The Major League Baseball has come under fire after tweeting a picture of two Japanese players while referring to a meme about alikeness.
The tweet, which was immediately deleted, showed baseball stars Shohei Ohtani and Ichiro Suzuki shaking hands at Angel Stadium.
Ohtani, 24, is a pitcher and designated hitter for the Los Angeles Angels. He previously played for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in the Pacific League of Nippon Professional Baseball.
Suzuki, 44, is a retired outfielder who played for the Seattle Mariners.
Somehow, whoever handled MLB’s Twitter on Friday night had to make an exhausted joke that only led to a wave of backlash moments later.
The meme refers to a cartoon “Spider-Man” episode from 1967, which shows two people in Spider-Man costumes facing each other.
The image has since been used to denote alikeness, and in MLB’s case, to joke how Asians look the same.
|￣￣￣￣￣￣ |
| HIRE |
| MORE |
| PEOPLE |
| OF I
I COLOR I
| ＿＿＿＿＿__|
(\__/) ||
(•ㅅ•) ||
/ づ pic.twitter.com/Q0vKlsYOcr— Sung Min Kim (@sung_minkim) July 28, 2018
MLB writer Sung Min Kim saved a screenshot of the tweet and received comments condemning its clear problem.
What do you think?
Support our Journalism with a Contribution
Many people might not know this, but despite our large and loyal following which we are immensely grateful for, NextShark is still a small bootstrapped startup that runs on no outside funding or loans.Everything you see today is built on the backs of warriors who have sacrificed opportunities to help give Asians all over the world a bigger voice.
However, we still face many trials and tribulations in our industry, from figuring out the most sustainable business model for independent media companies to facing the current COVID-19 pandemic decimating advertising revenues across the board.
We hope you consider making a contribution so we can continue to provide you with quality content that informs, educates and inspires the Asian community. Even a $1 contribution goes a long way. Thank you for everyone’s support. We love you all and can’t appreciate you guys enough.
