CORTIS James Mimicked a Black TikToker. Was It Racist? Let’s Talk

[00:00:00]So, a member of Cortis by the name of James is being called a racist. What What is all this about? Some of you guys may or may not have heard this story. I haven't seen many content creators cover this story, but most of the K-pop content creators are cowards. Anyway, so we're going to talk about it. I'm highly agitated. It's going to be one of these videos. Oh yeah. So, sit back and relax.

[00:00:19]Let's go.

[00:00:21][music] Hi everybody. Welcome. My name is Kiki.

[00:00:28]My channel is Nomadic Kitty and I discuss K-pop and the K-pop industry and also things that are may be in the K-pop news, current news, current events in South Korea and K-pop. In this video, I'm just going to let you guys know I did not come to play today. I came to slay. Make sure you put something in the comment, like, share, subscribe, and we are going to discuss something that did make the Korean media and the Korean news. And uh of course on social media, let me say some disclaimers first.

[00:01:00]Number one, I am not on social media.

[00:01:03]I'm not on Instagram. I do go on on social media at times to research and lurk. So I do have accounts set up that are very super private and I go and I just lurk. I read things. I look around.

[00:01:16]I view videos. Whatever the story is, if it's something involving social media, this particular story does involve things that happen on social media. Um, but typically speaking, I don't have a social media account. I don't scroll doom scroll through social media. I'm just active on YouTube. I do my videos through Tik Tok. Hey, Tik Tockers. And that's about it. But, but on Tik Tok, my account is super private and all that other stuff. So, social media is not my jam. But I just have accounts to go and lurk. And I did go on with this particular story and lurk. Let me also say number two. Number two, stay with me.

[00:01:50]I am not a fan of Cortis. I like Cortis music. I like Cortis casually. Um, I wanted to go to the Cortis concert, but I am not a core cer cougar. Well, I might be a cougar, but not that core. I don't know what the f I'm sorry, y'all.

[00:02:06]Forgive me, Cortis fans. I I forgot y'all's fandom name. I So therefore, I am I I that just tells you how much I don't know. So, I'm not a fan of of of Cortis like that. I respect Cortis. I've covered and talked about Cortis on my YouTube channel numerous times, but I am not some Cortis weird Cortis super fan or anything like that. So, let me say that. Also, let me say to my third part is I have been into K-pop since 2022.

[00:02:33]So, it is 4 years now since I've been into K-pop. And a lot of my coverage talks about the nature of the fans and the fandom. And this is what this video is going to be about. I'm I'll put links in the comments section for the the articles and things that I read online and um and then also put links because I do have a Patreon and I do have a W pad and I'll put links to that as well. But I'm just going to get so since we got that out of the way before people come to my video and accuse me of being some Cortis super fan or something like that.

[00:03:03]Cortis is way too young of a group for me. I am BTS Army, okay? And I'm not a hive shill. People have accused me of being a hive hater. Okay. People have accused me lots of times of being a hive shell. I I am not a hive big hit super fan. I have criticized the labels. Every label, any and every label, I will criticize them. They do things that I do not agree with. Okay. But that's neither here nor there. I just had to get some damn disclaimers out. But here we go.

[00:03:31]So, let me just give you some brag on the situation. There is a creator that is on I don't know if she's on Tik Tok or Instagram. I forgot which one cuz I saw the video on somebody else's channel.

[00:03:42]Her name is Lana Lania. It's L A N. It's L A capital N I A. Her name is Lana Lania. I'm sorry if I'm butching her name. She is a content creator. I don't know what kind of content creator cuz I just watched that one video and she I don't she traveled to Paris. I don't know why she traveled to Paris. Maybe she's a travel content creator. I don't know. I don't all I know I don't follow her. I didn't know her. I never heard of her. Well, she did a a video that went viral. She went to Paris, I believe, and she went to France and she was pointing out she's she's she's a African-American woman of a certain age. She's probably I don't know if she's around my age. She might be I don't y'all know Black Don't Crack, so I don't know. She might be in her 30s or 40s. I don't know if she's younger than me or older than me, but she she's a grown woman. Let's say she probably at least in her 30s or 40s. and she was at Paris or whatever and she was pointing to like the Eiffel Tower and places because she had never been there before allegedly. Now I say allegedly, but you know, but she was pointing things and she's like, "Look, oh my god, girl, look at this. This is awesome."

[00:04:48]Like I watched a snippet of her videos and I think she did a series of videos where she was just showing like her ex excitement and exuberance or whatever, whatever, whatever. And she's a heavy set black woman and her video went viral. I think it got 5 million views cuz I guess people thought it was funny.

[00:05:07]People thought it was entertaining.

[00:05:08]Again, I watched the video and I got a little chuckle out of it how excited she was and that was about it. But it went it subsequently went viral just because social media is weird. And so people been doing that weird thing that y'all be doing. Not y'all personally, but the royal y'all, but the where where people take the video and they do it like side by side and then they will take the audio from the video and they will reenact the video next to the original video. Y'all know I don't understand why these things are funny. I I'm just like, so there's a member of uh Cordis by the name of James and he did that to her video. So he did that. He he was side by side and he was being very animated and he was you know and and and so again and he's not I went and looked up he wasn't the only person that did a video like this. So it's not like he was the only person on social media because again when people do these viral videos nine times out of 10 I see this split screen side by side or people take the audio and they mouth the audio and they do their own version of it. So James, you know, mouthed the audio and was animated like the woman or whatever. So I guess, let me say a few things. I guess people think that all black women act act alike. Again, this Lana Lania woman, again, I thought she was putting a little bit on for the camera like people normally do on social media. Y'all do understand that social media is entertainment. Y'all do understand that these influencers and and these Tik Tockers and these Instagram people that they do things and they say things in a way over the top in order to try to go viral. So, first of all, I have to bring up that because some of y'all just forget that social media that most of social media is is entertainment in some sort of way. So, do I think she really acts like that or not? I don't know and I don't care. That's inconsequential.

[00:07:00]But that may just be how she acts all the time. that really may be like her personality or she was happy in the moment and decided to film. Y'all be the judge. But a lot of times what people do on social media, I do not take seriously. It's why I'm not on social media cuz I think people are play acting. I think people are doing and saying a lot of things, controversial hot takes and whatever to try to get clicks and views. And again, I'm not trying to accuse this this this woman of that, but I'm just saying it was very over the top her reaction and and for some reason people find it interesting.

[00:07:29]So James did his little split screen thing just like and I went and looked it up and there's a bunch of other people did the same thing. So immediately he posted it on his social media. Well, not immediately but he posted on social media and then right after that like a couple of days later people are like okay this is racist.

[00:07:45]I then it it started to make the rounds in the Korean like entertainment media, Korean K-pop media. So I went I was like okay what? So I just didn't think nothing of it. So then like the next day there was some more people talking about the art and so I was like let me go watch the video. So I watched the original video. I watched his video and I didn't think it was offensive. Again, for some reason like so here's some issues. Number one, for some reason people think black women are caricatures. They think we all act alike that we all have the same mannerisms and do the same things and we're all like, "Yeah, girl." Uhuh. Like I'm I'm particularly not like that. There's nothing wrong if you are like that. But black women, we vary just like anybody else. We We don't have the same mannerisms or talk the same way. It depends on the region, depends on where we're at. So, no, we are not all the same. So, by him doing a split screen of this video, people are like, "Oh, he's mocking her. Oh, he's racist." And I'm like, "Racist?" I'm like, you can mock somebody mannerisms and the way they speak and it not be racist even for a even if you're African-American.

[00:08:54]Like, I don't understand that. If I have somebody coming up here with a a a white southerner with a southern draw and I do a slide screen and I'm like, "Hey everybody," and I'm I'm mimicking these person's mannerisms. Just because he's white and southern, it doesn't mean I'm mocking his race or I'm mocking him mocking him because he's white or a man.

[00:09:15]It's me mimicking his video. So, I thought he was mimicking her video. So, a big explosion happened on the internet. And so, child, let's go in there. So, yes, people were on the internet talking about this is racism, this is racist, blah blah blah blah blah. So, you know, I was like, okay, I saw the articles in Korea. I said, "Let me go on the internet. Let let me go to social media and lurk a little bit.

[00:09:39]Let's see what they're talking about."

[00:09:41]And then I went to the links and looked around on Twitter. Yes, Twitter. And looked around, loo looked at the people's post, watched the video, the original video and his video again. And just to make sure that I wasn't seeing what I was think I was saying and just thinking, well, maybe I I just didn't notice certain I didn't I didn't find it highly offensive at all. And I wasn't going to talk about this video, but then there's been some updates that that that has happened. Okay. So, that's the reason why I'm talking about it. So, again, when when these people start posting this is racist, you know, just he's mocking black women, I go and look at people's profiles because I'm curious. Okay. So, I'm like, who is who is saying this is racist? Who who are these AfricanAmerican K-pop stands or these Africans in the diaspora? No, these are people who don't live in America, who aren't some most of them probably not American. Some of them I couldn't tell, but I went back and look at their posts. Some of these people are hive haters. Some of these people are fans of other groups. Some of these people have said things in previous posts disparaging remarks about Cordis previously. So, I'm like, "Okay, I see where this is going. I'm peeping game. Peep game." Okay. So, I'll peeping game, right? And I'm like, and I'm like clocking them. So, I'll put I'll put something in the comment or I'll DM them and be like, "Oh, so since you know about black people, where where you live at? Where are you from? These people are not even black." So, I get annoyed.

[00:11:12]Okay. when when these bottom feeders bottom feeders I let me I didn't stutter that when these situations come up with people with K-pop singers or idols doing something problematic in South Korea or sometimes can be deemed borderline racist or stuff like that. What happens is that these people, like I've said it before, I've done videos about this before, come out of the woodwork and then they complain and they use this as a way to weaponize weaponize my community, me being a black woman, and they weaponize racism against other groups because they don't like the other groups. They don't care about racism.

[00:11:56]They don't care anything about racism.

[00:11:58]Okay? They don't care. They just want to weaponize. I've said this before, but I find it really damaging for us when people do when there's an idol that does do does something problematic or even downright racist or say something that's prejudice, racist, colorist, or anything like that. And it's it's pretty concrete. And you have people, you know, like black creators and and and stuff fans are going, "Wait a minute. Like, I think this is offensive. Like, we need to look at this. Like, oh my goodness."

[00:12:26]And they come forward. What happens is that people will get in our comment section and negate what I what what us black content creators are saying because of these effing people.

[00:12:40]Oh, you people crow what people? Who people? Where people? How people?

[00:12:49]They they not us. They they're they're not us.

[00:12:54]When things are very serious, like the Kiss of Life thing and the Mark Lee thing, those are different situations.

[00:13:01]But situations like this, these [ __ ] people, these bottom feeders online, these ish starters were not black people.

[00:13:13]Maybe one or two was. I looked at a bunch of posts. These people making comments, they were not black people.

[00:13:19]They're not. I see where the where where they were living at. the things that they were posting in different languages. I'm like, "Oh, you're not black."

[00:13:26]Well, if I was a black woman, I'd be offensive. Why? What? You don't you?

[00:13:31]These people don't even know. No effing black people. So, again, when things really do come up, we get dragged. Oh, you guys are too sensitive. Who is you guys?

[00:13:45]Who?

[00:13:51]Now, if it's a black content creator talking about it, okay, that's their right to post that. But a lot of times these things happen and it's not us with these stupid arguments.

[00:14:05]It's people who are not black, okay? Who are not black women. The people that were posting things on X were not black.

[00:14:13]The majority were not black women, but these were not black K-pop fans.

[00:14:20]There was a there was a Vietnamese group that was on there. There was some Chinese people that was on there. There were some people from India, Bangladesh.

[00:14:27]Not trying to call out y'all countries.

[00:14:29]I love y'all. I'm just giving you an example. There are people who don't know nothing of black about black people who are like, "Oh, this is this is racist, excuse me, racist against black women.

[00:14:39]YOU'RE NOT A BLACK WOMAN.

[00:14:42]How would you know?

[00:14:48]You live in Brazil, [ __ ] How would you know about black racism?

[00:14:57]So again, I had to explain to people, first of all, it's not like he's acting black. He's doing he's doing a side by side with this video like a lot of people did. And second of all, all black women don't act like that. So just because a black woman posts something, it doesn't mean that that is a reflection of all of black people. I am not all of black women. I don't speak for all the black people. I can just speak for myself. But I get in insensed is that people use black racism as a way in a disingenuous way as a way to weaponize against other group and they don't care about racism. YOU KNOW HOW I KNOW THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT RACISM? Cuz I'm like they got colorists and they got racist in their families. So before you fix your mouth and start talking about somebody's problematic, some idol or something is problematic, HOW ABOUT YOU, HOW ABOUT YOU TAKE IT UP WITH YOUR grandfather and your uncles and your grandmothers and your mothers who are going around calling people monkeys and saying they too dark and using the nword. How about we start there before we point out how somebody's doing something problematic?

[00:16:10]How about we get rid of the problematic racist [ __ ] How about you start with your own family?

[00:16:17]Cuz I know y'all do.

[00:16:22]How about we start there?

[00:16:26]How about the people in your family making fun of black women? How about the people in the family calling calling black women ugly or men or everything?

[00:16:33]Cuz y'all got y'all got them in your families. It doesn't matter what race you are. You got there. It's in Asia in particular, there's a level of colorism.

[00:16:43]So, how about you check your family when they telling you you out in the sun and you getting too dark?

[00:16:49]How about we start there in every community? How about we start there instead of trying to do that? And then if you are going to see something and that you find offensive, you're like, "Whoa, I think that could be offensive black people." How about you come and ask a effing black person? How about you come ask me? You can come ask me. People post things in my comment section. Kiki, what do you think about this? What do you think about that?

[00:17:12]Because people genuinely want to know because you may not know a black person.

[00:17:17]So, here I am out here. Hello. I have international viewers from all over.

[00:17:23]Ask a black person. You can ask me. Is this offensive?

[00:17:27]When when ATS did the song bad and it's a Latino song, it's a a Latin infused song. There are some members on my channel that are that are in the Latin American community. They're Latinas in different countries in United States and I just sit back and listen. Some of them found the the lyrics in the song offensive. Some people didn't. I just sit back and listen. I'm not a Latina. I can't tell y'all which y'all need to be offended or not offended. All I can do is sit back and be like, you know, that's a good valid point. Or why do you think it's offensive? Well, I think it's offensive because blah blah blah. Or I don't think it's offensive. Blah blah blah. Cuz with the AT song, I had Latinas who some found it offensive and some did not. Same thing with the black community.

[00:18:12]But I'm listening to them. I'm not going to get on here and be like, oh, if I was Latina, I would be mad about who am I to say? I'm be like, is this offensive? I'll be like, I don't know what kind of I'm not really quite sure, but let me go ask somebody.

[00:18:27]But the idea that people get online and and and they rage baited this is is is the thing. And then it turned out it ended up backfiring in their face.

[00:18:40]But it gets better. But here's the rub, ladies and gentlemen. So a fan of Cortis messaged the original producer of the video who posted it, Lana or Lania, and explained the situation to her. showed her the video, sent her the video. She DM'd her this fan and was like, and then showed her screenshots of people saying it was offensive and she came back and she was gracious and she saw the video and she reposted it on her channel and she said, "No, I thought it was she thought it was funny. She said she wasn't offended at all and she said, "I love it." And she she thanked the person. She said, "Thank you." And that person DM'd her and posted screenshots of her reaction. And yes, she reposted James's video on her social media. Cuz once again, again, y'all, black people, we know how to laugh at ourselves. I grew up playing the dozens with your mama's jokes or talking bad about somebody's hair. Like, black people, we a lot of us who are funny. I'm a funny black person. I don't take myself that seriously.

[00:19:49]So, a lot of us who are posting things on social media, especially for for comedic effect or doing something over the top and it goes viral, most of the time, black people are going to be very appreciative of that. And she reposted James' video and thought it was funny.

[00:20:04]And she said she loved it. She said she didn't think it was she wasn't offended at all. So, that nipped the haters in the bud. See that haters? I was like, why didn't people just do that in the first place? Why didn't they go back and ask the original person who posted it?

[00:20:21]Like, are you offended by this? Because she should be the litmus test or whether she thought she was offended or not. She was not offended. She loved it. She said, "Good job. She loved it." So again, the moral of the story is is that when problematic things pop off like this, it it is best to air on the side of caution and it is best to be like, "Hey, black folks, y'all, you know, what do y'all think?" That's what I'm always going to do. If something's offensive to South Koreans, I'm like, "So, why is this offensive?

[00:20:55]Can you guys explain it to me? What do you think?" Because I'm not in that community. I'm not going to speak for that community. I'm not there. Okay? I'm not going to tell South Koreans and Asians and white folks and whoever what they need to be offended about. I'm not in that community. I'm like, "Oh, okay.

[00:21:11]Is it offensive?" I was like, "Wow, okay. I'm here to dialogue and learn."

[00:21:15]So, again, I let me reiterate again. You effing bottom feeders who are on social media talking about things that you don't know anything about. You don't know any black people. you. The only black person you seen was was on TV and y'all act like y'all want to come and speak on our community and speak on like, "Oh, black women is offended. This is he's a caricature."

[00:21:39]How would you know that?

[00:21:43]And then when you DM these people, impress these people, they run and and they they run and hide because again, it is not it is not it's performative. They don't care about racism. I was like, if you did care about racism, I can give you plenty of Tik Tok and Twitter accounts you can go fight battles for.

[00:21:59]If you care about racism, if you cared about racism, you would get rid of these these these [ __ ] racists in in your own homes, in your families.

[00:22:08]How about we start there?

[00:22:14]Yeah. Then they get on hush mode. They get real quiet. So my point is and my whole point is that I get annoyed and I get angry because when things really do happen, us black K-pop scan, oh you guys are too sensitive. Who are you guys? So, I'm telling people when if you think this in your mind, anytime some racist or problematic or anything happened, before y'all fix your mouth to be like, "Oh, well, people are just or black folks is just don't blame us." Because nine times out of 10 from the things that I've read in in several instances over the past year that when these things are borderline problematic, nine times out of 10, most of the people who are commenting on this is not us. They they are people from other communities. Some of the people be paring trying to pretend to be us. They will use certain like cool hip catchphrases. I don't know if they're doing it on purpose, but they will try to masquerade as us, but they're not us.

[00:23:18]It is other people from other communities and other fandoms that are getting upset and weaponizing racism and weaponizing black racism. I am I am a black woman in America. I've experienced macro aggressions, microaggressions, overt racism. I've been called racist names before on my even on my YouTube channel.

[00:23:40]So yeah, I know what racism is. I know what it seems like to me. Again, I'm not speaking for all black people, but to me, but I just get annoyed when we us black fans, when things really do happen that are racially offensive.

[00:23:55]We are called like, "Oh, you guys are too sensitive." Because this these things have happened in the past and people have weaponized it. But the people weaponizing it nine times out of 10 are not us.

[00:24:07]I didn't see me many people going after James. I did not see many black K-pop fans and K-pop groups on Twitter going after James. I did not see that. That's just again I I I looked and looked and looked and looked at people's profiles.

[00:24:21]I lurked and lurked and lurked. I didn't see that.

[00:24:26]I see some fans that were defending him that that were I I they I looked at their profiles and they were black black fans. And so again, I don't take K-pop fans seriously either way, whether it comes to problematic things or people defending against problemat because I understand the level of hatred and parasocialism will have people saying and doing things that are not normal. I take every instance that that that people said is racist case by case, group by group, person by person, period. And again, I want people to understand that just because somebody complains about something on social media, it does not mean that they're in our community. It does not mean that they give a damn about what we are going through. It doesn't mean that they really care about racism. It doesn't mean that they really care about anti-blackness and anti-colorism in K-pop. They just want to weaponize it.

[00:25:23]And by them weaponizing it, it it diminish diminishes the real complaints and concerns about race in K-pop.

[00:25:33]Just like when people get online and they talk about misogyny, misogyny, they they can't spell misogyny. They don't know what it means. It diminishes when real things happen in K-pop. That is misogynistic.

[00:25:45]That is against women. That that is very reinforcing the patriarchy.

[00:25:52]When these things really do happen, then people are are kind of like, "Oh, here we go again." They're they're complaining about misogyny because somebody previously complained about somebody said somebody's legs or thighs in a song AND THEY'RE LIKE, "MISOGYNY and it's not. It's a lyric in a song that somebody interpreted as something completely nasty and different." All of a sudden, it's misogyny. Or somebody compliments a boy group, it's misogyny.

[00:26:18]You're you're you're misogynist. you're you're misog people turn around use terms that they don't even understand that they can't even spell. They don't know what these terms mean.

[00:26:34]So I tell people this is what's going on and don't feed into the nonsense and and don't feed into it. And so when you see things from black content creators like me and other ones, then you could be like, "Okay, well this might be serious." But when you see things people posted on things on social media anonymously behind usernames and IDs, you don't know where they live. You don't know where they're from. You don't know how old they are. You don't know what race they are. You don't know what country they live in. Just take all these things with a grain of salt. But that's all I had to come on and say today.

[00:27:08]You guys have a good day. Go ahead and feel free to put it in the comments. I I just thought I'd go off on that today cuz I'm preaching today. I'm saying something today because I I I see this and again with this Cortis situation I is blown out of proportion and now people and now now the haters who drag James ain't got nothing to say. Now they're just like instead of coming and saying, "Oh, I'm sorry." Or, "Yeah, you right. Well, the the the creator of the the post, she's cool with it, so I'm cool." No, they won't ever admit that they're wrong. They won't ever admit that they shouldn't have said what they said. They won't ever admit that they're perpetual line steppers. They won't ever come back and say, "Well, maybe I should." No, they'll just disappear and pretend that they didn't say anything.

[00:27:49]But no, these were hive haters. These were people who were hating Cortis haters. And again, they're never going to admit they're wrong. And I get annoyed by that, too. But until next time, y'all.