Alongside the many other rules of the internet, they should have added one specifying that at any given time, there is always somebody using social media to fetishize East Asian culture. From the neckbeards who think that owning a katana makes them basically Japanese to the Koreaboos who refuse to have an extended conversation about anything other than their favorite K-pop group, the phenomenon is a long term menace that has many different forms.
While there may be little harm in taking an interest in other cultures, there's no doubt that it can go too far — and that it can become mighty annoying to the people who hail from those countries. This has been underlined by the advent of TikTok, which has given those who obsess over places like Japan or South Korea the perfect platform to post endless cutesy 'aesthetic' videos about things as mundane as going to the grocery store.
The trend has been hilariously spoofed by @whalelore, who did a takedown of this genre by pretending to romanticize their visit to Publix. The video was first posted last year, but has come under the viral spotlight again as people on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram have discovered the unique charms of going to the store to buy coffee-flavored Coca Cola. God knows the US kind of has an image problem right now, so maybe this will give it a bit of a boost?
