Did you see that one vine...

To kill time I enjoy spending time on my Vine app. Vine is an app that has little video clips that are on repeat. Some are interesting, but for the most part they are hilarious.

The funniest vines that I always come across, are vines that involve playing off racial stereotypes. For example, the first time I saw a compilation of Eric Dunn, a famous person on Vine and Youtube, I thought it was absolutely hilarious. All of his "Gangster from the suburbs" videos cracked me up. Why were they hilarious? He played off of his skin color.

As I continued to watch videos from Vine, I really couldn't help but notice the ones that always got reposted, or the videos with the most likes, were the ones that had people playing off race. I would be a liar if I said that that I didn't think they were funny. One that I thought was absolutely hilarious was one that once again played off of skin color.

Now there's always that saying, "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt." Of course this applies to everyone, including myself. Me being the only Asian in this course, I feel morally obligated to touch on that fact every time I blog. The second this Asian guy decided to play off of his race, I immediately felt uncomfortable and a little annoyed. Since then I've even started to question whether or not these videos are actually "okay" even though, people of that color are over exaggerating their own stereotypes.

Is that what it takes to be noticed in today's media? Acting in the given roles and expectations of your skin color? I of course fell victim to this type of comedy, and according to Julie Kayzerman of the Metro News, "it is still racist and promoting racist views," and I do have to admit, she has a point.

With 40 million viewers and over 15 brands successfully advertising themselves on this app, Vine isn't going anywhere. What started off as a fun and innocent app, now technically promotes racism. The point that this is considered "modern media" can be seen as regressive, and overall offensive.

What still gets me is the fact that I thought these "racist" vines were to somewhat hilarious. How do people move on to a progressive state, when something harmful can be seen as a harmless joke? We have censors on TV, and very rarely do you see anything remotely like these videos on a major television network. With that being said, 40 million viewers is pretty much equivalent to its own Network, free from the rules of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Let's say Vine starts to get censored because of too much racism. In my opinion, at this rate, there will be something else out there that will allow things like this, and it would get just as big.

We as consumerists fall victim to the entertainment racism offers whether we know it or not. It's hard for me to understand how to move forward from racism, when even I am reminded that I fall victim to that.

http://www.metro.us/newyork/entertainment/2013/08/21/vine-the-newest-form-of-minstrel-shows/