Is This the Most Racist Ad of the Year, Or…?

By Patrick Coffee 

So in case you missed it, the entire internet is collectively up in arms over this Chinese ad for detergent brand Qiaobi.

It is…something.

The narrative is almost an everyday romance: guy who happens to be black romances woman who happens to be Chinese, but then she pushes him into the washing machine and he miraculously comes out looking very different. Why? We don’t know! But she seems very happy with the result.

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So. That was really fucking weird and awkward and we are quite confused right now, please help.

Oh right, some Italian company did it first, thank you Shanghaiist. We knew there was something a little off about that music.

Same concept, same music, opposite conclusion: “Coloured is better.”

Wow. With no real context beyond the most basic understanding of the popularity of skin whitening treatments throughout Asia, we simply don’t know what to make of this controversy. At the very least, it feels more tone-deaf than the Sprint T-Mobile “ghetto” thing to your average Western viewer.

But seriously, have you ever seen such a blatant ripoff?

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