[UPDATE 2/20] An interesting update was posted to Jenny Hyun’s blog regarding her mental health. Take from it what you will, but it may add a little context to this bizarre story.
I first heard of Jenny Hyun years ago, back when she won a little competition on MTV called Wannabe, where singers vied to be like their idol of the time. Jenny competed on the show based on Christina Aguilera, who back then, was still a newly established, young Pop star. Jenny actually won the competition, giving her a little momentum into her own career. She soon rebranded herself as Jaley before eventually changing her stage name back to Jenny Hyun years later, and now I understand that she’s a song writer for the K-Pop industry. Check out the clip of her winning the show, below.
So why is she being written about in our ‘Worst Ever‘ feature? Through the usage of social media, it has become apparent that she’s a very vocal individual. She frequently tweets and blogs and shares about various topics including politics, social class, and yes, race. Now, people often say things out of frustration. We get that. But the following tweets that were made by her are inexcusable – regardless of intention or actual disposition. AsianJunkie was able to collect the following:
This was all in response to a questionable & racist tweet by Floyd Mayweather (another infamously outspoken celebrity/boxer) regarding Jeremy Lin. Perhaps she only meant to stand for the injustice spoken by a influential person of interest. Perhaps she is wrongfully displacing a lot of anger based on some personal experiences. Who knows. All I know is, she was way, WAY out of line.
I respect the fact that she has the right to say what she thinks and feels. But I, in no way, respect what she thinks and feels (GENOCIDE!?). But at the end of the day, I’m most concerned about her – as a person. What in the world could drive her to react in such a fashion? Why is there such anger, that whether or not it is not derived from feelings towards a particular group of people, it still brings her to the point of spewing senseless bigotry and slander?
You see, I think all of us have at least a little bit of anger in us. Some more than others. Perhaps reading Ms Hyun’s tweets triggered an immediate emotional response that caused you to wish detriment on her. You wouldn’t be the first. In the resulting backlash, her address has been published online, and she’s received numerous threats to her health and well being along with an enormous amount of criticism.
But… in the end… doesn’t this vaguely resemble a chain of dominos? Dominos that are on fire, and have been pushed by the finger of Beezlebub with the intent of setting off an evil Rube Goldberg machine that can only end with poison tipped arrows gouging out our eyes, leaving us blind in a maze surrounded by loud speakers blasting Rebecca Black’s “Friday” on an endless loop.
Sorry, I got a little off topic there. But my point is this. Floyd’s unchecked anger triggered the hugely imbalanced anger of Ms Jenny Hyun. Who in turn, may have triggered a lot of anger in many of us. And this may then manifest itself in countless other ways of various magnitudes. All I’m saying is, don’t let the anger get to you. Don’t let it be a driving force behind your actions. If you get into that habit, who knows how long it’ll be before you find yourself in a similar position as Jenny.
For the record, she apologized. Sort of.
Jenny Hyun, as a human being, isn’t a “Worst Ever”. But, her letting the anger get to the point that it defines what she does and says? That is.
a-Tunes 
Fantastic write up. Honestly you summarize it all so well and with a fitting moral.
This is the perfect example of two wrongs not making a right. Mayweather’s comment was inane and ignorant. This was acknowledged by all ethnic groups…but Hyun’s comments were horrifying.
It is so cliche to say things like “sad to see this still going on in 2012”, because we all know it still happens. Pull up the white woman’s racist tirade on the tube in Britain, or, to balance it out, a Louis Farrakhan sermon to his NOI congregation. What makes that statement relevant in this context, is that I honestly can’t wrap my head around someone insinuating genocide.
Even some of the most racist and vile people on the planet don’t take it to that place. “Go back to your own country, ship them out of the country” … That’s common racist speak. Genocide is reserved for terrorists and extreme guerrilla groups … tribes… Hitler….Nazis.
Your chain-reaction analysis of hate… the cycle of hate… is dead on. So sad…but, I am happy to see the diverse community of international kpop fans, banding together on this one. Proof that bigotry is for the minority. There is hope yet.
Jenny simply showed everyone that an asian can do what a black did a lot better than the black did it. No news there. The question that few will answer honestly is, “What did she say that is factually incorrect?” Certainly it is insensitive, but that was the point of her reaction. I’m still brooding about the black who symbolically mugged and raped Taylor Swift on stage before the nation, and I am especially angry that Taylor learned nothing from the incident. Jenny has courage and fire that Taylor lacks.
Nothing she said was factual. Period. Jenny has fire, but it’s fueled by an ugly, displaced bitterness, It’s toxic. It’s pollution,
She did not effectively “stand up” for Jeremy Lin, She used the situation as a soapbox to parlay her own insecurities and anger, triggered by one but directed at millions.
Then by all means point out a counterpoint to her alleged fallacies.You are blind and a waste of space if you disagree with what she said.
I’m not going to bother debating this with you. But realize that you are defending opinions stated during an episode of her bi-polar disorder. So I don’t think you’ll want to use Jenny as an example of a voice of reason.
Take yourself back to Stormfront and stay there.
I agree with Jenny , most people that I personally know also share the same sentiment.
You would have to go around with your eyes shut to say shes wrong…but alas we live in crazy times where the blatantly obvious is swept under the carpet by the PC Brigade.
youtube com/watch?v=aMe2-Cf9Cxc
Enjoy
Sorry, She`s retarded I`m black and i will never except the crap she says I am not stupid. I`m not arrogant. My penis is 6 inches. I don`t have a criminal record. I`m not on welfare. I`m sorry that i can`t decide my race. So what if she`s Asian that doesn`t make her god. So can go suck a dick. Humans in general are stupid pathetic creatures.
“black guy”
Stopped reading there.
And of course I`m offended. She doesn`t even know me or anyone in my family for that matter. And she has the audacity to say hateful crap like this about my people. I will admit that we aren`t the perfect race (None of the others are perfect as well). But it just angers me people how these people who had no control of there race whatsoever can just Stand up make racist comments like that from a balcony and think their superior.
Commit Genocide on the Blacks? That`s just Cold and One-sided all you racist do is talk about how blacks are heartless and have no compassion yet you do the exact same thing. Jenny Hyun`s anger is stupid and arrogant She has just recycled what has been said for the last 500 damn years. She needs to get off of stormfront and get a damn life.
Everybody, listen to this man, he is wise.
The question is ultimately, how do you expect to productively function in a diverse society with these warped, baseless views.
I hear the “Anonymous” genius challenge the readers to point the many fallacies behind Jenny’s shortcomings, but is that really necessary. The same cognitive dissonance that Satoshi used to describe black women as less attractive than their counterparts in PT journal is the same adaptive formation that Jenny’s using to spew her rant.
ahhaalol WE DO NOT NEED TO PROVE OUR plight to you! EVER! lol
While I have many an Asian friends that would be just as displaced and embarrassed by this, its irrefutable that Blacks have built “the” foundation and are the pillars on which many other “sub” race/culture built their braggadocio success! ……………………………..Call it what you will.
But really “Anonymous” Do you believe that we ought to spend time entertaining the banal banter of socially inept, mentally-atrophied individuals like you and Ms. Hyun?
ahaaah lol really? haalol no seriously! And a-tunes.net, thank you for not responding to this unfortunate excuse for a person.
This article saddened me deeply and then I went on to read the comments and was nearly brought to tears. This kind of hatred hurts everyone not just African Americans and that is what’s really toxic not any one race.
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The Japanese should have finished what they started.
Jenny Hyun forgets that her family has a Japanese slave name, that they slaughtered your royalty and burned your palaces even turning one into a zoo. She forgets that the greatest threat to her and her family is NOT black people, but her own crazy North Korean peeps waiting for the right opportunity to use underground tunnels to take over South Korea and turn you all into starving monkeys.
DON’T FORGET JENNYSHI! HWAITING!^^”
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The Japanese should have finished what they started.
She forgets that Korean people were shipped off as slaves to Japan and still live in a sub-human existence trying to “pass” for Japanese by using Japanese names.
She forgets the comfort women.
She forgets that the only reason why she’s here singing is because american troops saved her from being a Japanese sex slave and that they STILL HATE YOUR GUTS to this day, banning Kpop in Japan.
The most unfortunate thing about this awful set of comments is that you will have tons of other white people coming here and thanking this woman for “telling the truth”; as if to have a minority repeat these kinds of venomous opinions somehow validates them. Nothing makes a white person happier than seeing a member of one minority group venting against another.
All whit people are the same, okay. The only way a “minority” (implying that Asians are a minority in Korea) can have raysist views is if white people put them there? Ya okay. Nigger, do you hear yourself talk? There is a reason why all civilized races hate you. You’re victim complex is showing.
LOL, You protest his generalization of whites as racists, and then you go and prove him right! What an idiot.