News/Commentary

Texas anchor roasted over bizarre BTS Oreo joke

May 28, 2026 | | Print Article

A Texas news anchor is facing some social media heat over a weird joke he told about BTS, a very popular South Korean boy band.

Lubbock, Texas, station KJTV anchor James Eppler and his co-anchors were on Tuesday discussing a new, limited-edition set of Oreo cookies that were released in collaboration with BTS when the joke was made.

Listen:

“The cream is supposed to taste like the South Korean treat hotteok, which is a brown sugar-stuffed pancake that some of the band members say they ate as kids,” Eppler initially noted.

“That sounds good,” one of his co-anchors replied.

“That does sound good, right?” Eppler continued. “The cookies’ wafer is the BTS signature color purple. Wafers are also engraved with one of 13 designs, which spell out a message to fans when put together that is ‘Death to America,’ which I think is really strange.”

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Eppler’s co-anchors looked at him in total confusion.

“No, it’s not,” he then clarified, pointing out it’d been a joke.

The supposed joke drew massive backlash, but especially from leftist-coded people who, surprise, surprise, hate white people, hate Fox News, hate Republicans, and hate the West.

Look:

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It’s still not clear why Eppler told the weird joke or what the point of it was. Some have defended it by suggesting it was meant as criticism of Oreo’s high sugar content.

“[H]e was obviously referring to the fact that eating 13+ Oreos is unhealthy, hense the joke (its a lot of sugar),” one defender wrote on social media.

As for BTS, they won all three of the awards they were nominated for at the 2026 American Music Awards, which were held this Monday evening.

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“BTS won artist of the year for the second time,” according to Billboard. “The K-Pop superstars first won in the category in 2021. BTS is one of just four repeat winners in the history of the category.”

“BTS also won song of the summer for ‘Swim’ and best male K-Pop artist. These three awards bring their career tally of AMAs to 14. Among groups or duos, they are second only to Alabama,” the reporting continued.

BTS members RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook all expressed gratitude for their wins.

“Thank you for passionately following us on tour and showing so much love in every city,” Jimin said. “We feel your love and we really, really appreciate it. And to all the ARMYs who always support and love us, thank you so much. We love you.”

“Thank you. It’s an honor to have this precious award once again after everybody’s done their military service,” RM added. “Biggest thanks and gratitude, as always, goes to ARMY for the past 13 years. Thank you so much.”

ARMY is their slang term for their large group of worldwide fans.

Vivek Saxena
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