6 Harsh Truths About Representation in America | Fung Bros

What the hell is Asian representation in media? Is it a corporate buzzword? Is it an academic term? Does it just mean you want to see more Eastern faces on the Western screen? And why do we keep getting invited to colleges to talk about it? Welcome everybody to the Hot Pop Boys. David and Andrew here. And we have a list for you. The six things that you need to know about Asian representation in the media that you will not hear anywhere else. A lot of Asian YouTubers, Asian actors, even Asian newscasters, they would get paid to fly around to colleges around America to speak on this issue. However, I feel like for the most part, the discussion has stayed at a 101, 102 beginner level. We have to move it on to the intermediate level. So we came up with a list today. Hopefully once this comes out and gets disseminated, it will just move the whole discussion into the intermediate level. So if these are the types of things that you like to talk about or think about or share with your friends, please do that. Hit that like button and let's get into it. Point number one is that when it comes to stages of development of Asians in media, I would say that we are at the iPhone 4 out of iPhone 13. I would say we're at the iPhone 3G. Personally, I think we're like at that transition stage because the iPhone 4 is really when it got good and I can see that's why Jimmy Wong said we're in the golden age. I do not think that's true. I think that's a little bit of an overstatement, but I can see why he said it. The nightclub line that we're all in that's getting like moving in one person by one is slowly moving. However, there are people in the middle of the line in the back of the line waiting two hours, two hours equals two decades in this example. I just think that people have to understand if there's like things that they're unhappy with and flaws that you want to fix in the iPhone 3G, but maybe the jumps aren't as big as they were back then in terms of the iPhone analogy. However, it's getting decent. Let's go back to the nightclub analogy real quick before we move on to the next point, David. This nightclub is very exclusive. Some Asians are getting in. Some Asians are in the back. Some Asians are in the middle. We're all waiting in line. The line is moving, but slowly. How did those people get to the front? I think being rich really helps for sure to be near the front of the line, but it just also matters like what you attacked when you were young, the systems you were put into. Obviously, if you guys know how nightclubs work, especially like Studio 54, maybe they'll pick some really pretty girls out of the back of the line and move them to the front of the line. Hoppers, things like that. Things that the club wants, they want certain people more than others. To wrap up point number one, we are like just, we just breached the earth's crust. You know, we still got a lot of different layers to go. We just breached the guac on the seven layer burrito. You know, maybe that iPhone analogy does or does not click with you. You know, so there's a lot of room to go. It's looking up. Point number two, when it comes to Asian media representation and this exclusive nightclub analogy, there's a lot of people in the back of the line that really don't like the people who are getting into the club. They're looking at them either as they are undeserving, they cheated or that, you know, they're just kind of jealous. I would say, I would definitely say that it's a minority of line. Like it's just a fraction of people, but it doesn't mean that their criticisms are fully invalid just because it is spoken out of jealousy. I get what they're saying because for example, we know some of the Asian actors that get on and not all of them were part of the Asian community. Not all of them cared about their Asian heritage and sometimes they get thrust into this position where they get this big role and they're like, oh, shoot. All these Asian people are looking at me to say something. I'm proud of my Asian heritage. Yeah, or you see sometimes and I'm not saying for all, but like sometimes you do see hoppers who were like in the back of another line for a different club get thrown to the front of the Asian representation line. And it's kind of like, bro, you pick the back of the line of like this club, but now you get moved to the VIP, fast track line of the Asian line. They get into it as a function of being thrust to the elevated pedestal. So what do you think about the people who are in the middle of the back of the line? Like I said earlier, I think some people care, but the truth is some people in the back of the middle of the line do not care. They're almost like playing Apple Jacks or Nintendo Switch with each other linked up in the back of the line. They don't really care that the line's moving or they're just doing their own thing. I would tell them like, progress is not perfect. The people who are going to get on are not going to be the perfect 100% Asian heroes that you're looking for necessarily in their heart. But some of them are too, by the way. I'm not, we're not. I'm just saying it's like, it's a mixed bag. Yeah, some of them are. Actually, some of them are doing a really great job, but they are in the front of you in line and you can't deny the line. So in a way, they have to get in or leave the line in order for the line to move. Right, right, right. You take a macro approach to it and just be like, don't get caught up in like, oh, did this person deserve it? Does this person care as much as me? Well, sometimes moving to the front of line, unfortunately, it wasn't based on how much you care. I mean, I think it's pretty clear that Crazy Rich Asians or Bling Empire is kind of the flashy stuff that a lot of Asians want to be depicted as and how some people, I guess that's interesting to non-Asians. What I would encourage the people in the middle and the back of the line to do is like, and I don't know if always the entertainment desire or sophistication is there. It's just to represent themselves. And just to create their own products. And that's why I like watching Jackfruit and even watching somebody like SubDoc who's like this, like kind of like, you know, representing like, I guess like the Hood Viet experience and he's making material about it. And that's what TikTok and other platforms are so great for using in-platform tools because you don't need a Hollywood Alexa to shoot you. You just need the phone camera. Just to close up this point. I mean, I don't want people to feel bad that they're getting left out. I think great stories are going to rise to the top and you see that with things like The Sympathizer. And obviously I'm sure every Vietnamese person doesn't want to only be represented by like a war story, of course. However, I'm just saying that the good stories are going to make it. The interesting stories are going to make it. The time is coming. And I do think that if you have any criticism about the Asians who are getting on into that exclusive nightclub right now, I think that's okay. As long as it's legit criticism, you should feel free to speak your mind. You're not just like ripping people down. You should, if you want to see them alter their behaviors. I think there's a way to like encourage things or point things out. I think ultimately it's all leading to everybody getting into the club eventually. It's going to be slow, but it's happening. Point number three, Asian representation only really counts when you have a big American studio, record label, or network behind your piece because Western entertainment is Western centric. And if you don't have the Western validation, then it doesn't count as Asian representation. No, it's true. People only count your piece as Asian media representation if it goes mainstream or it's approved by mainstream platform. Like I had people contact me from elementary school and middle school that I hadn't talked to 10, 20 years after the Netflix piece with Ronnie came out and they were like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for being Asian representation. And I was kind of thinking in my head, thank you. I appreciate it. But what about the 1200 other videos I made about Asian identity? Well, those didn't really count because that's like knitting your own sweater and then calling it a clothing brand. Right? It didn't have the official, you know, publishing licensing. No, you didn't have your own label and tag. You didn't have your own production company behind it. But hey, David, I'm glad to finally be part of Asian representation. Yeah, yeah, no, Andrew, we have made 1200 DIY sweaters and we have one sweater in stores. Guys, this is the way it is being in a Western country. I'll use our friend Daniel Wu as an example. You know, he was born and raised in the Bay Area. He started his entertainment career in Hong Kong, got big in Asia, all over China. When he came back to America to have that TV show into the badlands, people don't really know about him. They're like, oh, where did this Asian guy come from? He's like a new actor, yeah. I was like, but he was a star over there. But literally whatever he did over there to the rest of the mainstream audience, they didn't know about him. Now, what do you think about somebody like BTS? You know, like I think BTS only maybe one or two of them speak English, right? And they're gigantic globally. Shout out to BTS. Do you count them I think that the Asian representation part of BTS, not in my opinion, I'm just saying how kind of people generally defined it is that it started when they got onto American TV, when they were getting interviewed by Jimmy Fallon or they were at the American Music Awards or they were at Billboard Awards. That's when you were like, oh, look at all these Asian dudes. Now they're not American. It was a very Asia representation, but still, yes, I think it started when they got on American TV shows. I mean, as a YouTuber, Andrew, how do we feel about sort of like people finally saying thank you for being part of Asian representation? Is it was it weird to feel like validated, I guess, in the mainstream for once? You know what? I got to give some credit to the people that we've met in the Asian community, like the more famous people, the more mainstream celebrity, mainstream people. A lot of them have shown love to us and been like, hey, guys, I appreciate what you do. Not that I'm seeking their validation because I'm not always sure if they mean it 100 percent or 50 percent or whatever. Regardless, that's what they say. And they know that we are kind of like more for the internal community than we are a mainstream product. No, we're more like the almost the underground rappers, the Talib Kweli, the most deaf. But to wrap it up, yes, as Asian YouTubers, I'm not going to lie. And some of our other Asian YouTuber friends also feel this way that we do feel like we got left out of being labeled Asian representation when we were representing Asians at least to a large amount of other Asians. Yeah, but that doesn't always count. The fourth point about Asian representation that you will not hear from anybody else is that, David, actually a lot of actors, directors and visionaries that are involved in the pushing forwardness of Asian media representation are actually from Asia or foreign born. You know, Ali Wong is from here. Awkwafina is from here. Simu is from overseas. Ronnie's from overseas. Jimmy O. Yang is from overseas. Steven Yoon, I believe. Daniel Dae Kim also from Korea. Anybody of the rising stars, a lot of them are not American born and bred. Now, as an Asian American guy, you might be thinking, oh, man, I got to compete with Asian guys from all over the globe. But I'm born and raised here. I'm American. Shouldn't they care about me first? Shouldn't I be higher up in the queue instead of here? But I'm like, hey, guys, listen, at the end of the day, this is entertainment. These are actors. And globally, people are pulling from a way larger pool of Asian people. Yeah, I do think there's something about the experience of being raised in America or even the setup situation prior to being born with your parents' assimilation or immigration that breaks a lot of Asian Americans. Like a lot of Asian Americans, even more than Asian Canadians, are like broken in their own self-identity. They're like trying to get into the line of the other club. And they waited like four hours in the line, in the wrong line. And they got rejected. And then now they're asking to get moved up ahead of this Asia line. You know what I mean? Because they got kicked out of line of the other clubs or whatever like that. And I think that our people are trying to like sabotage other people in line or they're just not having the right attitude. I think that's a very common statistical outcome of Asian identity being born and raised in America. Yeah, I feel you. I mean, I think at this stage of globalization in the world, we have to understand that there are global products. There's BTS that's going to come here and take up the stage at an award show that an American artist could take. That was the whole controversy. Oh, these guys are not even American. Why are they performing? Rich Brian. Rich Brian had one of the only like Asian-American club songs I ever heard with that stick. He is a rich elite kid from Indonesia. Like Joji is like probably part of the global elite from Asia. Like you said, those people who are from good families from overseas, you have to understand that international mindset sometimes locks them into an identity. So they're not battling with that. It also gives them confidence. More security. It also allows them to try opportunities out and a little bit more comfortable in expressing themselves through art. So you're saying 2% of America competing with the rest of the world, guys. I want to bring up the NBA analogy, how so many there are so many foreign players in the NBA and it's actually only increasing. Almost 45% of NBA players are foreign born. Now, do you think like the American Caucasian guys like Zach Collins, you know, is kind of like or the Plumlee brothers, are they mad to see like these European guys like Donchich, Jokic who look kind of white, but they're like from another place. And they're like dominating the NBA. Do you think like they're getting mad? No, I don't think so. I think that they know what it is because at the end of the day, they're better. Yeah, it's a talentful thing. So what do you think? What do you want to say to like Asian Americans who feel like that jealousy of the foreign born Asians? I think it's understandable to have those feelings. But again, it's all leading up to the same thing. And it's overall going to raise the image of Asians in the West. Because if you want to raise, if you're trying to build an army to raise the image of Asians in the West, you want your best around the world to come and fight this. A wrap up point number four, I do think that people are looking for not just an Eastern face, but they're looking for that Eastern face to come with some Eastern insight or some Eastern like toolkits. You know what I mean? But a lot of times if you just have an Eastern face with a fully Western toolkit, unless that toolkit is like being super wild and crazy, almost like a Bobby Lee, you know where he's like out westernizing Western people by being more Johnny Knoxville than Johnny Knoxville. That can work. But more realistically, people from Asia, we're more like going to out Asian people than we are going to out Western people. I'm not saying, by the way, you can't pick your own path. Unless you can truly out Western people. Whether you are being an Eastern person acting super Eastern or an Eastern person acting super Western, you cannot be mediocre at all. Point number five, there is no amount of Asian representation in media that will really stop Asian hate. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, the reason why on the channel for the past two years, we've talked a lot more about stopping Asian hate in the streets versus our how to protect yourself security or how to understand Asian media representation is because we come from a community that is more blue collar and working class, like whether or not that was our family. I'm not, you know, we're not from prep school. I never even walked in a private high school before in my life. I just seen people get picked on and attacked in the streets. And, you know, there's so many stories I don't even want to get into them. But basically, Asian media representation is more of a word that is common to hear in like elite bougie Asian circles than it is in the streets. Like if you're walking the street and you're about to get robbed in your building or like this or that, you're not thinking about Asian media representation. Like that is not a concern. Yeah, and I don't think that those people who are thinking about attacking or robbing you or bullying you are thinking about the recent Asian character in the recent Hollywood movie, whatever, whatever movie it was, right? Yeah, they're not thinking about it. They're not thinking about Bling Empire. If anything, you could. First of all, I do think it's a reach, but you know, some of the Twitterati crowd, they said the Bling Empire getting Asians more robbed. Well, some people say crazy rich Asians. I mean, you see that tagline on the theater. First of all, no, those people attacking people on the street did not watch crazy rich Asians, but they see the tagline, they see the poster and they think, oh, Asians are rich. Here's how it can affect Asian hate. I actually think that Asian representation can help build empathy amongst more like, I guess, powerful political people that will then do more things for Asians, whether they're Asian politicians or non-Asian politicians. Whether they actually care or not or just feel like people tend to care about the situations that rich people are going through more. It is not a direct trickle down, by the way, guys. This is like, it has to trickle. It's like a pachinko machine where it goes ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I feel like it's really crazy because to be honest, and I'm not trying to just like toot my own horn here, there's very few people that work in Asian media representation where we know some of these elites in this industry, fashion or media or whatever, that still would really are essentially in the public spaces, like in the streets, trying to tell people, whether it's Mandarin or Cantonese to people, I'm trying to coach poor people that I see out in New York, poor immigrants on how to be safe. I'll directly coach somebody on how to be safe, whether or not they take in what I'm saying or not. I think it's a mixed bag, but literally you're not going to see people talk about that and deeply understand more like the top end Asian media representation battle too. And what we're talking about is a split that was discussed in Jay Caspian King's book, The Loneliest Americans, right? Like the concerns are different of two different socioeconomic subsets within the Asian community. This is my opinion. The people who got into the Asian media representation, whether they're near the front of the line or they already got into the club and they have this power, they have to do something. If you gaslight the poor Asians right now for wanting to get a gun to protect themselves, that makes me hella mad. Yeah, I think it's wrong for people who are not in the line of fire, not people who are in potential danger to judge those who are in potentially danger on how they should live their lives and stay safe. It's wrong and they shouldn't do it. And that means that they're disconnected from the actual reality. Closing up this point, guys, like I said, listen, movie roles are great. I love it. Stories are great. Big Hollywood films are great. However, it does not trickle down directly to affecting what is happening on the streets. That is a pretty different problem. The people who care about getting films is different than the people who care about getting killed. Point number six, our last and final point. that you will not hear in other places and other conversations is that Asians have to control the narrative. We have to do the work to climb up that ladder so that we can dictate what type of roles are seen because we will never fully be satisfied with what the other people write for us. Yeah, because it's like, it is good to expend some energy, I guess, to complain about, you know, the sophistication that we're viewed with. Yeah, it's like some of the writers were like, oh my gosh, we need to represent Asians differently. Okay, let's take this over-sexualized Asian girl and make her a boss bitch. And then we're going to take this nerdy Asian guy, flip it, just make him a hunk, make him the hottest Asian guy. But like make him a dumb hunk. Yeah, he doesn't say anything. He's bad at math. Yeah, yeah, that'll get the job done. And I think that we all like to see multifaceted characters and I think it is getting better, but we have to control the narrative so that these characters are more than one dimension. Right, until we actually rise up the ladder to make our own pieces, to control the house, to be a ladder climber. Yeah, you just have to represent yourself. Like you have to help somebody. If you know, if you see a character or a person who has a personality that needs to be seen, put them on. That's kind of what we do on our channel. Like we meet interesting, you know, we meet interesting versions of all types of people, but particularly Asian people. And we're like, oh, yo, you have a personality. Let's do a video together, get you out there. And I think that it is true that Asians often don't know what they want because I think you can always point at every character and pick something apart. Jimmy O. Yang in Silicon Valley, very funny character, but a bunch of people have a lot of negative things to say about, oh, he's doing this. And I'm like, listen, we have to know what we want out of people because like, are we looking for deep characters? Are we looking for hot characters? Do you want the 6'2 Asian guy who's smart, but not too smart, who's sensitive, but not too sensitive and has a humongous penis? Like, is that the only character you want and that we're gonna be satisfied with? My suggestion is that I think people need to strive for deep characters that are building empathy and multifaceted. I don't necessarily think they can't be nerdy. I don't think they can't know martial arts. I don't think they have to be amazingly good looking. I just think they have to be deep and people have to be able to connect with them. You know, I just encourage people to attack more than they analyze because when you look at history, of course we could like look back about like the way this character was treated, long duck dong in like 1989. I think if you're raised in America, can we take away some of that American mindset and be attackers in this? Attackers are the winners, but you had to have a bunch of people. You only need as much analyzation to like basically make that attacking more targeted and more effective. But at the end of the day, literally words without actions means nothing. Bruce Lee said it guys, Bruce Lee was an attacker. So yeah, that was it guys. Those are our six points. Basically, this is a presentation that we would give at a school, at a college, to a corporate, you know, Asian resources group. These are things that you might not hear anywhere else. I hope that people literally watch this before their presentation and I hope the students that wanna book other people, they watch this too so they can at least ask better questions in the Q&A. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching that video. If you found that discussion helpful, please share it with somebody. Hit that like button. And again, until next time, we out. Peace.