Middle age pop-punk rocker Avril Lavigne is struggling to stay relevant with the kids these days. The 29-year-old artist didn't intend on debuting her latest music video Hello Kitty on Tuesday. According to her rep, the video was "leaked" a day early, and the response wasn't pretty. The overwhelming consensus is that it was racist and insensitive towards Japanese people. In the video, Lavigne is drinking sake and dancing around Japan in a obscure cupcake skirt while surrounded by four Asian dancers in matching outfits the whole time.

Lavigne responded to her haters via Twitter:

RACIST??? LOLOLOL!!! I love Japanese culture and I spend half of my time in Japan. I flew to Tokyo to shoot this video…
— Avril Lavigne (@AvrilLavigne) April 24, 2014

…specifically for my Japanese fans, WITH my Japanese label, Japanese choreographers AND a Japanese director IN Japan.
— Avril Lavigne (@AvrilLavigne) April 24, 2014

Obviously, there's more to Japan and their people than cutesy, colorful outfits and eating sushi. The worst part of this is the really random dubstep bridges. Maybe this is all just a publicity stunt to get everyone to buy her newish self-titled album? It has to be good since Nickelback's Chad Kroeger helped write it.

(via Daily News)