8Asians Media and Press
Every so often, people pay attention to what we’re saying in various Media and Press. Here are some of those times:
- The city of Cupertino is 70.9% Asian. A new TV show set there ignores this, SFGATE, August 2026 (Jeff)
The glaring lack of Asian actors has drawn criticism online. AsAmNews, an Asian American news source, wrote that “the lack of Asian American representation is a failure in reality.” A culture piece in the SF Bay Area Times touched on how H-1B visa workers from Asian countries are particularly vulnerable on the legal side, a reality that would make for some compelling plot lines. The blog 8Asians wrote that the show “seems to be expert in magic, as it has made Cupertino Asian Americans disappear!”
- ” The 2000s,” RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now, p. 185, March 2022
I actually get a little wistful recalling the optimism and unguarded willingness with which we forged friendships with complete strangers on the Internet. But we did, and I’m still friends with many of them to this day. I fell comfortably into the community of Asian American bloggers, writers, and artists. Shoutouts to Disgrasians, Reapprorpriate, 8asians, Sepa Mutiny, Hyphen, Giant Robot.
- The Decade in Asian America, NBC Asian America, December 2019.
Reacting to their frustration at their continued absence from conventional media, young Asian Americans spent the early part of the 21st century venturing into digital spaces to start new forms of Asian American media. Several launched self-published identity-focused blogs, including Angry Asian Man, 8Asians, Sepia Mutiny and Reappropriate (founded by this author).
- Five awesome blogs about minority communities, Columbia Journalism Review, November 2012 (Jeff)
8 Asians — This site started as a collaboration of, yes, eight Asian American and Asian Canadian bloggers of different ethnicities. Now about 15 contribute, writing about pop culture, politics, and breaking news. Though there’s not usually a lot of analysis, I like the quirkiness of what each blogger finds interesting. The site does a good job bringing to light Asian American-related news that may otherwise be hidden in the daily glut, like their post on how Asian Americans have a higher probability of being born with a cleft lip.
- Hollywood Courts Wall Street Protestors in a String of New Movies, The Hollywood Reporter, November 2011 (Moye)
“I was excited to see you guys address (OWS) in the movie, but was that coincidence?” the pair were asked at 8Asians.com.“Was it? Or did we engineer the whole economic collapse to bump a joke?” Cho said.“I was going to go a little lighter and say that we orchestrated all the protests for the movie…. Honestly, though, I wish (OWS) was getting more coverage in the media,” says Penn, who recently returned to acting after working on “outreach” and other initiatives for President Obama.“I think the energy is so great, especially the young people out there,” Penn says of OWS. “It would be cool to see a concrete set of things that they are for as opposed to just what they are against.”
- With ‘Harold & Kumar,’ Asian Americans break stereotypes, Washington Post, October 2011 (Joz)
Part of the reason “Harold & Kumar” was successful, says Joz Wang of 8Asians.com, an Asian American group blog, was that the original, 2004’s “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle,” wasn’t really about Asians. “We were seeing Asian Americans in lead roles that were funny and breaking stereotypes,” Wang says.
- In Blog We Trust: Part III of III (Top 10 Asian American Blogs), KoreAm Magazine, November 2010 (Joz, Ernie, & Moye)
The first question people tend to ask is: Are there really eight Asians? Although once upon a time, there were only eight, today the site boasts more than a dozen contributors and is run by a California-based trio: Ernie Hsiung, Jocelyn “Joz” Wang and Moye Ishimoto. “8Asians is a collaborative blog,” explains Wang, who lives in Los Angeles. “We highlight the diversity of opinion, geography, basically everything about Asian Americans, but also show what’s similar about us, too.” And it’s true. The site doesn’t have any one beat, except “Asian,” if you consider that a beat, and it manages to cover all relevant issues thanks to its flock of dedicated writers. But what makes 8Asians so different is the fact that beyond the regurgitation of news, the writers make it a point to add their own opinions and then ask for their readers’ two cents. “We pride ourselves on trying to have thoughtful, non-trollish [meaning, no spam and no hatin’] conversations,” says Hsiung, the site’s founder, who lives in San Francisco. “We’re trying to facilitate open conversation. If we don’t have enough of that, we’re not trying hard enough.”
- Creating Buzz, Without Hate Mail, Newsweek, October 2007 (Ernie)
The road to becoming both a global and local brand at the same time has not been smooth. Mister Wong’s original logo—a cartoonish nerdy East Asian man—outraged some Asian-Americans just as the company was trying to enter the United States market last spring. “Mister Wong had better be based on a real person [who] saved twenty burning German orphanages, because otherwise, I’m calling foul,” wrote a poster on the blog 8asians. Some German users responded that offended parties should calm down and stop spreading political correctness “all over the world.” Tietjen removed the controversial logo, apologized on a Mister Wong blog and announced a contest to design a new logo. (The winner will be announced within the next month.) The Mister Wong brand hasn’t yet caught fire outside Germany, which accounts for four fifths of its 3 million users.
