The similar skin tone of Asians can be a reason for being mistakenly identified as someone else. Bowen Yang and Joel Kin Booster had to face a similar case of mistaken identities this week due to an article published by Out Magazine, for which the magazine had to face a lot of criticism as well.
Though Yang and Kim Booster don’t seem to have any similar facial features to be mistaken for each other, there are hardly any similarities between them. The reasons to be addressed for such a mistaken identity can be the similar “most people” skin tone of the Asians; other than that, there’s no similarity between the comedians.
Yang Is Again Mistaken as Booster
People have continued to refer to Yang as a booster and vice versa for quite some time now. Similarly, a case happened last week when a reporter from Out Magazine, while publishing an article that included content about Julianna Margulies’s statement in regard to the Israel-Palestine conflict, included the tweet that was posted by Booster.
Booster is a comedian, and he had recently spoken against the actress, but this post of Booster was referred to by the magazine as “Saturday Night Live Comedian,” which is Yang. This was where they got mixed up with the comedian’s identity.
This confusion, which was caused by Out Magazine, disappointed Yang, and he addressed the cause of this confusion on his podcast, “Las Culturistas.” Booster talked about his confusion in a segment of the show “I Don’t Think So, Honey.”
What was Yang’s response to this “mistaken identity” issue?
Margulies comment was called out during the segment by Yang’s co-host, Matt Rogers, to which Yang responded, “I don’t think so, honey, Hollywood Reporter for still confusing me and Joel Kim Booster in an article about this whole Julianna Margulies thing. An article that is reporting on racism. “The tone of the statement makes it clear that Yang was not okay with this mixing of identities.
In response to Yang’s statement, Roger said, “How ironic is that? It made me so upset,” he added. “It’s an article reporting on racism, and then you do the racist bullshit of ‘Saturday Night Live’ comedian Joel Kim Booster.” The article made the comedian feel as if it were an attack on racism, saying that all Asians with the same skin color can’t be identified.
Yang also mentioned that this isn’t the first time The Hollywood Reporter has mixed their identities; back in 2019, a similar mistake was made when a tweet was made by Trade publication, which had a picture of Booster in an article that talked about his hiring at SNL, but actually, the hiring news was about Yang.
This wasn’t the end; a post kept recapping all the conversation from the podcast between Rogers and Yang and declared that comedians are “two very different comedians and men” by Out Magazine. It looks like Out is still trying to manage the messed-up situation caused by them.
The post was again updated with corrections that said, “An earlier version of this story misattributed a quote from Yang’s podcast to Booster. “Criticism for Out has been made by the fans as well for such irresponsible acts.
The very odd thing felt by everyone is that “Yang and Booster are not similar,” which is not very hard to say. Their comedy style or looks nothing matched. Even one of them (Yang) wears glasses. Yang made history by getting nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 2021 for the first Chinese American “SNL.”
Booster is a comedian as well as the writer, producer, and star of “Fire Island,” a 2022 Hulu rom-com. It took X (formerly Twitter) to address his response to this issue, where he shared the screenshot of THR’s article, which made the mistake of mixing up their identities.
Booster also added, “Y’all. Isn’t it your literal job to tell people in my industry apart??? Please use my preferred credit, Saturday Night Live Comedian’s Friend!!” In his tweet, “Yang and Booster are real good friends; therefore, the matter was also offending him as he wants his friend to have his work credits.
Booster also shared a tweet from THR in 2019 that had his picture in the article with the headline “Get to know #SNL’s newest cast member, @bowenyang,” reminding that this isn’t the first time they have made such a mistake.
