Possibly the most popular streamer on Twitch, Dr Disrespect was called out yesterday by musician Jimmy Wong for acting racist based on a series of clips compiled by the latter in which Disrespect caricatures Chinese accents and language. During a recent stream, Disrespect fired back by saying that some of his best friends are Asian.
After calling some other Fortnite players he was queuing with “no-lifes,” Disrespect said yesterday that he was glad to be raised differently.
“Being around different people, different ethnicities, growing up in a nice public school system having good friends from Asian descent, best friends Mexican, numerous,” he said.
Here’s your venerable @DrDisRespect everybody. He clearly thought he crossed the line with cheating on his wife, but racism? Guess he finds that ok.
Extra links: there are hundreds more like this on YouTube:https://t.co/BHMzqGeccqhttps://t.co/is62tQ9kf3https://t.co/Dkw0t43bQj pic.twitter.com/shnDfWDW9W
— Jimmy (@jfwong) February 7, 2018
He then went on to use the ethnicity of his wife as proof that wave off criticism of his mockery of Chinese accents:
“Got friends I can call right now that are multicultural, multiracial, I love it, I love it. Mrs. Assassin, my wife, multiracial, all the way from the small island of Molokai. Lots of Filipino blood. I love it.
And you got this idiot on Twitter, this idiot searching for, desperate for attention wanna be idiot, right, trapped in a box, trapped in a gated community, a private school, if you will.”
Disrespect finished by calling Wong “clueless” and the entire thing controversy “laughable.” Wong is perhaps best known for a YouTube video from 2011 called “Ching Chong: Asians in the Library Song” in which he parodied racist attitudes toward Asian people.
Disrespect gained his following on Twitch doing cool trick shots in shooters like PUBG while wearing sunglasses and a wig. His growing popularity led to be crowned Trending Gamer at last year’s Video Game Awards.
Shortly after that, he took a break from his work, after admitting to cheating on his wife.
This week marked his triumphant return to Twitch when on Monday he garnered over 388,000 concurrent viewers according to Twitch’s metrics.
In almost perfect streamer form, he’s already on to new drama.
Since his original tweet, Wong has received a number of comments from fans defending Disrespect. As games like PUBG have grown in popularity, they have exploded in markets like China’s, leading some of the American player-base to complain about an influx of cheaters, language barriers, and in some cases openly mocking and ridiculing players who sound Chinese.
“I know the H1z1 and pubg servers are often filled with Chinese players,” Wong said in response. “I also know that just because someone’s shitty to you doesn’t excuse you mocking their language and screaming at them on [voice chat]. Dr’s being an arse – full stop.”
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly quoted Dr Disrespect as saying “Malamawi” rather than “Molokai.”
Comments
50 responses to “Dr Disrespect Calls Criticism Of His Mock Chinese Accent ‘Laughable’”
Oh look, another streamer crossing the line, who’d a thunk!?
This guy is the pits.
Racist or not, this guy comes across as a tool.
WTF is going on with these streamers and YouTubers etc? Why do so many of them appear to be complete and utter dickrags, and why do people spend valuable seconds of their lives watching them?
Easy. People like watching fuckwits be fuckwits.
These types of streams really aren’t any different that from reality TV trash.
Problem with being stupid is your to stupid to know it.
Ahh look another person that wants to put their 2 cents in when they have no idea. The guy puts on an act… He is a very nice guy do your research bud.
Really? Was the cheating on his wife being a nice guy? Or was he just in character at the time? Curious to know your opinion on the subject. Bud.
A nice guy doesn’t get a pass just because he’s being a jerk ‘in character’. Irony isn’t irony when it’s the contextual norm. Check your privilege, son.
I don’t feel I need to respond as others have but I am curious, can you please quote a law, and I will be fair and say from any country in the world that says when you operate under a persona you are free from all actions or consequences?
So he didn’t cheat on his wife, it was his persona that did?
Wait, do you not realize that this man in in character?
Dr Disrespect is a character, hes supposed to be an over-the-top egotistical dickhead.
i thinnk your argument about him being a tool is irrelevant.
Don’t have any strong feelings on the matter, but the some of my best friends bit has never really been a very good defence.
Some of my mates call me the N word quietly, but aren’t stupid enough to think that gives em freedom to drop it elsewhere.
I feaking adore racial humour, but time and place.
Was going to say this. I don’t really care about this guy or the drama he gets into but I can’t help but sigh when I hear the “I have friends who are [blank]” defense.
I agree with all you say here sir (or madam, I don’t wanna assume…) and yes the “I have black/asian/whatever friends” IS tiresome, true. I also admit it’s the core of my tirade, further down the page. It’s also true. My friends and I mock the bejeezus outta each other and it’s great. Our differences are things we embrace, not get self conscious about. Sorry, I just thought I’d clarify that I agree with you AND that my multicultural buddies are not a bullshit prop for my principles. They’re real people (really annoying fkn people, if you guys are reading this ;p ) and they’re awesome.
Damn you, that’s the perfect setup for the Apache helicopter bit but it seems a bad time.
(I always used it as a riff on Kinfolk though, never for the more dismissive manner it apparently is these days)
I’m a dude, kiwi (Maori) with an Aussie GF, we like reverse twinsies, or possibly bizzaro world opposites.
Folks already kinda replied to you about the personal dynamic vs that with a stranger and we don’t actually disagree, all about the balance….so
Tacos
Dude!!! I fkn love tacos man!
The thing is though, as over used as it is, it is a vaild deffence for being called a rasist (witch people will say to anyone who looks at them in a way they don’t like theses days). A rasist is someone who hates and avoids people of other ethnic backgrounds as much as they can, and in exteem cases (such as the KKK) will actively go out and ‘hunt’ others down.
If you are someone who has friends of other ethnics, and you are ACTUALLY friends with them, and not using them as ‘tokens’ like some people do, then it is a perfectly reasonable thing to say in deference of someone accusing you of being a racist.
On the other hand, you have things like Harved Uni last year re establishing segregation under the guise of ‘space spaces’ for there graduation ceremony, and people are CHEERING them on, as if its the best thing ever to happen…
Ah yeah, no…your conflating and dismissing.
The stereotype in question of mocking somebodies ethnicity or accent in such a way will quite rightfully be construed as racist, intended or not.
Case and point Kim Jong from team America was funny, many people used to mimic him, yet nobody in their right mind would think it acceptable to ramble off to Asian folks they don’t know.
On the other hand, the Harvard example has nothing to do with this and your conflating an already conflated issue.
Harvard has made their stance of safe spaces very clear quite some time ago, they are not emotional safe spaces, but intellectual.
You cannot expect the spaces to discriminate against others, nor are they a space for somebody to expect their bullshit to be listened to.
This is everything that is wrong with the bullshit artificial political fuckery right now.
Both sides make up the most insane nonsense to back up their insane ideologies and conflate such issues with misinformation.
This world is a majority of folks with common sense and empathy, beset on both sides by minorities of loud and ridiculous idiots trying to legitimise their own brand of discrimination as acceptable.
Lame retread of a justification.
This wouldn’t be be news if people didn’t watch these narcissistic douche bags.
I’m getting fairly convinced youtube, Facebook & twitter are some of the worse things to happen to humanity.
Oh dear, it’s not like I have anything against streamers, I have friends that are streamers 😉
I mean, if the nick didn’t clue people in to this guy’s schtick, his get-up sure would’ve had to.
Much like that other douchebag vlogger that recorded the dead body, the best way to deal with it is simply not to give it more attention than it deserves. Just give ’em a wide berth, don’t waste any time or money on them, and watch them eventually hang themselves trying to become relevant.
Ok, I’m gonna dive in n see from which direction shots are fired. 1st I’ll clarify that I think this bell-end (in and out of crocodile-tear gushing persona) has a face just begging for a right cross. I thoroughly dislike the guy, ok? And no I have not witnessed his stodgy asian accent or tirades about Chinese cheaters (which I detest like any other cheater)….(here it comes….) -BUT-, people have gotta harden the fk up. I work with folks of all sorts of backgrounds and we all take the pissed outta each other’s accents and our nationalitie’s quirks. My Bogan drawl gets roasted (especially from other, more “cultured”, lol, Skips in our work crew). Pradesh gets the “kwik E Mart” jokes. DJ, an “afro-‘murican” gets the big black dick jokes. Terry, Koori of our mob is more hyper-critical of his Kin than anyone I’ve known. And from all corners of the globe, we share a common belief in our workplace: that it’s healthy to laugh at yourself. To admit that we sound funny ,unusual, hell even a bit “exotic” to other’s and that it’s awesome. Not something to get “triggered” over My kiwi girlfriend calls me a Convict and I accuse her of giving the lamb roast love bites. And we are closer, happier and more emotionally grounded because of it. Yeah, some of you are gonna cry RACIST at me I guess but I honestly think we are all silly, weird and unusual equally and it’s fucking rad. Can’t we just all get over this n have a laugh without being told that it’s something I should feel guilty about? True hate crimes are unconscionable. Embracing our differences as well as our similarities is vital.
You hit the nail on the head there. To me the jokes are fine, if someone asks me to stop making a particular joke about them I do. However I don’t judge a person’s trustworthiness or ability based on their race. That is true racism.
Well its not – its more of a stereotype than racism. But regardless, you can’t ask gamers to ignore what is actually happening because it might hurt some feelings. Hordes of Chinese players are ruining game after game and people have had enough. The Chinese hacker problem in PUBG is well document. I played 2 rounds last night, got killed both times by Chinese aimbotters and quit. Ark servers have been completely ruined by Chinese megatribes flooding them, hacking, aimbotting and glitching to completely ruin the fun for everyone else. Eve Online had its own China server to keep them separated BECAUSE they are a known problem – they’ve ruined that server and are now migrating over to Tranquility to ruin that.
Yep, I know lots of them cause no problems at all. But sorry – 9/10 times I run into a Chinese player while gaming, its a negative experience.
If people want to take offence to being mocked then thats up to them. Its a tough world out there. I don’t see anyone getting hurt by this guys antics on twitch, and until that happens, stop crying about everything.
The point you may be missing is that you say those things to each other in mostly personal context and your friends are okay with that. That’s a choice they’ve each made as individuals. But I’d hope you wouldn’t dare say those same things to a passerby on the street or the clerks at your local shop or anyone else you don’t know well.
That’s the problem with this situation. This streamer isn’t saying this stuff in a personal context to a handful of close friends who already had the opportunity to indicate they were okay with it, he’s saying it on a public stream to an audience of hundreds of thousands, with no idea whether they’d all be okay with it or not. That’s not okay at all.
There’s also a difference between ’embracing’ our differences and mocking them. That shit in the video above is very much on the racist side of the line.
He’s also saying it to/about someone who has clearly expressed that they’re not OK with it, but because his mates are, he’s taking the attitude of, ‘fuck you, guy,’ to anyone who isn’t.
Doc Douchbag certainly is outta line here, doubly so getting his brainless audience in on the act. Though I think Jimmy setting up a case of “trial by social media” instead of just getting in contact with him and saying directly, from one moron to another- “Mate your behaviour is offensive, could you please be an actual adult and show that consideration to others is more valuable than your jackass persona’s sub count?” Maybe we could start Thunderdome for obnoxiously extreme left and right wing “personalities” *swallowing back vomit*, where 2 of these media Muppets enter, and neither leave? I’d watch that.
You are absolutely correct sir, I would not speak like that to anyone not in on the joke. I probably veered off-topic with my comment, sorry. Doc Dickhead certainly was outta line, as are many (not all) who play it seems the correlation between TOXIC behavior and violence isn’t with VIOLENT games, but COMPETITIVE ones. Hell, we could throw real life sport in that mix too, to be honest. Competition seems to give arseholes some sort of justification to amplify their shittier qualities. On the flipside of this I think Jimmy is just as bad by perpetuating the “lets overreact and feel persecuted by Every. Damn. Mean. Word. That the Bad Man said to/about me. It feels so, ..idk. So lacking in spine. So coiled up ready to unleash this big sook over little things that when something genuinely despicable happens to this fella (or other’s in the “People Permanently Persecuted in Perpetuity Party”©®™) that suspicion and cynicism end up replacing concern for their well being.
The only sensible and reasonable comment in this thread. I tip my hat off to you and agree wholeheartedly.
Also Dr Disrespect is a character/persona, he’s meant to come across as someone full of themselves, that’s the point/joke of it all.
Is there a reason why putting on accents from another country is considered racist when it does not contain discrimination, prejudice or the notion of superiority?
The doc is being disrespectful, but I think Jimmy is also wong here.
racist is probably the wrong term…its gets used too quickly in commentary these days.
It’s definitely insensitive, disrespectful or downright rude all of which does carry a notion of superiority…
I think we actually agree here then?
While I don’t agree that insensitive, disrespectful or rude in this case carry enough weight for it to indicate his feelings of racial superiority.
I think if you look at it in the context of what was going on, you get the subtext here that he is frustrated with players from China (where also the vast majority of the games cheaters come from). There is no region locking to stop them from also hitting other regions servers. And this was the reason he was being insensitive, disrespectful and rude… Nothing to do with race, or a feeling of superiority.
Would it be OK to walk up to a tourist on a train and jabber faux-Chinese in their face to annoy them? What if they’d pushed in front of you to get through the door first? I’d say probably not.
Yeah, it’s rude, haven’t disagreed with that.
Rude is not hateful.
Good point.
I reckon racism is tricky and it comes down to intent.
I love trying to immitate accents. Whenever I read books to my kids the characters will inevitably have some kind of accent. Usually something from the UK, since I grew up watching shows like that. I’m basically copying characters from Red Dwarf, Blackadder, etc. It’s just a lot of fun to play with accents.
This guy is fairly obviously using his fake-Chinese to mock the people he runs into, though. It’s done with mean intent. It’s difficult to draw that line, but it is worth at least examining. Just like it was worth examining and elimintating the buck-toothed, squinty-eyed, “flied lice” characterisation of Chinese people in movies. Or blackface.
Check my reply to out0kensai0 (https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/02/dr-disrespect-calls-criticism-of-his-mock-chinese-accent-laughable/#comment-3892791) and I think you will get my take on examining this case.
You can make a pretty safe argument that blackface and yellowface(?) are done with the intent to show superiority and with prejudice. But in this case, taken in the context it was in, it doesn’t seem to be the case.
I guess it’s the intent rather than the imitation of the accent alone that could push it into the realm of racism.
The cries of racism don’t hold for me when someone can put on a Scottish or Irish accent and get a laugh but if they put on an Asian or African accent they get labelled a racist. If the intent is the same, what’s the difference?
So walk in to a bar in Dublin or Edinburgh and give it a whirl.
I’m sure everyone will have a good chuckle…
Seriously though, I have literally watched a Scottish fella knock out another guy for putting on the accent as a joke.
At the risk of perpetuating another stereotype, it was indeed a head butt.
Before he was laid out, he also claimed it was joke and was called a racist fuck for his troubles
It depends on the power imbalances traditionally involved. Honestly the answers to your question are long, complex and interesting and you can find them in lots of well sourced academic works if you really want to find out.
But if you want to get fairly crude and basic about it and boil it down, the idea is that you dont have to believe in your own races superiority or the inferiority of others to behave in a racist way or say or do something that is racist (and thus contributes to broader problems by “propping up” the genuine racists). It primarily comes from systems and modes of behaviour that have a long history linked to colonialism and in more modern contexts migration/immigration tensions.
Whether deep down the person is really racist doesnt really matter, they are contributing to a behaviour system that reinforces systemic racism, which is an issue much trickier and much more problematic than out and out individual racists. Ie, while Australia might have very little people who believe aboriginals are an inferior race, the hang over of having a system built by people who once believed that is that its very tricky to unwravel the problems. Systemic racism can be hidden, or hard to recognise, even though its impact may result in the same issues of segregation, priviledge, othering, etc.
This is also the case for issues like systemic classism (the poor are often maligned, seen as funny, lesser than, to the point where studies have shown that teachers often respond with less praise and support to students who have the “derro” accent that many of us just unconciously make fun of or see as something “other”), sexism, ableism, etc
Basically a good rule of thumb when thinknig about people who arent “racist” using racist tools is to think to yourself “is this action/behaviour/language etc something that has been traditionally used as a tool of racism? Will it have essentially the same impact on someone who has heard this language from a malignant racist individual? Is it worth it if thats the case?” Ie, it may not be “racist” in intent, but is it something racists have used to other people.
A contrasting example would be “If I do an accent mocking a posh british person, will this contribute to the maligning or othering of a disadvantaged group?” Youve got to think about purpose, while on the surface it might seem like these are analogous acts, often the mocking of posh british accents was a way for those at the bottom of social ladders, those without power, to regain some equlibrium. There is a pretty clear difference between making fun of rich white politicians who have basically every advantage of a society that was essentially made by and for them has to offer, and making fun of disadvantaged groups. And by disadvantaged the locale is important. There is an intersection of power differentials to consider. People like to act like this is too much work. And thats fine, being a better person, making our discourse and behaviour better for everyone is challenging and doesnt always work. But if someone genuinely wants to know if something is or isnt intolerant/hurtful/racist etc, there are working academic theories that have cogent explanatory models.
And after all this if this is too long the absolute best rule of thumb is always “Punch upwards”. Dont punch downwards. Because ultimately its just not that funny, and the downsides are multitude
This is very strange, because the definition you seem to be giving here is not the definition of racism as it is generally used or even widely accepted. Ideally we would have a separate word for the “noticing peoples differences” idea that you put forward, and then we can argue the merits of whether it is a good or a bad thing. Which would be a better move than tying it to the already negatively loaded word “racism”.
I think that we should treat people the same here and be able to mock everyone equally, there is something untenable in the idea that some races just cannot take jokes.
While jokes that punch downwards are very rarely funny (and the ones that are are usually done with some level of irony to the point where the humour is on the ignorance of the racists), they should be left to flop for what they are, jokes.
Bloke who calls himself Dr Disrespect is being in fact disrespectful. Wouldn’t call it racist though, he just never evolved from schoolyard humour and that is probably his audience.
It just dawned on me that this could also be an attempt to use the new Twitch rules to ban a big player from the competition to help their own stream views.
Is this like David Cage saying he isn’t homophobic because he worked with Ellen Page?
My question: When he speaks “Chinese” is he speaking “ching chong ning nong” jibberish or is he actually speaking some actual words (or very close)?
If he’s parroting what he hears in game, I don’t think that’s as bad as the playground-tier ching-chonging.
Geez! people are so easily offended these days it’s a wonder that stand-up comedians can get any work at all.
Just wondering if all the commenters that are offended by the Chinese accent would feel the same if he was riffing on our own aussie accent. I would guess probably not.
Please stop giving this fuckwit free advertising.
He was doing all of this before he cheated on his wife and nothing was questioned. Now? lol
So, another comment removed. Apparently it’s ok to call this dr disrespect guy and the people that watch him stupid, but it’s not ok to call the commenter out for not being able to spell.
This site used to be great, but in recent years it’s become terrible, no wonder so many commenters don’t come here anymore.
This is my final comment. Feel free to ban me, I won’t be back.