PopDust have been collecting some of the worst from Twitter. Hereās a sample:
The videoās YouTube comments get pretty rough, tooā¦
Most of the above tweets seem to be made by hardcore Western pop fans who tweet pretty much exclusively about their favorite idol. In short: These arenāt your typical Twitter users. Case in point:
Umā¦
If youāve been around Twitter in the past, such as during the 2012 U.S. vs. Japanese womenās Olympic soccer match, youāll be familiar with just how awful Twitter can get.
https://lastchance.cc/a-bastion-for-bigots-and-shameless-racists-5933534%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
One Twitter user who was called out for disparaging remarks spent the rest of the evening apologizing.
In neighboring Japan, itās no accident that Twitter is called āan idiot detector.ā Itās a shame that people use it to shoot their mouths off, without taking into consideration the words that they are using or the meanings and the nuances they carry.
The mind-boggling thing continues to be that some individuals somehow continue to think that the English-speaking world is the world. As someone who works in English (hello!), but lives in a country in which another language is spoken, Iāll be quick to point out that it isnāt. There are wonderful songs, books, movies, and video games in a variety of languages, and they shouldnāt be immediately written off by those who donāt understand.
Congrats Girlsā Generation on your win. It was well deserved. Shame about the morons.
Oh no, a Korean Girl Group That Youāve Never Heard of [Sanctuary]
Girlsā Generation Wins Big At YouTube Music Awards, Racist Tweets From Losing Fandoms Follow [Pop Dust]
To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft
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