Avril Lavigne is turning controversy into success this week as news breaks that her controversial video for her “Hello Kitty” single debuts on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 75. According to Billboard , Avril’s single “clawed” its way onto the chart thanks to online streaming .
“‘Kitty,’ which is not an official U.S. single, claws its way onto the Hot 100 with 92 percent of its chart points from streaming. Factoring into its rank: a weekly U.S. count of 2.9 million streams (up from 41,000 the prior frame), with 73 percent of that activity attributed to Vevo on YouTube views, according to Nielsen BDS. That action allows Lavigne to receive her highest debut on Streaming Songs to date, as the track bows at a lofty No. 14 (besting “Growing Up,” which opened at No. 26 in May following its official video debut).”
Avril Lavigne’s “Hello Kitty” debut isn’t the only reason she is making news this week. According to an earlier report by The Inquisitr , the singer’s music video generated over 11 million views on YouTube in its first week. This number is expected to grow considering the controversy surrounding the video is still heating up.
Many are still claiming that Avril’s “Hello Kitty” music video is nothing more than a racist mess. According to Pop Dust , the video was released as a “ small promotional single ” for Japan to “thank the fans” for supporting her latest album. The report claims that the music video “was intended to poke some tongue-in-cheek fun at Japanese consumerist culture and Avril’s own irreverent image, but ended up sparking a small fire in the Western media as multiple journalists labeled the video “racist” and accused Avril of “cultural appropriation.”
That “small fire” was more like a blaze, forcing the singer to tweet the following:
RACIST??? LOLOLOL!!! I love Japanese culture and I spend half of my time in Japan. I flew to Tokyo to shoot this video…
— Avril Lavigne (@AvrilLavigne) April 24, 2014
…specifically for my Japanese fans, WITH my Japanese label, Japanese choreographers AND a Japanese director IN Japan. — Avril Lavigne (@AvrilLavigne) April 24, 2014
While the punk princess may stand by her “Hello Kitty” music video, many of her fans seem to want to chuck a cupcake at her, just check out these Twitter comments:
@ENews Racist, half assed, and causes a lot of secondhand embarrassment.
— Shane Mitschke (@PartyshipDown) April 24, 2014
@ENews depends if you think cultural appropriation is racist or not. If it’s done tastefully; not racist. So yes, Avrils video is racist. — NikWylie (@nikwylie) April 24, 2014
[Image via Avril Lavigne Vevo YouTube Screen Grab ]