by: Sophia Mayberry
edited by: Derya Kaya
This week a controversy erupted on twitter. The cable
psudo-news talk show
The Colbert Report
tweeted “I am willing to show #Asian community I care by
introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for
Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.— The Colbert
Report (@ColbertReport) March 27, 2014″
This tweet has outraged many and has lead to the trending
hashtag
#CancelColbert.
The Colbert Report for those who do not know is a
30 minute psudo-news talk show where comedian Steven
Colbert plays a radical right wing news talk show host.
Within the program he plays other characters. One of those
characters is “Ching-Chong Ding-Dong”.
Anyone who has see the show can attest that this is not
nearly the worst thing he has said on his program. Also,
he is very clear that who he is on the show is a
character. Lastly, @ColbertReport is not
Steven Colbert’s personal twitter he has a separate account that he personally runs. He has
not hand in the tweets that come from his show’s
account. Comedy Central, the network the show is on and
employees of the show run that account.
Many people that expressed their anger blamed Steven
directly. Steven chose to handle the situation by agreeing
with everyone who was angry from his personal
account.
I think there are two interesting things about this
controversy.
One: Many people jumped to blame Steven himself.
Second: This is another example of people using a hashtag
to unite a group quickly.
I would love to see what some other people think of
people attacking the person behind a character and
demanding a show be cancelled over a tweet (that is not as
bad as what he usually says on the show).
Also, do you think that a powerful hashtag can incite
meaningful action?
