‘Joji is cancelled’ trends on Twitter after people discover Filthy Frank

Popular music star Joji was trending worldwide on Twitter on May 11 after KPop fans discovered his YouTube past as Filthy Frank. The fictional character’s edgy humor has some users extremely upset.

Joji is one of the most popular musicians in the world right now, with a slew of #1 singles like Slow Dancing in the Dark, Sanctuary, and Run. However, the freshman musician has come under fire for his YouTube past.

In what is the worst kept secret on the internet, the Billboard chart-topping star played a fictional character on YouTube named Filthy Frank for over 10 years. However, some Twitter users only made the discovery in 2020, and are angry about it.

For over a decade, George Miller was deemed by many as the “king of the internet.” The creator was responsible for the insanely viral Harlem Shake phenomena, and portrayed YouTube’s most comically vile character, Filthy Frank.

Miller eventually left the channel behind, and transitioned into a music career as Joji. However, on May 11 the star began trending on Twitter after some KPop users are only now making the discovery of his past alias.

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The whole thing kicked off when Twitter user ‘jinsolbi’ tweeted about his 2017 musical project as ‘Pink Guy’ – a fictional character in the FilthyFrank universe. “joji literally having a song where he says [racist term]…like you can’t be serious,” they tweeted.

The hashtag ‘jojiisoverparty’ began to trend on Twitter’s Kpop section after users replied to jinsolbi’s post. Many of them were shocked, as they were only just finding out about Miller’s edgy humor from years ago.

Not all were critical of the international artist, as some came to his defense of what they argued “was known for years.” Popular YouTuber Dolan Dark mocked those upset about it. “Just found out Joji is Filthy Frank. Shaking and crying,” he tweeted sarcastically.

Other users such as ‘YMustIExist’ found the whole situation hilarious. “Damn, watching these kpop stans find out that joji used to be filthyfrank is the funniest” they tweeted, while also including a clip of the character.

Miller has been open for years about the character, arguing that it’s satire. “Filthy Frank is the embodiment of everything a person should not be. This terrible offensiveness is a deliberate parody of the whole social media scene,” the description of his YouTube channel reads.

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Despite the artist having largely put distance between himself and the old creation, his past has largely been known publicly. His transition into a chart topping musician has often been praised within the content community, making this criticism years later all the more surprising.