You've Arrived at Panic Station

No matter how many times I listen to Muse's "Panic Station" I never get sick of it...that is, until I saw the comments reflecting the fans' reactions to the accompanying music video.

I'm still addicted to the song, but every time I listen to it now I get really angry as I get reminded of the comments to the original music vid. Which isn't fair, because the song is awesome. Initially when I viewed the music video my only thought was that it was way too crazy for my liking, but otherwise wasn't too bad. But then I scrolled down to the comments to see a slew of angry reactions, mostly from the Koreans, who were clearly offended to see that Muse (or rather, whoever made the video) used the Rising Sun flag for the intro graphic, not knowing that it was to people of some Asian nations was the equivalent to the Nazi Germany flag.

Now, being someone who was terrible with history and social sciences, I had no idea the flag caused that much offense. (I'm a terrible Japanese person, I know.) Apparently Muse didn't either. They apologized on Twitter, took the original MV down, and uploaded an edited version with no offending images.

The angry comments still continued, saying that their "apology wasn't enough" and that "they didn't understand why what they did was wrong". Some YouTubers even went far as to attack fellow YouTubers telling them to let go of the mistake, and their comments were especially offensive to Japanese Muse fans.

The reactions remind me of how certain people in Beijing treated me and expressed their views on my country, back when I lived there during my high school years. It was really awful, some of the Chinese people making horribly misguided generalizations about Japanese people and assuming I'm just another bad person. I tried to be nice and sympathetic to prove otherwise, as well as learn a bit of history to find out the source of their ill feelings against Japan, but it still continued. I came to the unfortunate conclusion that no matter how much effort I try to put in to see where they're coming from, those people who held/are holding the grudge will never understand my stance. In a way, I felt that even if Japan were to officially apologize and modify their history curriculum to actually teach their students to not repeat what the nation did back in the 1940s, they'll never let that piece of history go.

What I'm trying to say is: it's not OK to just assume Japan's an evil nation. No nation is completely evil.

Fortunately a lot of people I know from these nations don't hold that assumption, and for those of you guys: thank you. Thank you for not holding these misguided assumptions and actually making the effort to get to know my country as just another country, and me as a friend or a nice acquaintance.

And Muse (or whoever in charge of graphics in the music video) didn't even know that the flag could potentially cause offense to people from certain nations due to historical reasons. It was an honest mistake, and they apologized and corrected it. Guess in this instance, they couldn't "do what the fuck [they] want to", as there are people "to appease".

I just hope now I can enjoy the song without getting angry, and play it out loud without making certain people upset.