Suey Park

Suey Park (born in 1990) is a pseudonym used by a Korean American social justice internet activist most known for creating the 2014 Twitter hashtag campaign #CancelColbert, which has been called "one of the ur-examples of cancel culture" by columnist Ross Douthat.[1] Other Twitter campaigns she has initiated that became trending on Twitter and received widespread media coverage include #NotYourAsianSidekick in 2013 and #NotMyChristianLeader in 2014.[2][3][4][5][6] In 2014, The Guardian named her one of the "top 30 young people in digital media".[7]

Suey Park
Born
Detroit, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Occupation(s)Former Internet activist, writer
Known forThe #CancelColbert campaign

Early life

Park was born in Detroit. Her parents emigrated there from South Korea in the late 1980s after her father was accepted into an MBA program at Wayne State University. The family moved to Chicago when Park was five years old. Park's parents were conservative, and she was as well until her second year of studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[8]

#CancelColbert

Park initiated this campaign in an attempt to "cancel" Stephen Colbert and/or his show The Colbert Report over a tweet satirizing the foundation of the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation.[9] The offending tweet from the Colbert show's Twitter account, posted on March 27, 2014, read: "I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever." Though intended as satire, Park thought the joke went too far.[10] While Park's hashtag became trending on Twitter and widely covered in US media, it was ultimately unsuccessful in that neither Colbert nor the show ended up cancelled, though the show's Twitter account was deleted by Colbert, live on an episode of the show, and Colbert issued a semi-apology, saying "I never want this to happen again."[11] Park's outspokenness and role in launching the campaign led to her receiving multiple rape and death threats, leading Park to shave her head and move from Chicago to New York City.[8][12] Park also reported being "stalked and hunted" for months afterwards.[13][8] Her story was featured in the pilot episode of the reality television series The Internet Ruined My Life which aired on Syfy in 2016.[13][12]

See also

References
  1. Douthat, Ross (July 14, 2020). "Ross Douthat column: 10 theses about cancel culture". baltimoresun.com.
  2. McDonald, Soraya Nadia (August 6, 2014). "With #NotMyChristianLeader, Suey Park takes on organized religion". Washington Post. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  3. Capachi, Casey (December 17, 2013). "Suey Park: Asian American women are #NotYourAsianSidekick". Washington Post. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  4. "#BBCtrending: #NotYourAsianSidekick goes global". BBC News. 16 December 2013.
  5. Kim, Yoonj (17 December 2013). "#NotYourAsianSidekick is a civil rights movement for Asian American women | Yoonj Kim". the Guardian. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  6. Ng, Christina (17 December 2013). "#NotYourAsianSidekick Becomes Top Twitter Trend". ABC News.
  7. Hern, Alex; Andrews, Matt; Shepherd, Jack (16 March 2014). "The top 30 young people in digital media: Nos 30-11". the Guardian. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  8. Bruenig, Elizabeth (21 May 2015). "Why Won't Twitter Forgive Suey Park?". The New Republic. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  9. "The Campaign to "Cancel" Colbert". The New Yorker. 30 March 2014. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  10. Watercutter, Angela. "Here's What Happened to the Woman Who Started #CancelColbert". Wired. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  11. Dowd, Kathy. "Stephen Colbert Destroys His Show's Twitter Account After Controversy". Archived from the original on April 7, 2014.
  12. O'Brien, Sara Ashley (8 March 2016). "How one hashtag can ruin your life". CNNMoney. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  13. "Review: Syfy's 'The Internet Ruined My Life' misses the mark, treating all its subjects as victims". GeekWire. 9 March 2016.
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