Where Did The "ASIAN YOUTUBE" Movement Go? Wong Fu's 20th Year

The leaders of the Asian YouTube era, Wong Fu Productions, recently celebrated their 20-year anniversary. They did a special interview with NBC. So let's talk about where the Asian movement is now. Yeah, we're talking about 2005 to, let's just say, 2018. Andrew, we were a part of this. Fung Bros was a part of this. There were so many other people. Far East Movement had fly like a G6 Rocketeer during this time. Jabbawockeez was taking over the game. Make sure you hit the like button if you remember this time. 2005 to 2018. All right, everybody. Let's talk about some quotes from Wong Fu because, listen, they've had the most skin in the game. They've had the most years and also not necessarily were they the only solely most successful, but I would say they were at the heart of it. They organized everything. Right, they were throwing the mass events where the cover song acoustic singers would come. The dancers would come. People from like different worlds. The rappers, you know, they were a little bit on their own. I would say they were the center of the web of the community at the time. Yeah, it came from them. Not that other people weren't bigger. Ryan Higa was bigger or whatever. You know, you could say that. But Wong Fu, they was the... They just hit 20 years, guys. NBC News did a retrospective article. So we're going to give our thoughts on some of these excerpts as well. Wes Chan said, there wasn't a business plan. There wasn't a clear mission statement. There wasn't a mantra. We weren't out to break barriers from the get-go. It was just a hobby that we enjoyed and we did it for fun on the side. Obviously, for them, it turned into a successful 20-plus career. They're still going to this day. You may or may not watch their videos anymore. But they sparked a huge movement for a bunch of people. Gigantic, man. The people that they inspired. And I want to say this to them, man. So big shout-out to Wong Fu. You got to give them their flowers because when they started making videos, there was no YouTube platform. They actually just started uploading on YouTube. Napster. They were sharing their videos through Morpheus. Yeah, and then there was no monetary incentive. First of all, they were like college students, so I don't think they were looking for that. But I have to admit that by the time we entered the game, we had seen them kind of make it. Not make it, make it, but they were making it. So obviously, we knew the structure. There was like, okay, there's something there. And if we want to do media, and we always want to do media, so we moved to LA and we did this thing. And then we got into YouTube knowing that there was at least some path. Just to give some timeline, Wong Fu's been doing it for 20 years. We've been doing it for about 10 years. Moving on. Somebody said, we grew up in California, so we were surrounded by Asian-Americans. We didn't really know that there was a greater struggle for representation in the other worlds, aka Hollywood, TV, film, movie, sports, entertainment, etc. Yeah, I think it depends on where you come from. I think that a lot of Asians who enter Hollywood are aware that there's not a lot of Asian representation, whether or not they care personally. But obviously, us not coming from an Asian zone, we knew that we were going to represent Asians in whatever we did. Whether it was stand-up comedy, whether it was our job at work. Sketch comedy. Whether it was YouTube, we were still going to represent Asians. Yeah, well, our high school was like 5% Asian. Obviously, a lot of schools in California are more like 30% to 60% to 70% to 80% Asian. It is different. I mean, listen, when you're a kid, you just grow up in your fishbowl. You're not growing up in America. You're growing up in your tiny slice of America. But that was very interesting, Andrew. Most people, actually, that were part of YouTube were either from the Bay Area or SoCal. And I noticed that more of the brainier Asian kids were from SoCal because their parents always worked in STEM. And more of a sort of, I don't want to say ratchet, but more edgy Asian American kids were from SoCal, part of the AZN world. And their parents were more like merchant, business, import, export people. Interesting insight. Somebody said, it's difficult to sustain a digital media brand for 20 years. And several YouTubers in their cohort have deprioritized or left YouTube behind altogether. Even for Wong Fu, it's been difficult to stop and reflect on what they've built due to the rapid pace of change in the social media landscape. Yeah, man, I'm not going to lie. You know, from our personal experience, I meet people now who are like full-grown adults. And then they're like running up to us, like, yo, man, I used to watch you when I was a kid. And then I'm like, wait, how old? Because I think some people always overrate the amount of years that they watch us. Right, because I was like, man, our biggest hit videos were like seven years ago. Right, but no, it could have changed. I guess they could have gone from high school through college and now they're in their professional field. But I will say this, sometimes, you know, kind of at this age, and I put us and Wong Fu in a similar boat, even though they're much more OGs in the game, but we're considered OGs by some people. I guess like, I kind of feel like we're like the old teachers, you know, like, oh, man, Mr. Fung, man, thank you so much for everything you taught me back in high school. I kept, you know, I love, man, it changed my life. Thank you. Wang said, or no, Wes said, every day is just trying to figure out how to, you know, stay relevant, Chan stated, or stay within people's conversations and stay afloat, Wang finished. Hey, way to sound optimistic, guys. Yeah, no, but it's true that because the landscape changes so fast, David, obviously there's way more content. There's TikTokers, there's Vine, there was Vine, there's Instagram. Who knows if TikTok's going to stick around? There's Twitch now. So I guess there's so many more people out there, and I'm just talking about Asians, not let alone everybody else, the whole globe, but I'm just saying there's so many more stars and content out there that it is, right, it is tough to stay in people's minds. Yeah, I mean, I would compare it to like being the first energy drink on the market, like Red Bull, and then now there's like a thousand other energy drinks. Some are, you know, doing this or that different. Oh, I would love to be the Red Bull. They're still killing the game. Somebody said the matter of the fact is that it's actually still quite difficult out there. I'm in out in those conversations and meetings and pitches in Hollywood. It's still very difficult to get our stories made. So if we're only relying on Hollywood, it's still going to be very slow. Obviously, this answer was in response to does, do Asian American Enclave YouTubers still need to exist? Or since we've 2X, 3X in the Hollywood world recently over the six years, that's taking precedent now. Right, and I think basically what it's saying is like, man, just because you are known for making films on the internet and they do well on the internet, on YouTube, it doesn't mean that Hollywood is necessarily going to move you up and ask you to be like a director or a writer or to make your own film for Hollywood. Right, so I still think that the Enclave material is necessary. Yeah, for sure. Or the more personal digital web content that isn't like approved by like six or seven levels of like a finance department in the corporate world. No regrets. This is a good comment. Somebody said, man, I started creating content myself and a lot of my inspiration to break into entertainment was to do to pioneers like Wong Fu. They made me believe. Yeah, I think here's the lesson here, that being a pioneer, it comes with its rewards, but you don't get the most rewards. Sometimes it's the people after you that were inspired by you that even become, I guess, the bigger stars. Because usually when you're the pioneer, right, you have to break the game. You have to break the barrier first, and you just get in there a little bit. And then the people who follow, they get to follow you and you've already matched the trail, but then they pick up momentum, so then they get to shoot through it. I'm sure like J-Hope from BTS gives Tiger JK props. He was the first real rapper in Korea, but obviously Tiger JK, he never got a collab with like J. Cole. For example, yeah, that's just the nature of being V2, V3, V4 and something versus V1.0. This was a mixed comment. Somebody said, Wong Fu's content was always very California-centric, and some of us in other parts of the country didn't relate, but at the end of the day, it was a start of a parallel Asian Hollywood that gave actors of Asian descent a venue to express themselves. Yeah, no, I think it was great. And obviously the alumni from Wong Fu Productions, all those actors, I mean, some of them are really big, not just to mention Simu, but Justin Min. There's like, I could go down the list, Olivia Liang. There's so many, and even like for us, we don't have quite the alumni roster that Wong Fu has, but you know, it's been so cool to work with people like Nora, aka Awkwafina, early on and then see her just rise up. Not that we're responsible for her rise, but I would like to think like, you know, that was cool. We're on the way up. You know, that was a very interesting time, Andrew. You know, there was moments where it kind of felt like an Asian church talent show, but then they also had that whole rap phase for a while. Andrew D. Pride, Lil Craze, J-Rise, they were almost going on like rap tours. Dude, those concerts look fun. This comment was a little bit, I don't know, it's not critical of Wong Fu. They gave them props. Thank you for humanizing us. That being said, I do feel like Wong Fu stopped growing and developing, even from the angle of the Asian diaspora and awareness. A lot of their videos focus on the same tropes of rom-com, subtle Asian traits type of humor, and the few times they forayed into more political issues, they were absolute failures. I don't hate them, but they absolutely reached a limit and a ceiling to me. The classic, well, I don't hate them. I'm just saying. All right, so. Asian's so critical, man. The tiger parents to everybody. Bill, I hope you're watching. To defend the artists out there, as a creator, once you have your style of content, it is very, very hard to evolve year to year with your audience. I don't know any great artist that does that. Even music artists, they don't evolve that much because the age of your audience starts younger, so the evolution curve of somebody when they're 15 to when they're 22 is gigantic. Like, you become a totally different person in those seven years, but seven years as a creator who's already an adult, it's not super long. I'm still making similar content, you know what I mean? For sure, I mean, you have brand deals and obligations and deliverables, and not only that, the industry, I haven't really seen them reward that many edgy Asians, at least the enclave, you know, internal, like FUBU, FABBA. FUBU is like For Us, By Us, obviously the black-owned clothing brand. FABBA is For Asians, By Asians. That world, I haven't seen them reward like a super edgy Asian. It is more of the wholesome, I guess you could say, churchy, you know what I mean, clean boy Asians. It's very PG, I would say. Yeah, but I would say maybe, I guess, would you guys like to see Wong Fu do like a hood Asian movie, you know? That would be crazy. They are in 626, man, you just gotta go to El Monte. It's right there. I would say this, you know, it's possible that somebody who's more of an art school edgelord like a Daniel Kwan from Everything Everywhere All at Once took a lot of inspiration from Wong Fu for the parent-daughter filial piety scenes, even though his more edgelord, crazy, private school mind may have been for the crazier scenes, right? So everybody is a mix of things. That's a really good point because I've definitely watched Asian-American films in the past six years that reminded me of a Wong Fu scene. It doesn't mean that they bidder from Wong Fu. It might come from just a similar place, parallel thinking, right? Came from Asia. Similar culture, right? But definitely like there's parts of Tiger Tail, there's parts of Everything Everywhere All at Once where I'm like, okay, this was captured at least in a Wong Fu way, maybe even before. All right, Andrew, our five major takeaways on being from that boom of like 05 to 2018. It was a 13-year span. You know, we saw people come. We saw people go. Very few of us did hop to the mainstream, but I would say most people are still doing their thing in their own digital, independent run sense. I would say the number one thing is that like being a YouTuber is not an easy transition to mainstream, right? And being mainstream is not an easy transition to YouTube. I remember when Will Smith was trying to become the biggest YouTuber at one point. It seemed super corny to me. Nah, it's like you're trying to wait in line for this nightclub Hollywood, right? And you're like, okay, well, as long as the line moves, I'm gonna eventually get up there because I'm next in line. But then you realize you're standing in line for a completely different nightclub. Like people, Hollywood does not only look at digital influencers as the next greatest talent for Hollywood. They want people who are going to buy into the Hollywood system, who want to work up the Hollywood system, not just people from a different world who have been doing their own thing and then they're gonna give them the shot. Yeah, I mean, I would say the closest thing I've seen maybe came recently like Emma Chamberlain, maybe. And she's still like a host in the digital world, you know, mainstream world. Point number two, if you didn't have a larger mission, you can give up. I actually have seen so many people come and go even in 10 years in this. And I think if you don't really, really believe in what you're doing or what impact you're trying to have, whether that impact is quote-unquote trivial, you know, some people are meant to make a trivial, you know, more like novel type of impact in the world, or you're doing something very serious, you have to believe in your deep mission, Andrew, because this game can be a rollercoaster. It can put you through a rollercoaster. Oh, yeah, 100%. And you have to have some type of driving force, some type of direction that's gonna get you through the ups and downs. Number three, point number three is Asian America seems to still like a lot of silly Asian content. So when you're talking about like Asian parent memes, high expectation, why are you not an Asian? You are a B-Asian, why you get a B? Yeah, I think that it's always, there's always a next generation that likes the similar content. I do think that type of content essentially, I don't think that it's like copying the old stuff that we used to do, but it is coming from the same place, and it's the same tropes, and those have not gone away. Your parents are still fobby. Your mom is still naggy. Your parents still want you to go get A's and become a lawyer, doctor, engineer. That hasn't changed in the 10 years. You know what I think it is, and this is a whole deeper thing and we can get into it. I think that those, it's more like affiliate, affiliation humor. There's like different styles of humor, and you know, when you affiliate something with something, it's like being relatable. You know what I mean? And there's other types of Western humor that are more like, that your non-Asian friends, specifically your white friends might engage in, like mean, sarcastic humor. That feels like, if you're from a very traditional family, you may not feel comfortable engaging in those styles of humor. Yeah, maybe, that's a good point. Maybe it's because Asians, when they see humor, like their favorite humor is like the ones that make them feel warm inside and related to that thing. You know, hence, Yeah, it's not like, hence, you know, shout out to Uncle Roger, shout out to Stephen Huh, but that stuff is very, very like warm to you because you're like, oh man, I wish like my Asian uncle acted like that. Yeah, because sometimes when you talk to really Asian people and you say something cold, they're like, oh, oh, it's so cold. Whereas Western people, they're like, ha ha, I like it. Yeah, I think Western people are kind of masochistic with the humor. They like to get hurt. I heard it came from ancient Greece, guys. There's a whole like essays about it. Moving on to number four. Asian Americans are a bit overshadowed by overseas Asians that speak English fluently. I'm not mad about it. I relate to everybody, but some Asian Americans are like, oh, how come the Asians from overseas, from like Malaysia, Singapore, Beijing, Jakarta are like bigger than Asian Americans. Yeah, I mean, I think that you're just pulling from a larger talent pool. You're pulling from a larger English-speaking Asian population that's grown up watching Western content. So think about it. The top talent from all those countries comes over to America, which is essentially the NBA of entertainment. So guess what? They're in the NBA. Are you saying like how there's been way more players from Asia in the NBA and NBA Summer League than there were Asian American players? Yeah, there's way more European players, Jokic, MVP, some of the best players in the NBA are European. Than white American players for sure. Moving on to number five. There's still so much that is unsaid about the Asian American experience. What do you mean by this, David? Like there's still a lot on the table. Like I just think that there's still so much to be examined or explored. So yeah, I'm still pretty bullish in terms of like Asian YouTubers. But yeah, totally some, you know, you've seen some come up, fall down, some dig themselves out of a hole and shoot back up. We've seen like every pattern possible. Yeah, on a personal level for us, obviously, I think content has shifted a little bit. We still do food videos, but we don't do them as often because we're just trying to tackle all these Asian topics in news and have like these intellectual conversations about it that maybe you're not having with your friends or that you would like to have with just different people, you know? Or would be un-PC for an AAS professor. Exactly, and I find these topics very, very gratifying and I think it's important. So that's what drives us through. Obviously, you know, do I wish that more of the attention was on us or like whatever? Yeah, I mean, that's the truth, right? Yeah, everybody wants more views. Yeah, well, obviously, I see a lot of people doing a lot of content for views that I don't necessarily like, but I respect the hustle. So I'm caught in between. But anyways, guys, that's just us being in the game for 10 years. You let us know in the comments down below. Do you remember Wong Fu? Do you remember this Asian YouTube era? Where have you seen it go? Where would you like to see it go? Does it still exist to you? Let us know in the comments section below. Keep it civil. And until next time, we out. Peace.