“Death to America”? How a Texas Anchor’s Cookie Joke Ignited a Global K-Pop Firestorm
On a Tuesday morning in Lubbock, Texas, what should have been a cheerful segment about cookies and K-pop took a sharp and ugly turn.
James Eppler, an anchor at KCBD Fox34 — and an adjunct journalism instructor at Texas Tech University — was reporting on BTS’s newly announced collaboration with Oreo when he veered wildly off script.
After correctly describing the cookie’s purple wafers and its 13 unique embossed designs, Eppler told his audience that the designs spelled out a message for fans — “and that is: ‘Death to America,’ which I think is really strange.”
His co-anchors visibly froze. Eppler laughed and quickly corrected himself. But the damage was done — and within hours, millions of people around the world had seen the clip.
A collaboration rooted in culture
To understand why the comment hit so hard, it helps to understand what the BTS x Oreo collaboration actually represents. Far from a standard celebrity endorsement, the partnership was conceived as a deeply personal cultural gesture.
The limited-edition cookie features a brown sugar pancake-flavored crème, inspired by hotteok — a beloved Korean street food the BTS members have spoken about eating as children.
The purple wafers honor BTS’s signature color, a shade long associated with the bond between the group and their fanbase.
The 13 embossed cookie designs celebrate the group’s 13th anniversary, each one carrying a message of gratitude for their fans, known as ARMY.
“For Oreo to be the first snacking brand we’ve collaborated with globally is a huge honor,” BTS said in their official statement. “We ate them as kids, we eat them in the studio, and now OREO is helping us share a taste of home with the world.” The collaboration was set to reach more than 80 global markets, with presale launching June 1st and in-store availability from June 8th.
This was not a frivolous product drop. It was an intentional bridge between Korean culture and a global audience — one that Eppler reduced to a punchline in a matter of seconds.
The joke that wasn’t really a joke
Eppler’s quip — associating a Korean cultural product with the phrase “Death to America” — was widely read as an invocation of Cold War-era stereotypes about North Korea, thinly disguised as humor. The fact that he laughed it off and self-corrected did little to soften the blow. If anything, the quick pivot made it worse: it suggested the comment was premeditated rather than a slip of the tongue.
For many fans, it also stung because of the context. Eppler had just finished explaining hotteok — warmly, even correctly — before pulling the rug out. The segment went from celebrating Korean food culture to reducing Korea to a geopolitical threat in the span of a single breath.
ARMY’s response was swift and organized. Social media erupted with the hashtag and clip circulating globally within hours. Fans called for Eppler to issue a formal apology, and some demanded his resignation. A co-host on the segment later issued an apology, but as of this writing, no statement had come from Eppler himself or from Fox34.
Join our mailing list so you don’t miss any of the important news.
One fandom, one standard
BTS ARMY is widely regarded as one of the most powerful fan communities in the history of popular music. They have broken streaming records, mobilized millions of dollars in charitable donations, and consistently dominated social media trends worldwide. Concert tickets sell out in minutes. Every BTS announcement generates international headlines. And when someone disrespects the group — intentionally or otherwise — ARMY responds with a speed and scale that few other communities can match.
But what makes this moment notable is not the size of the reaction. It’s the pattern it reveals. This is far from the first time BTS has been the target of racially charged commentary on Western media platforms — and each instance illuminates the same uncomfortable truth about how some broadcasters and entertainers still treat Asian artists as punchlines rather than peers.
A pattern Western media keeps ignoring
In 2020, James Corden made headlines after joking that all BTS fans were “15-year-old girls” — a comment that trivialized both the group’s artistry and the diversity of their global fanbase. He apologized. Around the same time, Jimmy Kimmel drew backlash for remarks that many viewers interpreted as linking BTS to COVID-19 — capitalizing on a wave of anti-Asian sentiment that had already led to a documented spike in hate crimes across the United States. No apology came from Kimmel’s camp.
Each incident, taken alone, can be brushed off as a bad joke, a clumsy edit, an unfortunate word choice. Taken together, they form a pattern: a recurring willingness in certain corners of Western media to treat Korean culture — and by extension, Korean people — as exotic, threatening, or simply ridiculous. The fact that each joke comes wrapped in a layer of deniability (“it was just a joke,” “he corrected himself,” “he wasn’t talking about BTS specifically”) makes the pattern harder to name but no less real.
Share your opinion
Join others today
Why this moment matters beyond the fandom
What makes the Eppler incident particularly striking is where it happened. This wasn’t late-night television with a comedy mandate and a live studio audience. This was a morning news broadcast — a format that carries an implicit promise of straightforward, respectful reporting. Eppler isn’t just an anchor; he teaches journalism. The people who will shape how the next generation of reporters cover stories like this one are, in part, learning from him.
That context makes the joke less forgivable and the silence that followed it more glaring.
BTS has spent 13 years building something genuinely remarkable: a global cultural bridge that has introduced millions of non-Korean fans to Korean language, food, history, and art. Their Oreo collaboration was a small but sincere extension of that project — an invitation to share a taste of home with the world, as they put it. One anchor’s throwaway quip didn’t derail it.
The cookies still went on sale. ARMY still mobilized. The collaboration still reached 80 markets.
But the moment serves as a reminder that for all the global reach of K-pop, for all the records broken and stages sold out, some rooms in Western media still haven’t gotten the message. And as long as ARMY is watching — which they always are — those rooms will be held accountable.
In Conclusion
A forward-looking challenge — Rather than ending on condemnation, challenge Western media outlets and journalism educators to do better. Since Eppler is a journalism professor, that irony is too good to leave on the table.
Don’t forget to let your friends know about this incident !