Over the past week fans have expressed grave intolerance of Lorde's relationship with an Asian man, lashing out at the couple with racist comments on social media.

On Dec. 5, Tyler the Creator tweeted a link to an Instagram photo of the 16-year-old Royals singer and her boyfriend James Lowe, 24. It was alleged that he was mocking the image of the couple by writing, "Hhahahahahah." Lorde responded to the post, saying the following: 

The rapper said that was not his intention and he just thought the picture was funny, saying, "not at all, it made him laugh."

Twitter and other forms of social media have since been inundated with all kinds of racist and disagreeable comments about Lorde's boyfriend, with people describing Lowe as "Chinese sort of Ostrich boyfriend," "ching chong boyfriend" and a "chinese exchange student from sixteen candles."

One Direction and Justin Bieber fans seemed to helm the anti-James tirade:

"Lorde is full of BULL---T calling One Direction and Justin Beiber ugly... like her boyfriend is better... dumb ass."-- Lauren

"how can lorde call one direction ugly, has she seen her boyfriend, hoe." -- @humaa

"why is lorde's boyfriend look like a Chinese old fart seriously #mtvstars One Direction" -- @staywithpaynee

"Lorde: 'All of One Direction are ugly.' Come back to us when your boyfriend doesn't look like PSY gone wrong." -- @dxisychainzayn

Some publications saw this regressive trend as being reflective of people's sterotypical perceptions of Asian men.

The Los Angeles Times suggested that while this could be just another case of ordinary teen cyber-bullying, the "backlash" was "also indicative of the lingering stigma against dating Asian men, fueled by prejudice and racial stereotyping."

Lindsay West of Jezebel wrote, "The tweets that don't specifically mention Lowe's race, I suspect, are at least partially driven by our culture's nasty stereotyping of Asian men as unsexy and sexless."