As anyone who has ever spent time Korea can attest, Koreans are pretty serious about their Kimchi. For some, it is held in near religious regard and an insult to its pickled-spicy goodness is tantamount to blasphemy.

Just ask Overwatch pro-gamer Dylan Bignet. He felt compelled to apologize for the following tweet last week in which he described kimchi as “disgusting”.

Bignet was visiting Korea to compete in the Hot Six Overwatch APEX as part with his France-based team “ROGUE”. His teammate Benjamin Chevasson uploaded the shot of Bignet making an unpleasant face at kimchi.

According to Korean pop culture site Koreaboo:

The post received mixed reactions, where some netizens claimed that his description of the traditional Korean dish was offensive. Others argued that it was understandable because it was common for people to describe their least favorite dishes as “disgusting”.

Likely not wanting to offend one big gaming market, Bignet posted an apology in both Korean and English. As well as offering the necessary platitudes to calm any kimchi nationalist out there that might not let it go.

I want to explain about the kimchi tweet the other day. We didn’t mean to offend anyone over it. We were at dinner when we got knocked out of season one, and I was trying to make everyone laugh. Everyone on the team knows I don’t like spicy food, so I ate a whole dish of kimchi in one bite. It was awful because it was too spicy. I couldn’t take it, it was too much. Tviq LOVES kimchi so the tweet was just reminding him of that time, and that I ate more kimchi. Nothing against kimchi or Korean culture. It’s just a meme between friends. We love korea and are happy to be here.

Did he really need to apologize? As Dylan Bignet the individual no, he didn’t. What he likes or dislikes is up to him.

However, as a brand, yes, it was probably a wise move to bite the bullet (or the kimchi in this case) and offer an apology to his audience.

Even if the “offended” are only a few, the problem is all about perception and in branding, that’s most of what matters.