A South Korean YouTube star released several videos explaining her decision behind getting box braids, and many are applauding her willingness to educate herself.
Known online as xoxosophia, the 28-year-old amassed a large following by taking viewers into her life of culinary creations and daily vlogs with her cat. Recently, xoxosophia decided to don a hairstyle favored among women in the Black community: box braids.
In an exclusive interview with BuzzFeed, xoxosophia explained her reasoning behind installing the look.
"Honestly, I was initially attracted to box braids just because of its beauty," she told the news outlet. "I wouldn't deny that. Because, at that time, I did not have a good understanding of the culture behind the style. So, at first, I started by searching numerous tutorials about braiding."
She continued: "Besides the basic form of braids I used to know, I found that there are such diverse patterns and methods of them. I was so impressed and thought they are magnificent. That encouraged me to search clips about its history and meanings besides simple tutorials."
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The vlogger admits she wasn't familiar with the concept of cultural appropriation until after she did further research into the history of the style.
"I was born and raised in South Korea in my whole life, so I had to turn on the captions and search words on the dictionary to understand those clips. Then, I learned the word 'cultural appropriation,'" she said to BuzzFeed.
She documented the process via a YouTube video, quickly drawing praise from commenters.
"I think that learning about other cultures is such a beautiful thing and more people should do it. I love this and your hair looks really good," one person wrote.
Another response read: "As a Black girl myself I'm not really offended, you're just curious and I think you did pretty okay. I hope it was a great experience for you. Braiding can take such a long time; hours and hours which is why if you have it done by someone else it can be expensive and the hair itself can also be pretty pricey. Hope you had fun ????????????????"
Not everyone was sold on her reasoning behind the decision to install the braids, prompting xoxosophia to release another video in response to the backlash. In the description, she emphasized that it was not an apology and instead a way to "correct some of the wrongs."
"It was hard for me to learn about the meaning behind this hairstyle and cultural appropriations living in South Korea. Right now, many people of diverse ethnicity are residing in South Korea, but still, many Koreans recognize Korea as a racially homogenous nation," she said in her April 17 response.
She also encouraged interested parties to "learn about the history of the hair" before getting their box braids installed.
The star signed off with a note to her followers that if everyone took the time to do proper research, it may help avoid accusations of cultural appropriation.
"As much as I love my culture, I wish everyone can respect every others' cultures, and I hope nobody would ever be discriminated nor mocked because of their skin tone or hair," she said. "If we as a society reach that level, such thing as sharing, learning and trying different culture would not be cultural appropriation but cultural appreciation."
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