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Vincent Shilling: Social media in Indian Country flexes powers






"On Saturday November 3, Indian country celebrated a bit of a victory and was paid a not a small amount of respect from Gwen Stefani of the group No Doubt. Within a few hours of posting their latest video “Lookin Hot”—in which Stefani was dancing suggestively in a series of video montages with cowboys and Indians and was also handcuffed and tied to a wall—social media outlets in Indian country were aflame with comments. Shortly after, No Doubt removed the video and issued an apology out of respect.

Here’s what happened behind the scenes.

I was reading tweets on my (@VinceSchilling) Twitter timeline on Friday after my Native Trailblazers radio show on BlogTalkRadio and saw a post from several Native twitter friends and noticed they were speaking out against Stefani’s video.

I navigated to YouTube and noticed that No Doubt had embraced the hipster Indian dress we so often see when people are portraying Native culture. I was admittedly disappointed because I had not seen this sort of thing from No Doubt or Stefani previous to this video."

Get the Story:
Vincent Schilling: Indian Country, Social Media and the Right Response from Gwen Stefani and No Doubt (Indian Country Today 11/5)

Also Today:
Yeehaw! Gwen Stefani dresses as a Native American, cavorts with a wolf, and ends up handcuffed in No Doubt's new Wild West themed music video (The Daily Mail 11/2)
No Doubt Pulls ‘Looking Hot’ Video and Issues Apology (Indian Country Today 11/3)
No Doubt Pulls Video After Outcry (The New York Times 11/5)

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