Netizens too quick to get on high horses

THE COSTUME AND COSMETICS brand Zara has been rebuked by netizens recently because one of its advertisements, in which a female Chinese model with freckles on her face appeared, was blamed for "defaming the Chinese". China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

The advertisement was released on Friday on Zara's official website. Titled "Beauty is here", it stars a Chinese woman wearing the brand's clothes and aims to introduce the company's new cosmetics.

Yet, after Zara shared it on Sina Weibo, China's equivalent to Twitter, in some of the comments it was noted that the model had freckles on her face, suggesting that by selecting her as the model, Zara might mean to "defame the Chinese", because a perfect face should be without any freckles. Some of the comments, deleted very soon after being posted, even guessed Zara might mean to "insult" China, as the Italian brand D&G did in November.