An Argentinian Politician’s Past Xenophobic Tweets About BTS And K-Pop Are Going Viral

Over the past few years, K-Pop has become a global phenomenon, and BTS is one of the biggest groups in the world.

The members of BTS | @bts_bighit/Twitter

Whether as a group or soloists, BTS have released songs and taken the world by storm, playing at some of the biggest venues in the world.

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Yet, with the rising fame, BTS and the K-Pop industry are also no strangers to malicious attacks.

In particular, a politician called Victoria Villarruel from Argentina has come under fire after past tweets about BTS and K-Pop have regained attention.

 Victoria Villarruel | Bloomberg

The politician has always been known for her far-right views and is currently running for Vice President in the 2023 Argentine general election. Yet, her past remarks about BTS and K-Pop have gained negative attention as the election comes nearer.

In particular, the post that started it all off was a reply saying that “It sounds like a sexually transmitted disease,” and many pointed out that it was replying to a comment about BTS.

O de enfermedad de transmisión sexual

— Victoria Villarruel (@VickyVillarruel) February 10, 2020

While the tweet was from 2020, the post recently started gaining attention again, and it currently has over 4,000 RTs with very angry fans in the comments.

An Argentinian Vice presidential candidate tweeting 875 is like a sexuaIIy transmitted disease.

Apparently she's known for making sexist, racist, xenophobic statements in general, tho that's only 2nd hand info to me.

Anyway, here's her tweet & account. Sad excuse for an adult. https://t.co/UIRo2eDVqS

— Jade D⁷ (@bultaoreuneing) October 24, 2023

Along with a few English comments, there were a lot of tweets in Spanish sharing their anger about the past comments from the politician. While one warned about the wrath of ARMYs and K-Pop fans, even reminding her of what they did to Donald Trump when they bought all rally seats so he was speaking to an empty crowd…

la ultima vez que un politico bardeo a los bts (trump) las armys compraron todos los asientos donde se presentaba a armar campaña y termino trump hablandole a asientos vacios yo que villaruel me voy pegando un t https://t.co/sduT7kFfZk

— katt (@__smokesprite) October 24, 2023

Others shared that ARMYs have the power to stop her from getting any power or influence or just how petty the tweets were.

villarruel: voy a ser vicepresidenta
las armys: pic.twitter.com/bs5l1US4oB https://t.co/fYRQfddk9T

— male (@seokooss) October 24, 2023

Y'all this woman is a candidate for vice president in argentina and she said this bullshit about our boys… @bts_bighit something has to be done here ! prepare the heavy artillery: emails have to be sent and karmys must be notified as well https://t.co/F3dOacmUtk

— caro⁷∞ (@fireheart7_) October 25, 2023

A grown woman into politics having one sided beef with men who doesn't know her existence.. yeah that's embarrassing https://t.co/nyXm4YPO97

— public enemy #1 (@thvologistic) October 25, 2023

It wasn’t the only tweet from the politician that gained attention, with one saying about asking a green-haired Korean to throw a tranquilizer dart (although no names were specified.

Pedile a un coreano de pelo verde que te tire un dardo tranquilizante. Slds

— Victoria Villarruel (@VickyVillarruel) February 11, 2020

Or that she doesn’t like pink Koreans, which many thought was referring to hair color.

Ay no… el coreano rosado no me gusta nada…

— Victoria Villarruel (@VickyVillarruel) February 10, 2020

Which many shared was about Jimin.

no lo dijo de yoongi hablo de JIMIN pic.twitter.com/VW3UC29cBy

— marte (@GL0SSMYLARG0) October 25, 2023

In particular, a whole thread on Reddit started gaining attention with a look at all the problematic tweets shared by the politician.

Victoria Villarruel’s (candidate for Vice President of Argentina) xenophobic tweets about k-pop going viral
byu/BoogieWoogieFengShui inkpopthoughts

Netizens shared their anger at the comments made.

Comment
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For many netizens, they want the tweets to gain attention to show the true personality of the politician with her xenophobia.