Just before we broke for the weekend, Moye shared this NSFW video with the other 8Asians writers. “Date An Asian” is a comedic R&B song written by musician/comedian Jen Kwok.
In the style of “a mid-tempo Mariah Carey club joint”, the song has a rare message: extolling the awesomeness of “dating” an Asian guy! Jen wrote “Date an Asian” as a positive and lighthearted reaction to negative stereotypes about Asian guys. The song was originally written and performed on ukulele, and premiered at Gotham Comedy Club in 2008 to a both shocked and appreciative audience. Soon after, she recruited her friend, rapper Soce, The Elemental Wizard, to produce the song and perform a guest verse from the gay guy’s perspective. Jen and Soce have been performing the song live for New York City audiences to great laughter and acclaim.
The video features some of New York’s top male Asian stand-up and improv comedians, and the breakdance troupe Part-Time Models. And in case you didn’t get the lyrics the first time, you can read them here.
My favorite line is in the bridge: “Where my bubble tea drinkers at? (Everyone should be raising their hands for that one – it’s delicious!)”
While the reactions were mixed amongst us, Ernie summed up his opinion with: “Is that… is that a gay nerdcore rapper that just did her breakdown? OH SHIT, it totally is. Insta-win.” He then proceeded to re-watch the video another 13 times.
Hooray for bubble tea, Jen Kwok, gay nerdcore rappers, and of course, dating Asian men!
(Can we please add this to our 8Asians Glee Club song list?)
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Last week, I had the pleasure to meet up with Disgrasian gals for a late lunch. Even though we’re all in L.A., this is the first time we’ve had a chance to meet, sit and talk. While admittedly a lot of the conversation did indeed revolve around my cousin Daniel, the rest of the conversation was typical “getting to know each other” kind of chatter.
Sad you weren’t there? Thanks to Steve Nguyen, you can get to know Jen & Diana a little better via a fun behind-the-scenes video & interview he produced. (Check out his YouTube Channel for some of the other amazing Asian American folks he’s interviewed, as well!)
Seriously though, Jen and Diana are awesome and I can’t wait to meet up with them again so that maybe some of their coolness will rub off me. (I can hope, can’t I?!)
Shopping With GASP!
Move over, Ryan Higa and other Asian YouTubers attempting to find fame online with their silly little videos. I’m placing all my bets on young DaPhamily who’s been making his own waves around the Internet tubes with his youthful exuberance over the recently leaked photos of Vanessa Hudgens. This twelve year old (I think…I’m totally guessing his age) has it all: sass, confidence, a gold chain, cute cheeks and a fine appreciation for the beautiful female body. I’m almost afraid to see how he acts on the school playground.
Okay, seriously, he knows, I know and we know that he’s just a young Vietnamese kid having a good time with a YouTube channel, but I cannot get enough of his too-old-for-his-tiny-age act–especially when he shows off his love for Spam and rice! That’s some real authentic Asian American-ness right there, people. And with almost 5,000 subscribers, I can only hope that DaPhamily keeps his vlogging up through the awkward years of puberty.
While Hollywood studios are busy making light of hate crimes on Asians, Ryan “Nigahiga” Higa’s “Asian” style video channel is, at of time of this post, the most subscribed channel on YouTube. In the video below, he thanks his fans for subscribing to his channel and making him #1.
We have talked previously about Asian American YouTube Celebrities like HappySlip and KevJumba and how a new generation of Asian Americans are using YouTube to create their own work that speaks to and reaches Asian Americans (and others too). Higa has even parlayed his YouTube fame into a movie that was shown in theatres around the country. Many well known Asian Americans on YouTube hang out and network together and are seemingly dominant (they joke about token white people here at 4:30). The attraction to YouTube doesn’t surprise me seeing how Asian Americans are often washed out of traditional media. Taking advantage of technology that make it easier to produce and distribute your own work makes a lot of sense, and many do take advantage.
I personally find nigahiga to be hit or miss – some of his videos are really funny to me while others are not. Speaking of #1′s, another Asian has been the #1 in Australia for a while. Natalie Tran’s CommunityChannel has been the most subscribed in Australia for some time now. I like this vlog about how she goes as Starbuck to a Sci-Fi type convention, but people think she’s Boomer because she’s Asian.
“Maybe we can see Kevjumba!”
The Daughter was excited about that possibility of meeting the YouTube star Kevin Wu as we neared U.C. Davis. I had a meeting there with a graduate student who I collaborate with on research, and since the Daughter was thinking about our fearless leader’s Alma mater as a prospective college, I brought her along. She was disappointed when I told her that the possibility of meeting Kevjumba would be zero, because as he points out in this video, he’s back home for the summer. What’s interesting about that video is that it isn’t in his usual channel kevjumba, but it’s in a new channel called the JumbaFund where all of his YouTube proceeds for that channel go to a charity of the viewers’ choice.
We talked before about the lack of Asians in the mainstream media and stereotyping of those who are there. We have also talked about young Asian-Americans are using social media and sites like YouTube that enable them to create works that include and speak to them. The results from the JumbaFund channel show that this new generation is really making some headway and getting some clout, at least financially. Kevjumba is making some serious money for a college student. May proceeds for the JumbaFund channel were $1708. Given that his regular channel (kevjumba) has almost 3 times the number of subscribers, if you extrapolate the number of subscribers to income as a guestimate, he is pulling in $5K a month. There are other estimates that says he is making even more than that. It’s great to see him share some of his wealth with charity. The charity that got the most votes in May was St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. College students didn’t make that kind of money or engage in philanthropy on that scale when I was an undergrad.
The Daughter liked U.C. Davis and is seriously considering it. As you can see in the Jumba fund video embedded above, U.C. Davis has Asian American Studies classes, with guest lecturers like Kevjumba. I wish my university had Asian American studies courses when I was an undergrad. Sadly, it still doesn’t, more than 20 years after I graduated. As you can see at 2:52, U.C. Davis has girls getting freaky in class. My university never had that when I was an undergrad!
Maybe you’ve seen the video of a border collie doing squats alongside a Japanese guy. No?
Is this a fluke? No! Check them out– outdoors work out!
Even though you’ll see this video out there “from” other sources, these videos were originally uploaded by Japanese YouTube user sararingosaki and this dog is crazy awesome! Check out the videos of the doggie agility runs, doggie balance ball routine, and of course, doing doggie squats sans Japanese sidekick.
I don’t know about you, but I’m totally subscribing to this.
*Statistics could be a little off
h/t: Japanator
On occasion, I check out what my kids look at on youtube. Looking at The Daughter’s subscriptions, it struck me that the majority of them were to Asian American themed channels. I looked at one, NDTitanLady, and I noticed from the channel page that her style was “Asian”. Asian style? What’s that? We had a post a while ago about the next generation of Asian Americans and how they are forging their own identities and media. This generation’s situation is so much different from when I was growing up, even though I grew up in the Bay Area. There really wasn’t anything produced by my generation for my generation, and youtube has really enabled this. The Daughter subscribes to some typically well known channels such as happyslip, kevjumba, and nigahiga, and some less popular but still known like ninjadrops. The Daughter and her friends even gossip about some of them. “A sister of my friend goes to UC Davis with Kevjumba and says he’s really cocky and stuff and blah blah blah…” You get the idea.
NigaHiga has even managed to get a movie made based on his work. Here’s a trailer:
Ryan and Sean’s Not So Excellent Adventure – Exclusive Trailer from Ryan and Sean’s Movie on Vimeo.
It’s played in Hawaii and the Bay Area. Not exactly something that the Wife and I would go out and see, but it’s interesting to see how Asian American media had evolved, and it’s fascinating how a movie would be made and inspired by something on youtube (it’s usually the reverse).
Anyway, here are some of my favorite examples of how this next generation of Asian American looks at things. Here is NDTitanlady talking about Asian stereotypes.
I wasn’t even aware of a few of these – maybe some of them are very southern California. The Daughter does do the annoying peace sign thing, though.
Here is a kevjumba with a take on interracial dating. I am usually pretty tired of this subject, but I found his take on it to be pretty funny (plus some extras at the end).
What’s the deal is with this Magibon girl? Apparently she’s some Internet phenomenon and the Japanese adore her, and outside of her cute appearance, the Youtube videos are thirty to forty seconds of… uhm… well, let’s just say that I wish I had those seconds back.
Doing some research, it seems that there are a lot of fans, but even more people that just don’t get it like myself. She does have that anime look, and I can understand the attraction to Japanese culture being how much it’s slowly infiltrated into western culture, via print and television. But wow, this is a fascination that is almost unhealthy. She’s even gone all out and even picked up the way Japanese girls talk, with the whole cutesy thing going on.
While she’s gone and had her fifteen minutes of fame, I’m still not biting on the explanations of why she creates silent Youtube videos. She claims that it’s because she first started by wanting to see the video of herself doing the wave, but let’s be honest here — anyone that has ever used a webcam knows that you can view it locally without having to upload it to Youtube. Somehow, I feel that she uploaded them but didn’t think she’d get the following that she did.
Strangely enough, I don’t know why she knows why she uploaded those videos either. If anyone understands why she does this and why she has the fame that she does, please clue me in since I’m dying to know what the heck I’m actually missing out on. (Okay, maybe I’m not that interested; I might waste another thirty seconds groaning.)
I came across this ongoing series titled “Sexy Beijing” (credit goes to a commenter named “Craig” for bringing it to my attention). Apparently, it’s been around for over a year now and has slipped under our collective radars. Doh! In any event, here’s a real brief synopsis: It’s a Sex and the City-esque documentary style series starring an American white woman named Su Fei (whose fluent Mandarin Chinese blows mine out of the water). We follow her around as she explores the culture, life and people of Beijing.
Two of my favorites are “Country Loving” (below) and “Bad Boys of Beijing“. For more episodes, here’s the link to their website.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find her inexplicably yet wildly attractive? Somewhat Lisa Loeb, a dash of Tina Fey and a slice of Carrie Fisher (circa When Harry Met Sally… don’t ask).
*Follow up: Here’s an article from CNN covering Su Fei and Sexy Beijing.
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