Tell me if this sounds about right. Clothing company Hollister -- you may also be familiar with its parent company Abercrombie & Fitch -- opened up its first store in South Korea. To commemorate the occasion, they shipped in some young shirtless American models to dress up the place.
The models did not behave well.
Social media being what it is, some photos of the models making, ahem, "squinty eyes" and other obscene gestures started surfacing, as well as tweets mocking Asian pronunciation of English. Alas, you know the drill: Hollister Models Make Fun of Asians at Opening of Korean Store.
This eventually drew the attention of Korean media and the wrath of netizens. And when it comes to this sort of thing, Koreans netizens do not play:
Netizens have reacted strongly to what has been interpreted as offensive pictures and remarks from models at the opening of the first Hollister clothing store in South Korea.Shaking my head, no surprise. Doesn't this all seem so appropriate, considering the brand these models represent? Hollister can suck it.
Images of models making “squinty eyes” faces, flipping their middle finger to photographers, and mocking Asian pronunciation of English appeared on their Twitter accounts. Major Korean newspapers covered the scandal, as online comments called for a boycott and promised to return clothing they had bought. Other netizens have tracked down the models’ personal details and published them online.
UPDATE: According to this article, Hollister has released a statement saying they've canned the associates involved:
"In summary, the company terminated the couple of associates involved. On behalf of our more than 80,000 associates around the world who cherish our core values and our culture of diversity and inclusion, we sincerely apologize for the offense caused by these unauthorized, ill-considered actions."Well, yay for that.