It’s no secret that the internet provides fertile ground for people who enjoy throwing around hateful comments and racial slurs, trolls if you like, and their newest victims are New Zealand songstress Lorde and her rumoured boyfriend James Lowe (who is of Asian descent) after Tyler the Creator instagrammed a photos of the couple, captioned “Hhahahahahah”.
The hateful tweets started a while back, apparently by fans who were offended by fictional claims that the singer called Justin Bieber and the members of One Direction “ugly.” But the onslaught really turned ugly after the Odd Future rapper involved himself in some serious cyberbullying. Lorde was quick to respond, asking the rapper via Twitter, “was this supposed to make me feel something?”. Tyler replied with, “NOT AT ALL. IT MADE ME LAUGH”. Hilarious.
Most of the tweeters stuck to calling Lowe ugly and generously displaying their dumbfoundedness at the pair’s couple status. But some choice haters jumped straight for the racial jugular with comments like “what the fuck is lorde and that chinese sort of ostrich boyfriend anyway,” “Lorde’s boyfriend is he a math nerd or something?” and the astute “your boyfriend looks like a chinese tbfh.”
As Jezebel’s Lindy West writes, “When couples like Lorde and Lowe violate that tacit social contract (by, you know, just liking each other a lot while being slightly different amounts of “hot”), the response is usually swift, bewildered, and thick with disgust.”
Speaking of disgust, here’s a couple of extremely vile examples:
"Justin Bieber and One Direction are ugly"
but Lorde your boyfriend looks like he should be delivering chinese takeaway to my door..
— inactive bc exams (@stratfordsfredo) December 10, 2013
@lordemusic Lorde says 1D and Justin are ugly? LOLZ LOLZ LOLZ LOOK AT YOUR FUCKING UGLY BOYFRIEND! HE IS SKINNY AND UGLY LOLZ!!
— Diaz | Lana Del Rey (@BadKidDiaz) December 9, 2013
@atikahjelah If that scrawny and piece of flat crap asian can score Lorde,then what will become of us.. 0_0..
— YourMother (@Sandy_FYSAD) December 9, 2013