Earlier today MAMAMOOO’s Hwasa name was the top trending hashtag on twitter U.S, after a recent clip was published of Hwasa wearing what appears to be Nigerian traditional attire to meet up with Park Narae and Han Hye jin.
The clip is a preview of the next “I Live Alone” episode and it hasn’t aired yet. Soon, some fans either mistakenly thought or purposefully spread the narrative that Hwasa wore that to shock and scare people judging by botched rough translation of the clip.
In the clip Hwasa comes in laughing telling Park Narae no one was surprised to see her despite her unusual appearance, it turns out because the staff had already seen Park Narae and concluded they were filming for something.
Since the outfit she wore somewhat resembles traditional African clothing, many people jumped to the conclusion that she was again insulting African culture, and given the fact that she’s made mistakes in the past similar to this one, many people fed this to the narrative that Hwasa never learns and is a racist person.
This blew up even more when a twitter popular account called ‘Pop Base’ shared the particular screenshot and it got even worse. The tweet has since been deleted.
MBC apparently saw the severe backlash and put out a statement in English specifying that Hwasa wasn’t even wearing traditional African clothing. In the pinned comment of a video (with Hwasa wearing the outfit) on their YouTube channel, MBC Studio wrote,
“We have received negative messages regarding Hwasa’s outfit.
We want to clarify that this outfit originated from a Korean ‘sauna’ look that Hwasa often wore on our program. We had no intention of comically presenting a traditional outfit of a particular country.
We realize that some of you have falsely identified Hwasa’s outfit as a reflection of the Nigerian traditional outfit. Furthermore, due to the ‘comic’ genre of our show, some of you have shown concerns suggesting a comical reflection of traditional outfits and the possibility of it leading to racism. However, we want to assure you that we had no intention of relating her outfit to a specific culture.
We hope this provides an explanation for your concerns.
Thank you for all your love and support for our program.”
Here is the video where the pinned comment is:
Fans shared screenshots of Hwasa wearing similar ‘sauna’ inspired looks on her day to day activities. This particular look was meant to be viewed as luxurious sauna-inspired outfit. Nigerian fans also spoke up about how Hwasa’s outfit doesn’t even remotely resemble their traditional Nigerian attire.
With MBC’s response to the backlash being shared left and right, Hwasa fans began trending the hashtag #apologizeToHwasa directed at everyone who hated on Hwasa without hearing her side of the story.
What do you think of this?
I think she looks great. I am a Nigerian and whether it looks like a Nigerian outfit or not, i don’t think she should be attacked. We’re all going on and on about how we want the world to be united. If we want that, we should be more than ready and willing to share things related to different cultures, outfits and all. If a Korean is seen wearing something African, i don’t see why that should be tagged as a bad thing. It does look like an African wear but i don’t see anything wrong with her wearing an African outfit. Note: She looks gorgeous in everything. Nothing but love for Hwasa ❤️❤️
Why the hell are people criticizing her like crazy? You all koreaboos wear hanboks like no tomorrow and no one is there to criticize you. You all try to catch celebrities for absolutely nothing.
People need to chill