8 Asians

By David Ka Wai Pan

Houaka Yang learned a valuable lesson in life: never post confessed criminal activities online, if you are a criminal.

The 20-year-old Milwaukee native was arrested for stealing a camera from the car registered to Chris Rochester, after intentionally or unintentionally (it’s your call) confessing to his crimes and providing his name using—surprise, surprise–the stolen camera. He is set to make a court appearance in the foreseeable future.

My reaction was the same as others reading this headline: what a stupid, stupid decision.

But the stupid decision was not stealing the camera, nor was it the confession. The stupid decision was his personal decision to upload his confession to YouTube—in other words, making this video go viral for seemingly no apparent reason.

Critics could contest this claim, introducing many reasons behind his idiotic upload. They could, for instance, suggest he wanted to lionize his name on YouTube like Wong Fu Productions and Kevjumba–Asian American celebrities who used this social networking platform to make a name for themselves.

But regardless of the attempts to rationalize his rationale, no one could deny the fact that Yang did not think twice about his forced confession. He pressed the recorded button and began splurging trivial comments, making his crime appear more stupid than it actually was.

What’s more condemning though, especially when Yang had a prior criminal record, was his decision to post his confession online, a big price to pay for such a trivial decision—a big price that spells prison time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Ka Wai Pan is your typical Asian American writer, wondering what APA topics interests his readers and then writing about it. Enough said.

[Photo courtesy of HuffPo]