Topps Sparks Outrage With Sticker Showing BTS Beaten Amid Anti-Asian Attacks

The item is one of the stickers from Topps’ “Shammy Awards” sticker collection, which was released after the 63rd annual Grammy Awards on March 14, according to Billboard.

The sticker, called “Bopping K-pop,” features a caricature of bruised BTS members in a game of Whac-A-Mole.

K-pop fans and members of the Asian community called the company out for incorporating violence on the sticker, especially given that hate crimes against Asians and Asian Americans rise.

Social media users argue that the BTS sticker is racist, according to The Free Press Journal.

Topps apologized in a statement on Wednesday, adding that they will no longer make the BTS sticker available for purchase.

“We hear and understand our consumers who are upset about the portrayal of BTS in our GPK Shammy Awards product and we apologize for including it,” the company wrote. “We have removed the BTS sticker card from the set, we have not printed any of the sticker card and it will not be available.”

However, countless fans were unsatisfied with the apology, claiming that Topps failed to address the real underlying problem.

On Tuesday, Stop AAPI Hate revealed that it had received 3,795 reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in California between March 2020 and Feb. 28, 2021.

Feature Image via Topps (left), Entertainment Tonight (right)