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?
