Sam Okyere, who talked about “Korean cancellation culture”, returns to entertainment shows
TV personality Sam Okyere will be returning to the Korean showbiz after discussing Korea’s cancellation culture in a YouTube broadcast.
According to Dong-A.com on February 14th, Sam Okyere, a TV personality, will return to the Korean entertainment field with Channel S’ entertainment program “Attack on Sisters”. The broadcast with Sam Okyere is scheduled to be released on February 21st.
Earlier, on January 31st, Sam Okyere appeared on the YouTube channel “Jubilee” and had a conversation on the subject of “living as a black man in Korea”.
In the video, when asked if Korea has a bad cancellation culture, Sam Okyere replied, “Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that speaking on something that I felt like I was entitled to speak on, would get me canceled so hard.” He also added that he was canceled hard, and “dropped like a hot potato”. Despite always talking good about Korean people, the one time he said something that was perceived as negative, he was X’d out to the point that Korean friends who supported him were also attacked, Sam Okyere complained.
Sam Okyere is a Ghanaian broadcaster who appeared in various Korean entertainment shows such as “Non Summit”, “Where Is My Friend’s Home”, and “South Korean Foreigners”.
However, in 2020, Sam criticized a group of high school students who parodied a meme containing Ghanaian funeral culture while painting their faces, saying that it was a very unpleasant behavior for black people. He also asked for such behavior to not be repeated and added hashtags such as “Teakpop” and “notoignorance”.
Later, when netizens commented that “teakpop” was a derogatory hashtag used on SNS while discussing Korean pop culture, Sam Okyere answered that he didn’t know of such a meaning, and apologized. Nevertheless, the TV personality was canceled hard in Korea, and wasn’t able to get any job for years.
In addition, regarding his reaction to the highschool students’ parody and “blackface”, domestic netizens called Sam Okyere a “hypocrite”, and brought up images of the Ghanaian pulling out his eyes, a gesture that demeans Asian, on “Non Summit”.
During the aforementioned broadcast, Belgian representative Julian explained about the “Face Contest” in Spain, and explained that there is a competition to make ugly faces by using facial muscles as much as possible.
Then, all cast members from different nationalities, such as Germany and Canada, showed expressions that strained their facial muscles, but only Sam Okyere performed the eye-pulling motion with his hands. At the time, backlash was intense, causing Sam to eventually drop out of his other show, “South Korean Foreigners”.
Source: wikitree
