BlackPink is one of the most famous girl groups globally and also holds the highest ranking among Korean girl groups on Billboard’s Social 50 chart. For the global gaming community, BlackPink has also once been considered an inspiration for the game League of Legends to launch several skins for its champions.
Therefore, it can be said that BlackPink also has a significant influence on gamers, including many League of Legends players who had hoped BlackPink would shine at the 2018 World Championship. Recently, a female singer from the group also became a representative face for the popular MMORPG Perfect World.
Recently, an event deemed offensive to this music group occurred on a well-known television channel. According to a recent report from MyD Daily, the Indian channel – News NationTV – aired a performance video of BlackPink. However, what’s noteworthy is that while the video was playing, a caption ‘Chinese stripper’ was displayed on the screen. Immediately, the audience was outraged and demanded the channel publicly apologize to BlackPink.
Since the incident occurred, fans and gamers in India have used a series of hashtags on Twitter like #ShameOnYouNewsNation and #ApologizeNewNation to express their anger. Many fans, including some League of Legends players, did not hide their disappointment over such a significant mistake from a national television channel.
On a fan page for BlackPink in India, many fans of the group reiterated that BlackPink comes from South Korea and News NationTV should verify information before sharing with the audience. Afterward, News NationTV issued an apology and explained that it was merely a mistake. They had made a technical error while uploading the video of BlackPink. After realizing, they immediately removed the caption.
However, this was not enough for fans and some BlackPink gamers in India to forgive the channel’s mistake. Fans believe that the channel did not show enough sincerity in apologizing to the famous girl group. It is known that News Nation is one of the largest Hindi-language television channels in India, and this error occurred while the channel was broadcasting, thus creating a strong wave of backlash in this densely populated country.