A 14-year-old girl from the tiny Isle Of Man has become an internet sensation for videos she posted of herself singing Japanese songs online. Rebecca Flint, known online as Beckii Cruel, has had millions of hits to her YouTube performances, and has bagged herself a record deal in Japan.

While this is all great and everything (while also clearly showing that Japan will go crazy for anything a “cute” foreigner does with Japanese culture) it really really agitates me. I might get flamed by some of her fans that may (or may not) stumble upon my blog, but I don’t really care. Recently, she was awarded a “cuteness gold medal” and some have even claimed her to be “too cute.” The thing is, her “cuteness” comes from the fact that she looks like an anime character (I don’t mean that in a hostile way, I’m just calling it as I see it).

While I will give her the benefit of the doubt and call her “cute,” I can honestly not tell if she is genuinely happy about what she is doing. She has a very plastic looking smile makes it seems like she doesn’t really care. Her mannerisms are also kind of fake cute if you ask me.



I think what really bothers me about her becoming so popular in Japan so quickly is that there has been a trend recently of “promoting foreigners” on TV…but not always in the most positive light. I have seriously had students come up to me and tell me that 1) I am cuter than this girl, so that means I must be able to dance better than her or a billion other things like this. On another TV program, they had foreigners come on and talk to some highly educated Japanese people about the differences in Japanese culture and other countries. What this pretty much turned out looking like was that the foreigners were ignorant twebs who understood nothing and refused to accept culture differences. The types of questions asked were ridiculous and I cringed the entire time watching it. In fact, I made Jun change the channel because I was becoming downright offended by the program.

I am not sure exactly where I am going with this anymore besides just showing my aggravation for foreign girls becoming popular in Japan for such ridiculous and “cute” things which in turn creates negative stereotypes about everyone else. The other day I was “hit on” by a semi-drunk middle aged man who asked me to dance for him just like Beckii Cruel.

I could have kicked him square in the balls.