 Has South Korea's fat shaming gone too far or is the West just getting a little sensitive? Yeah, is it the truth? Is it offensive or is the truth offensive? Let's just play the video. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Boom! Andrew, there was a bunch of debates in the comment section. Of course, are you surprised this went viral on TikTok? No, because anything can go viral. I just remind you this is from the Eastern world and we are judging it with the Western lens. So it's going to be a little wonky. So listen guys, make sure you like, subscribe and turn on your notifications. But Andrew, you know what is not heavily debated? Smala sauce. Very delicious. Check it out. It's shipping out very, very soon. You guys can still buy it. Check out the Instagram for all the content and all the chefs that have tried it. I will say that people are like saying it's fat phobic in a weird way because it's saying, but it's telling the bigger people that look like Baymax and the silhouette to take the escalator and the able-bodied people to take the stairs. So you could look at it two ways. You could look at it like, oh, they're labeling. That's bad. That's fat phobic. Or you can say, oh, that's very nice to them because they don't want the able-bodied people who should be taking the stairs anyway to clog up the elevator system. Yeah. So I think my initial reaction is like labeling people as plus size is not wrong because we have plus size models. We have plus size clothing, right? But is it shocking to see it in the subway station because it's true in the Western world? This would be considered offensive. No, you're right. They wouldn't have this in the Western world. And I guess the point is it because of like speed and flow? Like if you're a regular able-bodied person, just take the stairs. But if you're a bigger, don't slow down the stairs and then just take the escalators, but then they're telling skinny people don't take the escalators. Yeah. Maybe they're saying like the escalators, those are for the people who like made the, they made their choice in life of what archetype they are. Okay. And I guess I just want to know how offensive it is to have the kind of the thicker icon person, the fat icon person versus like a wheelchair icon person. Do you think it is like offensive because it's a government agency that obviously sanctioned this? I'm not saying this came from the top, but if it's in the sole subway system and it's been there, I looked at the research for 10 years, clearly this is like somebody's like some government agency has approved this. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, my first feeling is that it's not that offensive, but I could see how it could be if we took this further. Like if it's said in Korean, fat people, take the escalator. Don't clog up the stairs. That would be offensive. Your knee is like going to fall apart. Anyway, I do think that it's interesting that South Korea is getting looked at through an American lens because people like relate to it so much pop culturally. They're almost wanting to put social movements or, you know, correct my language here. I don't want to say woke movements regarding certain things, but trying to juxtapose it over there because they relate to it, but that's a different society. Right. I think a lot of people forget that South Korea is Asia. It is East Asia and it is a different society. Despite how many shows you like to watch from them, despite if you like the music or the music sounds American, I will tell you this. The society is still very, very different than America. Yeah. So anyway, let's just get into the comment section. These are from white people and other races of people, just non-Asian people who went to South Korea and they said, you know, when I was there, I was told by a lady at a retail store that I was too big to try on their clothes. They didn't even let me go into the fitting room. Well, yeah. All right. So that might be a little, that, that is a little bit rude, but knowing how like Asian culture is where they're just like, Hey, you're fat. Hey, you're getting too fat. Like that's how they treat the people they love. You can imagine how they treat the strangers. Right. You know, and I don't think that was necessarily meant out of malice, but that lady probably was just like in her mind being very fact, like just logical. Right. Um, some people were saying that they only had sizes two, four and six for women in Korea, pretty much 95% of the stores. They're from Texas. They're a size 12 or they're from, yeah, they're from Texas and they're a size 12. And then they were kind of saying, like they were kind of disappointed. But other people were arguing back like, who are you to be a gigantic Texas girl who's a size 12 and go to Korea and expect that they're going to cater to you. Exactly. Exactly. It's a different society. Of course, somebody came through with a more negative comment. There are one of the most judgmental superficial cultures ever. Any encounter I've had with them has always been unpleasant. I'm like, damn. Well, I know, you know, I think there's, there's different takes on it. Yeah. And this, uh, this fat guy who's clearly fat from his avatar, he said, you know what, I'd be more offended if it was the other way around. Like if Korea was telling me to exercise by taking the stairs, I sure appreciate that they told me to take the escalator. Exactly. So this is my thing. The messaging is telling the big people to take the escalators versus if they were saying, Hey, if you're fat, you have to burn more calories and you should take the stairs for your own good. That would definitely be more offensive. Right. Cause that would sound like a mean sarcastic joke, right? Because it's like, you guys are clearly not getting your 10 to 20,000 steps in a day to get your need. No, they're just being logical. Like, yeah, if you're disabled, you should take the elevator. It's kind of like that. I'm not saying fat people are categorically disabled, but I'm saying if there was a person in a wheelchair, they would expect to take the elevator. Right. Somebody said, just like climate change, we cannot deny that we're living through an obesity epidemic here in the West. I think reminding people that we need daily exercise is a good thing. So this is where it's sort of a, you know, cause let's be honest, TikTok comments, Yahoo comments, there is a difference in tone that Yahoo people were like, man, you can't even say the truth anymore. In somebody who did something to themselves, they get considered a special group that you can't talk about anymore. What's going on? Right, right, right. Somebody was just saying, you know, we need this in the US, especially when I'm at my coffee shop and I just want to buy a simple black coffee and the person in front of me is loading up some sort of special drink with 6,000 pumps that's got an entire day's worth of calories in a cup. Why can't I go through a speedy line just to get my black coffee? It's kind of like, should there be separate lines for people who are like, I don't need any extra treatment. I don't want to waste any time. This is the express line. But if you want to stack up an order, if you need to take the escalators, we're not judging you, but we're just saying for the flow of things, go into this line. Yeah. A lot of people were just talking about having different cultural values, imposing Western ideology on the South Korea, even though of course, Andrew, South Korea, it is probably in some ways the most easily the most Americanized East Asian country. But then how much can people expect to like input their ideologies on something that they just love so much, but they love it on a shallow level? My question is, David, did that work? Did the little signage work? Did big people actually listen to it and take the escalator and then everybody else took the stairs? Like how would think it does? How much do people buy into the signs? I want to know if it works. Yeah. Works works. Somebody said people just get offended from nothing nowadays. I'm personally fat myself. And I know why I just eat a lot of bad food and I don't play enough sports. Anybody advised me to make more efforts helps me, whatever the way. So basically this guy's talking about like he's fat himself, but he believes that fat shaming works, but he knows why he ended up there. By the way, guys, not my words. Yeah. This is from the comments section. Yeah. I just wonder if this is considered fat shaming. Like where is the line that you draw for fat shaming or fat phobia? Fat phobia is obviously on an upper tier. That's where you hate and you are feared of fat people. I think very few people are actually fat phobic by definition, but I think a lot of people maybe fat. I will tell you this. Here's the biggest thing, man. And this is an ideological difference in the West. People feel that labeling people into like regular size and plus size is already fat phobic in Asia. They definitely do not believe that. Right. Like they're never going to believe that just labeling people because they're just be like, yeah, but just look at him. I'm not going to deny like the science behind this BMI. Yeah. I don't think that they grow up in Asia, telling people to treat fat people differently. I do think they judge them though, but they do say judgmental. Yeah, it is judgmental, but they do say, Hey, if you are fat, you need to do things a little bit differently because you're fat. You have to do this and you can't wear this clothes or something. Somebody said that being offended by this would be akin to being offended that the Japanese white glove dudes that work in the subway are violating people's personal space by shoving them like sardines into the can. But the thing is, Andrew, in Japan, people want to get shoved into that subway cart because they want to get home sooner. Right. But then in America, people would be like, dude, why is this like government worker like shoving me on my chest and cramming my briefcase? It's just a different society. Dude, I don't know. Ultimately, Andrew, what are your takeaways on this or is this something where it's just simply a difference of culture that probably will never be rectified in the sense of like this side will never make sense to that side. I think Asia operates by its own rules. And I think a lot of countries are doing fine operating by those rules. Obviously, there are problems. I mean, listen, if there's like a very high rate of depression amongst overweight people in South Korea, I would definitely look at that and be more sensitive to that, right? But you're saying if the data comes out of the big data, if that is true, but if you are just literally talking about traffic and you're talking about big cars and small cars, hey, guys, oversized trucks, can you take this lane? Everybody else that has a regular size car that chose to buy a regular size car or could only afford a regular size car, you take this lane. It's almost that simple. That's how I see this is a traffic sign, right? I don't know if there was other words attached to it saying like in Korean like fed people, but I don't know if it did. I think it just had a picture and said if you're a bigger person, just don't take up the stairs. You know, some people in the West could interpret it as individually fat phobic. In the East, they may just see it as Confucian collectivism. Everybody's born different. Everybody made different choices. Everybody let's just make the system flow as best as it can by parsing out the smaller parts. They take the smaller stairs, the bigger people, they take the electronic one. If everybody takes the electronic one, the whole system's going to break down. Yeah. Interesting. I do think this though, I do think this when it specifically comes to South Korea, Andrew, people love the products. They love the K drama, especially love the K-pop. I don't know if you guys know about K-pop, BMI. It's low, middle, high. It's in the low category. No, you're not even in the middle category for BMI. It's in the low range. You're saying if you're a person that loves K-pop, K-dramas, loves all these stars that are really good looking and slim. Which is what South Korea is known for, most having talent as well. If you're a fan of that, of the holiday wave, but you get mad at this, then that's in a way it's kind of hypocritical. You're mad at the process and you're mad at the culture that reinforces the normative behavior. I'm not saying there's pros and cons to everything, okay? You know, there's upsides and downsides to everything, but how can you just like the upsides and then hate all the downsides? That's like me going to Singapore being like, oh my gosh, I love how clean and crime-free and graffiti-free Singapore is. Oh my gosh, their rules are so strict. They have no freedom. This place is totalitarian and horrible. Lee Kuan Yew, Andrew, he always said there was a cost to everything. Yeah. Well, anyways, guys, you let us know in the comments down below, is this consider offensive? Is this just like a traffic sign or is this kind of blurring the lines of potentially fat shaming versus I'm just trying to make things work? Guys, you let me know because it's definitely, I guess, about what you believe ideologically, right? So anyways, guys, let me know in the comments down below. We are the hot pot boys, and until next time, we out. Peace.