Chapter 5 Critical Thinking Exercise
Psy is a Korean musician who hit the airwaves on July, 2012 after releasing a single titled Gangnam style on his sixth album. He achieved great success with this single because by December that year it had reached one billion views. The video was one of its kinds to reach one billion views and became one of the most viewed on YouTube. The video received mixed reactions all over the world whereby majority liked Psy’s confidence and uniqueness while others criticized it. Psy was once interviewed on Ellen’s show where he was not accorded the respect he deserved.
How media treats and portrays Asian American celebrities shows how we are viewed by the world. It is therefore recommendable that we should speak out in case of any mistreatment. For instance, Psy received no introduction at the Ellen’s show, he was just assumed to be an ordinary dancer despite him being a top musician in Korea. It can also be seen that Simon remained seated as Psy taught the dance, which shows that had no respect to the star just because of his Korean identity.
Kevin Wu aka Kevjumba, who was a YouTube blogger, was stereotyped. This is evidenced by some video that he posted titled “I HAVE TO DEAL WITH STEREOTYPES”. In 2013 he disappeared from social media which happened overnight without any explanations. Social media blast with rumors linking him to having joined a cult, becoming a monk, and moving to Africa.
The media should take responsibility for mistreatment and should begin treating everyone equally despite their racial background. This is because some upcoming celebrities who may be judged wrongly due to their backgrounds might end up not reaching their full potentials.
Governments should put into place policies that discourage media mistreatments. In addition, campaigns against media mistreatment should be run in order to create awareness.
Michelle_Michy
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