Avril Lavigne Hello Kitty: Avril Lavigne's new music video which features the 29 year-old Canadian singer strolling around Tokyo with a group of four straight-faced Asian women, has taken its share of criticism since its debut online Tuesday. The pop singer laugh off claims that the clip was meant to ostracize her Japanese fan base a night after the video was seen online according to Billboard. Critics slam the song and video almost immediately after its release according to Yahoo.

Lavigne posted on Facebook and Twitter, "RACIST??? LOLOLOL!!!" Followed by the message that says, "I love Japanese culture and I spend half of my time in Japan. I flew to Tokyo to shoot this video specifically for my Japanese fans, WITH my Japanese label, Japanese choreographers AND a Japanese director IN Japan."

According to Yahoo Celebrity News Writer, Soraya Roberts, there are five reasons why people are plugging their ears and eyes when faced with "Hello Kitty". They are the following as quoted from her report:

1) The appropriation of Japanese culture

Lavigne's video freely makes use of random Japanese slang and robotic local back-up dancers. It even involves a scene in a sushi restaurant. Entertainment Weekly called it "anti-culture, constructed to purposefully reflect every possible cultural background in a manner that doesn't really speak to anything particular."

2) The uninspired music

Billboard's Jason Lipshutz wrote: "'Hello Kitty' is the weakest song on Avril Lavigne's fifth studio album, a grating earworm that squeezes Gwen Stefani's Japan fetishization into an even more unseemly package."

3) The awkward dancing

Lavigne might not be known for her moves, but when it comes to unfortunate dancing, this video takes the cake (no pun intended). There's some shoulder shaking, twirling, and jumping, but not much else. "She doesn't really dance, but she doesn't not dance," is how Entertainment Weekly put it.

4) Avril's, er, unique fashion choices

The 29-year-old Napanee native didn't win many points with fans or critics when she got that Skrillex hairdo in 2012. But paired with a pink skirt festooned with pastel-coloured cupcakes? It's eye-catching for all the wrong reasons. The Toronto Star described it as a "cupcake toddler skirt."

5) Concept? What concept?

Very little happens in the "Hello Kitty" video. Lavigne sort of dances in a bedroom and outside and halfheartedly strums a guitar. She visits a candy store and then gets sushi, before waving to no one outside. Billboard sums it up best: "Its laziness is demonstrated in the first 21 seconds, during which Lavigne holds a plush stack of cupcakes, shakes her hips, stares at the cupcakes, bounces her shoulders, and then, when she sings the line 'Someone chuck a cupcake at me' ... tosses the fake cupcakes at the camera, her lip movement not matching up to the backing track whatsoever. Cool!"

According to Billboard, "Hello Kitty" is the fourth music video to be released from Avril Lavigne's self-titled fifth studio album, but the clip has garnered by far the most Internet buzz. Jason Lipshutz did not charge Lavigne with racism while recapping the music video, but instead detailed the video's laziness, including the generic dance moves clumsy guitar-playing and cringe worthy lip-synching.

The "Hello Kitty" music video continues the campaign for "Avril Lavigne. Catch the Lavigne when she opens for the Backstreet Boys on a tour that begins May 3.