First though, some background information. In the city of Cologne, Germany, a fierce competition between several top League of Legends teams from around the world had just concluded. (League of Legends is only the biggest electronic-sport currently, also commonly known as "just another video game" to the less informed.)
In the aftermath of the intense virtual bloodshed, one Korean team stood victorious. (Koreans winning video game competitions? Who would have thought!)
Of course, these victors were invited onto the event stage for their victory ceremony, where a big paper cheque is presented to them, and photos are taken to capture their glorious victorious moment forever. The champions for the night were requested to do a superman pose for the cameras, and this happened:
Ladies and gentlemen, you may notice a resemblance of their poses to a certain individual, namely Adolf Hitler, of World War II fame, and made in Germany no less!
Naturally, there was massive media backlash, and the team captain involved had since made a video apology trying to clear the arising misunderstandings. Presumably, the "Sieg Heil" pose was unintentional, but a completely unrelated victory pose only visually reminiscent of the now infamous gesture. Regarding the whole incident however, could it be that although these Korean champions lacked cultural awareness by engaging in their obviously provocative poses, the Germans (and internet) were also being hypersensitive, especially given that no sane man would want to relate themselves to Adolf Hitler?
Applying this more generally: would there be a point where cultural sensitivity becomes hypersensitivity and it is no longer reasonable to fault the offending party for infringing on hypersensitive cultural territory? If so, where would it lie and what should be done then, to ease the touchy hypersensitivity?
