A US conservative influencer aligned with the MAGA movement faced backlash after commenting on a viral Japanese street interview that mentioned Indians in the context of food smells.Andrew Branca, a right-wing commentator, posted on X: “Every culture I’ve ever encountered that has had any meaningful exposure to Indians utterly despises them.” His remark came in response to a short Japanese vox-pop style video that has been circulating on social media, especially X. The short clip shows an off-camera interviewer asking Japanese passers-by a casual question about foreigners. In Japanese, the interviewer appears to ask something similar to whether there are any types of foreigners they find bothersome or noticeable. One respondent answers “Indians”. When asked why, he replies that the “spice smell is really strong”. Another respondent adds, “Curry smell and stuff…”, and that foreigners tend to wear “stronger fragrances”, trailing off as the clip cuts.Native Japanese speakers who reviewed the clip said the comments were specifically about food or spice smells. The remarks were not phrased as a direct or racist attack on Indians as people, nor did they mention body odour. However, social media users did point out that such comments rely on stereotypes and can create a hateful rhetoric.The clip was reposted with English captions that summarised it in harsher terms, often implying that Japanese people were saying “Indians smell bad”. Those ‘clickbait’ captions helped drive the video viral and drew strong reactions, especially from Indian users.Branca’s response only worsened the controversy. Many users criticised his post as openly racist and accused him of using a loosely translated street interview to justify a sweeping and derogatory claim about Indians across cultures. Branca has previously called ‘third world country’ people as having lower average IQs than usual; he gave examples of Africa and India.
