Kendall Jenner has encountered her fair share of social media criticism. Two weeks ago the supermodel had to deal with a barrage of messages from people who didn’t think she tipped her bartender in New York City. (She says she tipped in cash.) And now Kendall is under fire for using a specific emoji in one of her tweets.
Let’s back up: In honour of Keeping Up With the Kardashians‘ turning 10 this year, The Hollywood Reporter featured Kendall, her mother, Kris, and sisters, Kylie, Kim, Khloé, and Kourtney, on its cover last week. Naturally, the gals celebrated this with a string of social media posts. Kim kept her tweet short and sweet, simply writing out the name of THR‘s story: “The Kardashian Decade.” Kris said it was “an honour” to be on the publication’s cover.
But Kendall got a little crafty with her message. She uploaded a pic of the cover to Twitter and captioned it, “sister power…girl power,” alongside a medium-skin-tone fist-bump emoji. See it for yourself, below:
sister power…girl power 👊🏽 pic.twitter.com/QzIziXVV0A
— Kendall (@KendallJenner) August 16, 2017
Several fans had an issue with the skin color Kendall chose for her emoji, asserting that her family isn’t black and therefore shouldn’t use it. “Y’all are not black. Next time use a white emoji,” one person tweeted. “Kendall & Kylie are worst of the Jenners & Kardashians. REALLY KENDALL?! You’re white. Not black. Use the correct emoji. Stop f-cking up,” another user wrote. Someone even said Kendall using this fist bump was a form of cultural appropriation. Check out just a few of these reactions, below:
Y’all are not black. Next time use a white emoji
— shawna🌻 (@Shawnaloveeee_) August 19, 2017
Cultural appropriation power pic.twitter.com/L2h60bOaio
— Piggley Winx. 🐷 (@lydiawesgdrwa) August 17, 2017
😭 oh nah, why Kendall put her emoji as a darker skin tone?
— Cersei (@CrazyClarine) August 20, 2017
Me looking at the color of that emoji pic.twitter.com/M6DiOlykru
— Alexis 🌍🔬 (@TrackCityChick) August 18, 2017
However, not everyone had an issue with Jenner’s emoji. A few fans came to the 21-year-old’s defense and said her critics were reading too much into this. “People are ACTUALLY mad about the COLOUR of the emoji Kendall Jenner used. Surely there’s more important things to be angry about?” a user named @jazz_matchett tweeted. See some other replies, below:
People are mad bc Kendall Jenner used a specific colored fist emoji………….. I can’t with the internet today. ✌️
— Sarah Jemiola (@sjemiola) August 20, 2017
People are ACTUALLY mad about the COLOUR of the emoji Kendall Jenner used. Surely there’s more important things to be angry about? 🤦🏼♀️
— jazz (@jazz_matchett) August 20, 2017
Kendall hasn’t commented on this story yet, but stay tuned.
