Friend-Zoned Phil Meme: Who Is Phil and Why Is He Asian?

By jozjozjoz | Friday, October 7, 2011 | 9 Comments

Thanks for visiting 8Asians, a blog about Asian American issues. If you find this interesting, subscribe to the RSS feed, visit our Facebook Page or add us on Twitter!

“Friend-Zoned Phil” is the latest meme with an Asian guy circulating the intarwebs, thanks to those crazy folks at Reddit.

Behold! The Friend-Zoned Phil Meme is an image series featuring an Asian guy “Phil,” who is in the friend zone– that is, a guy who has a really great girl friend that’s not a girlfriend.

Friend-Zoned Phil is flip side of “Friend Zone Fiona,” the pretty (white) chick who PUTS guys like Phil into the “friend zone.” But “Phil” is clearly an Asian man… what does this meme?!

We see lots of funny memes with Asians– Tiger Mom, High Expectations Asian Father, Cigar Guy, Rioting Hockey Fan, to name a few. And yes, they pretty much all play on Asian stereotypes to some degree– that’s part of the humor of it all.

But I have to ask two questions:

Who is “Friend-Zoned Phil” in real life and does his know his picture is a meme?
Why is “Friend-Zoned Phil” an Asian guy? (Seriously, he could have been white and the meme still would have worked.)

I wish I knew the identity of poor “Phil.” As our pals at Disgrasian said: “If you’re a friend of the real ‘Friend-Zoned Phil, i.e. the dude in the pic, it’s your duty to let him know he’s wound up on the wrong side of an internet meme.”

As for the second question, I’ll leave it to you to chime in on why you think Friend-Zoned Phil is Asian.

I also want you to chime in on one last (multiple-choice) question.

Is Friend-Zoned Phil:

Racist

Funny

Both

or None of the Above?

Categories:

ComedyWTF

NOTE: 8Asians.com is a community, and we thank you for being a part of it. While we welcome and appreciate differences in opinion, if you're rude or you're promoting spam, we have a right to edit or delete your comment. Read our comment policy for more information.

If you see a comment that violates the 8Asians.com comment policy, you may flag the comment by mousing over the comment and clicking "FLAG."

Facebook Comments (Beta)

Takuma

I dunno whether to be sad that friend zoning has happened to me a bit much. Or to be sad that this meme uses an Asian guy for the pic.
bohemianeddy

I don’t think we need to pull the race card on this one…
bohemianeddy

Let’s just be friends? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H57zcozi7k
http://www.8Asians.com/ jozjozjoz

@bohemianeddy So if you don’t think this is racist, is it at least funny?
http://www.nickdobson.net/ riceagain

I agree with @bohemianeddy on this one, his race is irrelevant. Would it be more benign to use a white guy, or if he had been black or hispanic? That aside, the meme just isn’t as funny as asian father.
johnklin

@bohemianeddy This music video is just hilarious!
bohemianeddy

I think it’s an okay attempt at humor but the music video I posted above? FUNNY. The whole “let’s just be friends” is something we ALL faced at one point or another, which is why I don’t think much of this.

However if the meme blatantly points out the fact that he’s Asian and that’s why he’s only LJBF territory, then that would be a different story. Just the dude being Asian is not enough ground to declare that this meme is racist
brazybear

It’s only a matter of time before racist douche bags everywhere associate Asian males with the “friend-zone” type thanks to this. Of course, they were racist douche bags to begin with so they’d flow with anything that’s racist and demeaning, so who gives a shit about them?
kluge

It’s not intentionally racist, but it inadvertently perpetuates negative stereotypes of Asian males.

8 Asians