8 Toxic Trends and People That Made Asians Facepalm All 2018

The internet is always looking for new and inventive ways to serve ethnic food in a way that’s as Instagrammable as possible. But please. In 2019, leave traditional Asian dishes out of it. No real Asian person would ever want to go near a pho pot pie, kimchi on toast or a sushi croissant. Putting a western twist on Asian food can work but there is a fine line where it goes from alright to downright disgraceful. So unless you’re absolutely sure you’ve mastered the art of Asian cuisine, don’t even think about it.

Logan Paul canceled himself on the first day of 2018 by releasing a video of him and his friends disrespecting the Japanese people and their culture on their trip to Tokyo. To make matters even worse, he actually filmed a Japanese suicide victim’s body in a vlog. Shortly after the video went up, over 80,000 people signed a petition to delete his YouTube channel and his weak apology did little to stop the criticisms. Need I say more?

Chinese netizens threw their Dolce & Gabbana products in the trash after a racist advert went viral. Even worse, after being called out on the problematic nature of the video, co-founder Stefano Gabbana responded to the backlash by calling China “the country of shit” and accusing Chinese people of eating dogs in a series of private Instagram messages. But the story only gets better from here. After the second wave of backlash targeted at Gabbana’s response, D&G released this statement:

How convenient.

Viral fitness or body-related challenges we see on the internet rarely have to do with how strong or physically fit a person is but instead focuses on how small a woman can shrink herself. Previously, we’ve seen the A4 challenge, iPhone 6 challenge, the twisted lipstick challenge and the 100-yuan wrist challenge. Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse, 2018 gave us the “fish into collarbone challenge.” This new viral trend once again aims to flaunt one’s slender physique by putting as many fish into your collarbone as possible to highlight how skinny you are. Please let 2019 be the year this nonsense stops.

 

Gwyneth Paltrow is known for making headlines regularly with her questionable health fads and product endorsements. Previously we’ve seen her encouraging women to get their vaginas steamed, endorsing a $15,000 dildo and pissing off a ton of Asian people for gentrifying yoga. This year, she outdid herself by going on Jimmy Kimmel and explaining that inserting a jade egg into your vagina was an ancient Chinese practice. But did she stop there? Of course not, it’s Gwyneth Paltrow. More recently she went viral for taking credit for popularizing yoga in an interview with the WSJ Magazine:

Social media, primarily Instagram, has always been a breeding ground for influencers shamelessly flaunting their own wealth. But in 2018, this trend took a bizarre turn with the “Falling Stars” challenge, where rich people pretend to fall from their luxury vehicles and drop lavish items of their choice. If you want to show off your riches, be my guest but why do it face-planting in the middle of the street?

“Bizarre Foods” host Andrew Zimmern received backlash after saying, “I’m saving the souls of all the people from having to dine at all these horseshit restaurants masquerading as Chinese food that are in the Midwest,” while promoting his own restaurant, Lucky Cricket, in Minneapolis. Because a non-Asian man called Andrew would know more about Chinese cuisine than a Chinese immigrant. Needless to say, netizens were not pleased and accused Zimmern of being “condescending” and “colonizing” Asian cuisine.

Asia has invented some interesting beauty products over the years like wax for temporary nose jobs or face tapes to create a slender, V-shaped jawline. While these products are definitely time-consuming and a tad bit extreme, at least they’re not invasive. But procedures such as the lip thinning surgeries to have “Caucasian”-looking lips, skin whitening or inserting pegs into nostrils for European-looking noses could have disastrous consequences. In 2018, we also saw a clinic in Thailand going viral for offering penis whitening procedures. Ladies and gents, you don’t need to have Caucasian features to look beautiful and you definitely don’t need a white penis to get laid so let’s leave this trend in 2018.