KUALA LUMPUR, May 25 ― Several Korean brands have been forced to remove their advertisements following complaints from men‘s rights activists over the usage of the “pinching hand” sign.
Singapore portal Today Online reported that the activists claimed the hand gesture made fun of small penises and promoted misandry.
The activists also said the hand gesture was similar to the now defunct online community Megalia's logo, which was widely perceived to be radically feminist and misandrist.
The issue exploded on social media on May 13 when Korean YouTube personality and well-known feminist Jaejae ate a piece of chocolate on the Baeksang Arts Awards red carpet while posing for photographs.
The activists had taken offence at the way Jaejae held up the piece of chocolate claiming that she knew what the hand gesture symbolised.
An online petition called for aejae to be banned from television.
Now activists are going after brands for using the hand gesture in their advertisements.
Convenience store chain GS25, fried chicken chains BBQ and Kyochon, along with online fashion store Musinsa are among those who removed their ads and issued apologies over the use of the hand gesture, the portal reported.
Comments online have been split with those on the activists' side saying that there is no need to support companies that make fun of penis sizes.
Others asked the activists to stop thinking that everything is about them and to man up and have more confidence in themselves regardless of the penis size.
Unicode, the organisation responsible for the emoji, had in 2019 approved the pinching hand emoji as symbolising a small penis.
