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Lorde has been dating a man called James Lowe. Lorde is a White New Zealander. Lowe is a Chinese New Zealander.

When they uploaded photos as a couple to social networks, photos went viral and got lots of racist abuse.

The abuse also incorporated the following themes, possible explanations for the controversy.

1. Fans of Bieber and One Direction believe that Lorde called those boys ugly. But there’s no proof of this at all!

2. There is an age gap. Lorde is 17. Lowe is 24. That said, the age of consent in New Zealand is 16, and Lowe looks younger. From the way they interact with each other, Lorde even seems possibly more emotionally mature than Lowe.

3. Lowe has been called ‘ugly’. Lowe is certainly no looker. But I say he’s average. He’s in good shape. He looks young. And Lorde isn’t much better looking, especially when you consider she has the benefit of make-up and stylists. For a successful female musician, she’s on the less attractive side. Of course, looks shouldn’t matter in music, and she seems to have a nice enough personality. But since the topic of looks was raised, I’m just keeping it real.

So I’m not really convinced by these explanations. But at the same time I’m surprised by the intensity of the controversy. Is it really that infuriating that a white woman is dating an East Asian man? I know some white men feel intimidated by black men. Curiously, that used to be the case with East Asian men too. Hollywood used to portray East Asian men as sexually insatiable seducers of white women: ‘the yellow peril’. Some time after the Second World War (I don’t know when exactly or why), East Asian men lost that image and became stereotyped as weak asexuals. I assumed white men no longer felt intimidated by East Asian men, except intellectually. If not, why the anger from white men? And why are white women angry?