The Garbage Pail Kids sticker that depicts the South Korean boy band's members getting beaten up in 'The Shammy Awards' is removed by the company amid rise in anti-Asian violence.
- Mar 18, 2021
AceShowbiz - BTS (Bangtan Boys) has gotten an apology from Topps. After the company landed in hot water for releasing trading card that depicted the South Korean boy band's members getting beaten up in a game of Whack-A-Mole, its officials stepped forward to publicly apologize to them.
Topps expressed its remorse via Twitter and Instagram on Wednesday, March 17. "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. 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," so read its statement.
One day prior, the company dropped its "Garbage Pail Kids: The Shammy Awards" collection that features parody portrayals of 2021 Grammy's performers including Megan Thee Stallion, Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift. While the illustrations of those artists came out funny, BTS' caricature saw them with bruises to represent their snub at the coveted awards show.
The sticker has since drawn backlash from many on Twitter. One in particular raged, "bts aren't the only ones who didn't win a grammy so why are they the only ones to be portrayed like this? they aren't given a name, their illustration is violent and disturbing,let's not forget the 'bopping kpop' label. it's f**king racist how you portrayed them as RODENTS @Topps."
Another linked such portrayal to hate crime targeting Asians. "The caricature version for the other artists seems cute and child-like, while the one for BTS depicts them as beaten, bruised with the look of fear on their face," the user wrote. "@Topps you're supporting the hate against Asians, this is not even qualified as a garbage humor, this is hateful."
A third pointed out, "It doesn't take a concurrent anti-Asian hate crime to see why @Topps' racist BTS Garbage Pail Kids sticker was such a terrible idea. Their limp apology is not enough; they should have already understood why it was a terrible idea." Someone else stated, "I'm also confused why they're the only ones not referred to by their names? Given the context of the picture it feels even more dehumanizing."
BTS has yet to comment on that matter.
