South Korean users fall for satirical video about 'US transracial teen'

"The concerns of a transracial white man," read the Korean-language post shared here on Facebook on March 8. 

The post included a series of screenshots with Korean captions that featured what appeared to be a television news report about a black teenager calling himself Harrison.

According to the captions, Harrison -- born "Antoine Smalls" -- claimed to identify as a 35-year-old white man from Colorado. 

The captions also said Harrison wanted to have "race transition surgery" after his family rejected his identity.

Image

Screenshot of the misleading claim shared on Facebook. Captured March 12, 2024

The posts have been shared in multiple South Korean forums since at least February 2018, including here, here, here and here. 

Comments from some users indicated they understood the posts were satirical, but others appeared to have been misled.

"I can understand transgenders to a certain extent, but this I really can't get over," one user wrote "It's as if an Asian person thinks he is a Westerner."

Another added: "(Harrison) looks like someone with a clear inferiority complex about his race." 

In reality, the posts show scenes from "Atlanta" a popular US comedy-drama which satirises racial identities in the United States. 

Comedy episode

A keyword search using terms seen in the captions found the images corresponded to a scene in episode seven of the show's first series published by FX Networks on YouTube on January 17, 2024 (archived link).

"Black American Network interviews Harrison Booth, a transracial man planning to use an experimental procedure to turn white. Stream all episodes of #AtlantaFX on Hulu," the clip's description read.

The full clip reveals the episode's comedic nature. One scene shows Harrison practising "white people lines" in front of the bathroom mirror while the end of the segment features a long, awkward silence between him and the reporter. 

The episode titled "B.A.N." -- which first aired on FX on October 11, 2016 --  earned its director and creator Donald Glover an Emmy the following year (archived links here and here).

Multiple media organisations -- including here, here, and here -- praised how the series poked fun at racial identities (archived links here, here and here). 

"Even the segment that falls flat, an interview with a 'transracial' black teen, has some of the best jokes," New York Magazine's pop culture website Vulture wrote about the episode shown in the social media posts (archived link).

"If you ignore the false equivalency of comparing transgender identity to a kid who thinks he’s really a 35-year-old white man from Colorado named Harrison, you can still laugh at Harrison practising white things to say."