Cultural misunderstandings can catch anyone out

A few days ago, I reported on a new audio interface that seemed to be targeting women with a sexist faux pas. It appears I was wrong to jump to that conclusion.

The hardware was offered by MIDIPLUS, who are now offering the following apology on their web page:

A Statement Regarding Our Recent Announcement Of Mirror

Recently there’s been some anger and misunderstanding caused by how we initially presented MIRROR to the western world. For this we sincerely apologize. We made a mistake. We should’ve done a better job explaining our intentions in English. When our native English speaking friends explained how our product launch had been interpreted, we were embarrassed and ashamed.

We have no intention of offending anyone. We have the deepest respect for people of all genders, ages, and orientation.

MIDIPLUS is a China based company. Here in China (and elsewhere in Asia) it is very popular for kids and young adults to use several Asia based social networks & webcasting platforms to livestream karaoke and performances.

These live performances are somewhat similar to what you would see on platforms like Facebook and YouTube Live. However, in many ways it is very different and a unique cultural phenomenon.

MIRROR is one in a series of products created to provide a playful way for karaoke webcasters connect themselves (sic) and their equipment to their computing devices.

Again, our sincerest apologies to anyone we may have offended or upset in any way. Please be assured that that (sic) was never our intention. We’ll do our best to communicate better moving forward.

by MIDIPLUS

Headlong Studio now offer our apology to MIDIPLUS for this misunderstanding.