Barbie's Asian Rival Sparked Debate About Southeast Asian Representation

Should this new Asian-American doll that is supposed to rival Barbie represent for all types of Asians? Why or why not? Let's talk about it. Yeah, this got controversial in the Next Shark Instagram section, Andrew. Obviously, an Asian-American doll designed to rival, you know, American Girl or Barbie from silly to serious. I'm definitely going to put this in the silly lane firmly, Andrew, but there was some serious conversations that emerged from it. But long story short, Andrew, there is an entrepreneur that started jillybing Asian-American dolls, Andrew, because she said that dolls are our children's first friend. They also help make a child make sense of the world around them. It makes a huge difference when the toys they interact with showcase real-life imagery and customs that they are familiar with. So long story short, Andrew, she saw the Asian-American dolls that Barbie or American Girl put out and was disappointed. She made her own, but some people are debating it. Right, and what is the major debate here? I guess most people are not against this doll. I mean, I think that's good. Obviously, dolls are representation. It is a toy. It's a media. It's all these types of things that mean certain things to, especially girls and boys growing up. But I guess, like, what's the issue here? Well, I guess the main issue in the IG comments section, Andrew, it sort of turned into, how come East Asians are the only Asians that get to be part of Asian-American representation? But then a lot of people were arguing, being like, but she's Chinese-American and it's her own company. So, of course, she's going to make it in her likeness. Well, it's because people saw the doll and the doll was representing essentially an East Asian girl, like a Chinese girl, right? And obviously, the woman who's creating it is Chinese-American. So, of course, she's making the doll in her likeness. Now, she only has one doll out, right? Right. She does have plans to create other dolls. But just the fact that this sparked into a gigantic thread where people were going back and forth, it does reveal something that is a deeper discussion in the Asian-American community, right? Honestly, I have seen a lot of comments recently, I think particularly from Southeast Asian people. And these are just comments on the Internet. Not that people are- And not that every Southeast Asian person feels this way. Exactly. But there is a lot of like, hey, how come East Asians, whenever they do something that is supposed to represent Asian-Americans, it's always very East Asian-focused, very Chinese, Korean, which is a fair question. No, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. And the next issue that got brought up and a lot of serious stuff that got brought up from this silly topic, Andrew, is who cares about dolls? Do we need Asian-American dolls to feel whole? And why do we put our self-worth in something that's not even a part of our culture? Because in Asia, I guess girls don't really grow up playing with dolls as much. Maybe the Philippines is the one exception. Well, why? No, they just have more American culture of playing with bodies. Oh, yeah, they had more dolls. I'm saying in Eastern culture, they don't traditionally play with dolls. Right, right. Well, it's not, or especially, I would say, hyper-realistic dolls, let's say that, yeah. And then, of course, last but not least, who's actually to blame? Some people were like, well, Asians only make up 6%, so why you come crying saying our whole society's racist just because we don't got dolls that look like you? Interesting, yeah, okay. All right, let's get into the comment section, because there are a lot of different thoughts. Real quick, Andrew, I gotta show the Korean tan doll that she was dissatisfied with from American Girl, right? This is the Jilly Bing right here, and boom, I gotta hit you at the end with the Barbie representation, Andrew. This is Renee Chow, apparently, in ABG. Yo, I don't know, are those supposed to be Asian Barbies? They look like Italian girls from Jersey Shore. No, no, these don't look like full-on ABGs. I would say this is the new glamor, like Laguna Beach ABG archetype I've been starting to see in 2023. Oh, this girl looks like a skater, kind of like whitewash Asian girl. Anyways, let's get into the comment section. Someone said, are there American dolls in China, huh? How come there aren't, like, are there just, like, why would we have Chinese dolls in America? Well, yeah, I mean, obviously, America's an immigrant country and prides itself on that. Not every country does, so I think there is some entitlement and expectations. Somebody says, this is so great, you gotta make people feel good in their own skin. These are sort of the ones basically like saying, you know, you saw a void in the market, you saw a problem, you attacked it, good for you, right? I mean, I think that that's right, right? Like, if you see something and you're a small-time entrepreneur, you can fill that void. Yeah, I mean, dude, if there's a market for more authentic Asian food, you open up a more authentic Asian restaurant, makes sense. This guy said, you know, I'm Watt and I support the existence of this, but it's not because Watts are super racist against Asians. It's just because Asians only make up 6% of the population. Why would you have a bunch of dolls that look like you? Yeah, I think from the economic standpoint, how much does it cost to change the Barbie dolls to look more Asian and what's the market for Asian-American kids to buy dolls? I mean, who knows, but maybe this woman's trying to make this doll to slip in there and that becomes the Barbie for all Asian-American women. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that's the hope. She said, cute, but how come they only care about diversity when one doll represents one Asian ethnicity? What about Filipino and Indians? This doll does not visually represent us. Maybe they should have waited to this and releasing this and released like three dolls or more dolls beforehand because Joey dolls released various ethnicities at once. So it made all the Asians feel represented to some degree. I was kind of offended by this. Okay, so I do see what she's saying in the sense like, if you're gonna peg yourself as making the Asian-American doll, and then it's only one doll and the doll clearly looks more East Asian, I do think it's fair for people to ask and be like, hey, are you launching other Asian dolls or is this just the Chinese-American doll? Should you just call it Chinese-American doll? And if she just called it, this is the first Chinese-American doll, then would she even be in trouble because that would be completely accurate? Right, some people were saying, well, she has to start somewhere and it's a very small business, probably with limited capitalization. So how could she launch like a full line? She actually does have some drawings of other types of Asians, South Asian, Southeast Asian. I believe she has some biracial dolls as well, but some people doubted her. Someone said, nope, you will never see her launch a company or make dolls of other races. I believe that was from like a Polynesian girl. Kind of like, there's some doubt, I guess, in some of the lesser represented Asian worlds, and I'm not saying it's from everybody, but from certain people that the East Asians care about them. Oh, you're saying that they doubt that a lot of the East Asians with the power are actually going to help them be represented? Right, right, right, because the East Asians, they feel invisible relative to, I guess, white people or black people, but then Southeast Asians or Polynesians or other people that are even less visible within the Asian subgroups are doubting them. Well, here's the fact, is that not all Asians care about other Asians. Not all East Asians care about other East Asians. Obviously, as Chinese guys or East Asian guys, we do a good job and we've grown up around all types of Asian people, so we obviously try to include everybody's perspective and everybody's culture on our channel, so I feel like we do a good job, but not everybody thinks like us. Yeah, I would agree with that, and they don't necessarily have those life experiences in their toolkit or their composition. I do agree with this, though, Andrew, do you agree with me? That the creators of Crazy Rich Asians, because they made so much money on that movie, they probably could make a smaller indie movie that incorporates all the Asians to feel more inclusive, right? I'm not saying that they will, I'm not asking everybody to do it how I would do it, you know what I mean? Because obviously everybody can make their own decisions with their own life and their own funding and their own time however they want, that's how just life works in general. But I guess, are people just gonna have to settle for being inspired by CRA? But do the creators of something ultra-profitable like CRA have any responsibility to the community to bring it all together in a milieu? I think there's a little bit of responsibility for sure. There sure definitely is, but I think as far as giving a motion picture just for the sake of giving it out, I feel like that would seem like charity, and ultimately you need that project to be good. So if there is a good Southeast Asian-based story, which there are out there, especially books that are written about Southeast Asian lives that are really good, I think pushing for those good stories is very important. But yeah, I don't know about just giving it for, you don't wanna make it feel like charity. I would even like to see the one for charity. For me, that's how I think. That's fair, that's fair. Somebody said, before anybody complains about the price, because the doll of Jilly Bing Andrew is about $70, look at how expensive American girl dolls are. So basically people are like, what? So they're gonna be using the same manufactured in China child-driven labor? Does she even care about diversity? And someone says, oh, you didn't give a F about cheap China-made products your whole life, but now this first woman wants to create the Asian doll, and now you all of a sudden care so much. Interesting comment section. Hilarious debates, hilarious debates. Wow, someone wants to make an Asian doll, and this is what it turns into. Somebody said, I have no idea what's going on. I used to play with Barbies when I was young, and I never thought of the ethnicity of color. And then of course, some people got into this, some people got into that. Somebody said, stop infantilizing women to act like they're so impacted by beauty standards. But other people were arguing back by saying, well, that's just biology. Women are impacted by the dolls that they play with and those beauty standards. So like I said, Andrew, silly to serious. Jillybing, it's such a silly thing, but it turned into some really serious arguments. You know what's funny is, besides even just how Barbie actually looks, because Barbie, it's not clear. I mean, Barbie, there's some Asian people and non, there's some Arabic, Italian women who look like Barbie, you know, different ethnicities. Well, any woman with, I guess, really large features and a really small head that's considered Barbie beautiful just looks like Barbie, right? Yeah, there's even some black women who look kind of like, who have that shape of Barbie, right? Possibly a different skin color. But I think to me, it's a lot of Barbie's lifestyle that was very white. So to me, it's like her lifestyle was very blonde. Very Laguna Beach, right? Which may have influenced people, but I think nowadays with the amount of media and art and movies and shows that we have now, I do think dolls don't mean as much to a young woman's life that it did before. It would have been nice to have this Jillybing product, and I'm not saying, go out, check it out. Go check out the website, see if you like it or not. But like 10 years ago, or maybe 20. 25 years ago, like women our age that grew up with dolls before this whole media boom. You're saying that that would have been even more impactful given the metrics of that era and how. It's not just Barbie and her blonde hair. It's Barbie in the pink car. It's Barbie's house that's all pink. It's Ken who's blonde. These all run together. It's not just Barbie herself. There was a very specific type of girl that I saw on my Instagram stories dress up in small pink dresses and go see the Barbie movie. I'm just saying. You guys tell me. Tell me if I'm wrong. Somebody says, well, what do you guys think? When you go to Asia and you look at the Asian dolls, they don't even look Asian either. Just like the animes do not look Asian. They look more Western. And somebody said, no, they're not designed to look Western. They just look more abstract. And somebody said, no. Everybody knows that animes and Asian dolls look like abstract Western people. So Asians are not even proud of how they look fundamentally. This could be like a whole video on its own, right? Yeah, yeah. I am looking at some of these Asian dolls and they look pretty creepy. All right. So what I have here, Andrew, is actually a traditional Japanese doll. We used to actually have these in the crib. We had one, I remember. Because our mom kind of grew up in Japan. Then we also have a traditional Shinto doll from a temple, Andrew. Creepy. Now, here we have the anime doll house, like French, you know, Prince T house dolls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think they're probably depicting European people. This is these two girls right here. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. It's tough to say, man. But I get, you know, that's like a whole other 10 videos. Global beauty standards, you know. Somebody said she should have looked to the wealth of pop culture in Asia and found the internal piece that she needed. Why don't more Asian Americans do this? I always watched everything from Asia, from soap operas to musics, and I never felt like I needed an Asian American version of anything. This is a good debate, right, Andrew? Yeah. So what do you think, man? She's saying, you know, I'm Korean. I like watch just Korean dramas and listen to Korean music. I don't even care if we get Asian American anything because I'm tapped into over there. But then other people, they're not like that, right? Well, I think Koreans are in a particular situation. Koreans have a lot of great content, a lot of amazing content that they can kind of submerse themselves into. And Chinese probably do too, to be honest. It's not as great, but they have a lot of content. Well, they have a wealth of it. Yeah, they have a wealth of content. Vietnamese, I would say have less, to be honest, that is accessible. Philippines has some, but it's probably not as accessible. So I'm saying like, not everybody's in that situation. So- You're saying not everybody has this gigantic hard drive to tap back into. But not only that, Andrew, not everybody relates to it, right? Yeah, I don't. I'm not gonna tell a mother that has a daughter that like, yo, don't worry about a Southeast Asian doll. Don't worry about getting a Filipino doll. It's not important. I'm not gonna say it's not important, but I just don't think it's that important. You know what I mean? Yeah. I just think there's a lot of other things that you could do. Somebody said, Asians are almost a forgotten minority. Efforts to be inclusive often exclude them. That's sad. We can do better. And this guy said, I'm Asian, and I'd rather be forgotten in American society than be treated like a minority. In fact, I've never felt like a minority in my professional life because I work in academia and high-tech business. I was the co-founder of a startup. Basically, Asians aren't a forgotten minority. They are simply people in those fields, and that's how I prefer it. So this kind of goes to the thing about Asian-Americans. Depending on what you're raised and what fields you enter, Andrew, you may not even feel like a person of color that needs to take the steps that a person of color needs to take to feel represented. It's because some people were saying, well, who's forgotten? Are Asians forgotten relative to the Western below, to the flow of the Western potluck? But then who, even within the Asians, and this brings us back to our original discussion about East Asian versus Take Dai versus Southeast Asian versus Siberian versus Central Asians, our South Asians even included, who's the forgotten of the forgotten? Fascinating. I know what you mean. Like the underrepresented of the underrepresented. Somebody said, she won't be able to make it after two or three years. I just checked her website statistics and it only has 400 unique visitors a month. There's no way she can make enough money to get by. What a comment, man. Maybe not. I don't know. If it's not popular, it's not gonna work. I mean, I'll tell you this, guys. In the game of business, Andrew, there is nothing moral or immoral, right? It's just about product market fit, your own marketing and your ability to get word of mouth out there and your own internal business equations, right? Like you have to manage your COGS, your cost of goods sold and et cetera. Right, right, right. I mean, I would say, I mean, good for her for making the doll. It might not be fully successful and it might just inspire some other people to do their own thing too. You know, all these things, you never know, it's just one entrepreneur, but maybe she could spark the mind of someone from another group that wants to do something or she also represents everybody else. You know, I don't know. Do we even need dolls? To that point, Andrew, do we even need this entire Asian American representation movement at all? And different people have different answers, right? I have a feeling and I'll speak on this from a Chinese perspective. I have a feeling that a lot of people are never gonna be satisfied with the representation, almost to an extent. Like they'll almost never be satisfied. Until they get exactly what they want, but I don't know. You mean to a 10 out of 10 level, like their vision? Yeah, but I also think a lot of people don't know fully what they want and they don't know fully what's going to work and what's very valuable, you know? But that's not to say you shouldn't speak up about it. I think you should and everybody can have an opinion. I'm glad that this Filipino woman voiced her opinion. Yeah, and everybody should leave that comment because ultimately a comment is just really meant to spark a discussion. It's not really meant to move the needle per se, but yeah, I mean, I think it's good to discuss, but hopefully I just think it, it just shows another Asian entrepreneur and I think that it will spark more Asian entrepreneurs to do their own thing. Yeah, shout out to Jilly Bing. Check out her website down below. I think my final takeaway, Andrew, is that Asian Americans on their general metrics, I'm not saying there's not a split between different groups or whatever, but on the general metrics are doing pretty well in terms of family stability, income, at least some middle tier career success. I'm not gonna say, obviously we've covered the other articles. Maybe the eight, nine out of 10 success and the 10 out of 10 success seems a little out of reach depending on what industry you pick, but there's just not a lot of Asian pop cultural representation. You know what I mean? And it's just like the pros and cons of our game plan. Do you think we need to shift our game plan? Is it a mode now where we need to focus more on some of the soft power that we didn't accumulate? I don't know. You guys, let me know in the comments down below. Let me know your thoughts on all this. Are dolls important and do you want, does one Asian product need to represent for all Asians? I mean, it is tough, but maybe there should be some responsibility. You guys, let me know in the comments down below. We are the Hot Pop Boys. And until next time, we out. Peace.