I think this is much ado about nothing, but I’m not Asian and I don’t watch his show.
What do you guys think?
It looks like a right-wing astroturf operation. I assume Dan Snyder is probably helping too.
The character is meant to be offensive. That’s the whole point.
(I’m not Asian either, maybe I don’t get it.)
This is nuts - I hope he doesn’t see himself forced to issue some bullshit apology to appease a bunch of overly sensitive people with no sense of humor.
Also, the article in the OP talks about transphobia, WTH does that come in?
It’s an unfortunate tweet that someone who runs the promotional Colbert Report twitter account didn’t think through. It wasn’t Stephen Colbert himself who tweeted it, he has a different Twitter handle, it’s a promotional account linked with the show. I’m guessing some marketing person or intern at Comedy Central or Viacom runs it. It’s funny if you’ve seen the episode and know the context and it works as satire, but does seem super racist if you don’t know the context. Not everyone watches The Colbert Report, and not everyone knows what it is and understands what satire is.
I don’t know if an apology is necessary or not. But someone from Comedy Central or The Colbert Report needs to have a talk with whoever runs that twitter account, and clarify that there’s some jokes that can be quoted directly into Twitter, and some that require context (or have a visual element or something else) and can’t be quoted directly into Twitter. Canceling is clearly not needed. There are definitely some shows that should be targeting regarding racism and specifically racism against Asians, but the Colbert Report isn’t one of them.
There’s no celebrity so popular someone doesn’t hate them.
The tweet is a line from a longer bit making fun of Dan Snyder’s new foundation to help American Indians, it’s not racist, it’s a parody of racism.
Yeah, I only know what the article said but… what’s with the trans outrage?
As for the tweet, sure it doesn’t work well out of context but how many people are subscribed to that Twitter account and aren’t aware of the schtick? Seems like a lot of outrage over nothing.
The link I posted lists a bunch of quotes by his character that use slurs like tranny and shemale.
The Your Fave is Problematic tumblr that Inner Stickler linked to shows some of the “transphobic” things that Colbert has said on The Colbert Report. I put transphobic in quotes because it is Colbert the character saying these things, and he is a ridiculous, bigoted parody of conservative news people. But I can definitely understand how trans people could be offended by some of these things, since they are so often the target of jokes in all sorts of media.
As far as the outrage, I’m not sure how that spread. It’s possible that the original tweet was retweeted or linked to by some John Twitteruser who follows that twitter account and watches the show, maybe either saying “this is funny” or “maybe this was too far” or something else, and then someone who follows John Twitteruser saw that retweet but doesn’t know the schtick was more outraged and got the outrage to spread.
Fucking John Twitteruser. I hate that guy.
You think they would have learned something when Sarah Silverman made a similar style joke a few years back.
Yeah, I don’t quite get the outrage over this tweet, considering that he did a whole bit on this the other night, and especially considering that his whole schtick is acting like a clueless right-wing asshole.
From this article on Slate, it seems to be that the hashtag started from Suey Park. According to Slate:
I do question her tweet:
I’m guessing she either never has watched the Colbert Report and doesn’t get it’s schtick, but she said she used to respect and enjoy the work to make the tweet more stinging, or did enjoy the Colbert Report and is somewhat sensitive regarding racism against Asian Americans.
***The Colbert Report ***is one of Comedy Central’s highest rated programs (next to 12 year old reruns of The Chappelle Show…LOL) so it’s not going anywhere.
Yet another “tempest in a teapot.”
Nothing to see here.
The Onion did something similar a while back, but I don’t recall as many people getting upset about that. It seems like some people want to turn some epithets into the Jehovah scene from Life of Brian - you’re not allowed to say them even to describe what you’re not allowed to say! Which is of course ridiculous. It’s immediately obvious from the context of the show what Colbert was getting at, although just thrown out there as a tweet it loses some of that and is problematic, I have to admit. But still, two seconds of thinking should turn people around on this. Should.
The fact that there is such a thing as a “hashtag activist” just proves how retarded some people are and that those people should be banned from the internet for their own protection.
Hear, hear! 
Stop being insensitive to deaf people. #GarrettMorris #Newsforthehardofhearing
“Hashtag activist” is a silly title, but Twitter is popular, and hashtags are a good way to start conversations. Here’s an articleby a female Asian-American writer about the #notyourasianamericansidekick means to her.