World-famous footwear company Converse has removed a social media ad that sparked outrage among critics who viewed it as evoking racist imagery.
The Instagram ad photo showed K-pop singer Karina wearing a skirt and holding a pair of Chuck 70 X sneakers.
What seems fairly innocuous at first glance led critics to lash out online, saying the white triangular image created by lighting on the skirt resembled a Ku Klux Klan hood.
The KKK was a US white supremacist extremist group known for racial violence and intimidation.
Furthermore, the way the shoes are presented apparently makes them look like dangling feet – an image some have interpreted as evoking lynching.
Converse, owned by Nike and based in Boston, US, issued a statement apologising and saying it removed the ad.
“We’re sorry,” said the statement. “We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong. We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared. This should not have happened and we will do better.”
This divided the internet, as some reacted strongly to the imagery and called the ad "shameful"; conversely, it seems the most outspoken X users defended Karina and accused Converse of “falling to the false woke outrage”.
Check out some of the reactions below:
“If you have to crop it, squint, and write a 12-tweet thread to make a sneaker commercial look like a hate crime, maybe the controversy isn’t in the ad. Maybe it’s in the people hunting for it.”
"The Converse “KKK lynching” freakout is peak internet brain rot."
"Karina did nothing wrong with this Converse ad. If you looked at this and saw a KKK ad, you're psychotic and need to be checked into a mental asylum."
"This Converse ad is the newest nothing-issue the internet has chosen to get upset about."
Karina and her management company, SM Entertainment Group, did not immediately respond to messages through their Instagram accounts.
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