K-Pop Twice Member Accidentally Wears Swastika Shirt After Accidentally Wearing QAnon Top

Cultural misunderstandings happen in society all the time, and through dialogue and education, these misunderstandings can be corrected. If you happen to be a K-pop celebrity with millions of social media followers though, those oopsy moments are exponentially more pronounced. Along those lines, Chaeyoung of the K-pop group Twice has apologized on Instagram for uploading a picture of herself wearing a shirt that she did not realize contained a swastika. More specifically, Chaeyoung wore a shirt of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, who in his shirt is wearing a swastika.

After realizing the mistake, she pulled the image. In addition to apologizing three separate times, she said she did not “correctly recognize the meaning of the tilted swastika” and will “pay absolute attention in the future to prevent any situation similar from happening again.” It does indeed feel like an innocent mistake, albeit one that highlights a lack of knowledge about serious topics among certain demographics in South Korea. (Chaeyoung is 23 years old.)

What makes the timing of all of this even more unfortunate is that Chaeyoung had another episode of wearing something problematic in the past week, when her stylist put her in a QAnon shirt for a concert without having any knowledge of what QAnon is. Both episodes demonstrate the dangers of not double-checking a wardrobe for international cultural sensitivity, especially since Twice has been in the midst of promoting its new album, Ready to Be, internationally, including on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

Of course, aside from the accidental offense caused by wearing a swastika in the year 2023, these are just bizarre and unfortunate hiccups in an otherwise successful and well-meaning promotional tour. I’m sure Kelly Clarkson would vouch for Twice’s character.