The HARSH Reality of Asian Hollywood in 2026

Is AAPI representation in Hollywood and media absolutely cooked in 2026? Here's seven things that we got to talk about. The reason why this like interesting discussion just sparked in my mind is because I started seeing all these think pieces from otherwise people I consider representations, people who just like blindly cheer on any sort of AAPI representation in media going against the Danes, which is this new Netflix cartoon show about three hipster kids. I think they want to live their life in New York City, but their high expectations Asian parents like love them, but don't know how to express it. And everybody was like, bro, this is the same plot we've seen for like 20, 30 years. Like literally that was the plot of the Disney version of Mulan. And then it's just been repeated every single time. It was crazy rich Asians, even Shang-Chi was that same plot. And it's just like, yeah, I get it. That is a common Asian experience for millennials to go through, you know, the well-intentioned, but like cold loving parents. But it's just like, I can't watch another thing about it in 2026. Turn it off. So then that's kind of what got me thinking about what are seven things that people don't really think about when it comes to AAPI representation. So point number one is this guys, it's always three steps forward and two steps back. So basically the graph is going up into the right, but it just looks so jagged, almost like a crypto chart where it's like, man, I can't predict where this thing is going. Because if you got to think about it, bro, like Bruce Lee at one point was a big thing, especially after he died. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't know that, but then like, you know, and then Jackie Chan at this moment with the Rush Hour series. And then Lucy Liu was like considered hot for a moment with Charlie's Angels. And then, you know, then K-pop is bubbling in the side and then Crazy Rich Asians happens. And then there's Parasite and then there's whatever that, you know, Steven Yeun movie was. And then everything everywhere all at once. And then K-pop Demon Hunters. And there's more animated stuff, even though Turning Red was the same damn, the same old, same old plot. Like, why are you not Dr. Loyal? Why are you not Surgeon, Real Estate Mogul? You know what I mean? And I just think every time we have this like boom, everybody's like, this is it, guys. Bitcoin's going to 200K. And basically, once you set your expectations high, you're just going to be ready for the pullback. And you're going to be crushed by the pullback because you already set your baseline expectations three steps forward. So basically, we've seen what the ceiling could look like. You know, we've seen the heights, but then there's pullbacks now. So now we're not in the show Cupertino, even though Cupertino's 70% Asian. You know, they don't think Asians are cool lawyers, so they can't be in the show Cupertino. You know, Shang-Chi 2, canceled. Crazy Rich Asians 2, canceled. We'll probably, I'd never heard of anything from the team from everywhere all at once again. You know what I mean? I'm not saying Michelle Yeoh's still not a huge star. Shout out to Ki-Hwae. Like, he has a career now. But I'm saying like, it's not like Hollywood really embraced them to the point of what they made it seem like. For sure, they were like token wins post-COVID, you know? Because if you guys know about like the Oscars, they're very political. Like, whatever political movement needs addressing at the time, they're going to address it by giving those people Oscars, right? So we just received some of those Oscars. And basically, what I'm saying is, Asian-American representation overall, it's not really sliding backwards. It will still go up and to the right. But the chart just looks like a crypto chart because it's really jagging and really inconsistent and really scary if you're hyper-invested at the peaks. Point number two, guys. Back to the Dangs, the new cartoon show on Netflix. The representation archetype is dead. Like, basically, people remember this old blog called like 8 Asians, like people who would just cheer on like any sort of representation of Asians, no matter how corny, cool, maybe cool it was. But usually, it was uncool. It was. They would just cheer it on, right? Because they'd be like, yo, finally, Asians just getting filmed on a red Alexa or getting filmed on just some sort of like, you know, expensive camera. Great. And I think that that was a thing for like 10, 15, 20 years. But literally, in 2026, people are just over it. And they're just like, yeah, that's cool, I guess. But what does it really do? I mean, like, have you seen what Professor Zhang is talking about? The breakdown of Pax Britannica after like 150 years and all the shifts that it is going to cause, like seismic shifts is going to cause across the globe. Basically, this narrating this strict Asian parent story of like why we had tough, not even like the toughest, but just like uncool childhoods, which was, to be fair, was common. It's just small potatoes in comparison to what the world is going to go through in the next 10 years with AI and robots and the breakdown of the pre-existing global world order. Anyway, guys, I digress. What I'm saying is that people are just like, not excited about just seeing an Asian face anymore. They want to know if the show is good or I can teach them something or I can teach them something groundbreaking or I can just say something new about being Asian other than like, yeah, when you come from a Confucian background and then you step into like a Judeo-Christian background, there's a lot of tough transitions that are really rocky socially and emotionally and spiritually, which is true. But it's just like, man, people just want Asian people to be normal, normally cool or normally weird. I mean, I mean, I guess normal people are allowed to make shitty TV too. So maybe that's winning. I don't know. But I'm just saying people are at a point now where they're just no longer on that like blind rah, rah, rah. There's an Asian being filled on an ARRI camera right now. I support it. You know, like people want to actually know, is this thing actually good? And it took us a while to get there. I understand because people used to call me in Andrew representations because they were like, oh, you guys just supported it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blindly, everything Asian blindly. And then I was like, man, I was just supporting it because that was the moment. And that's what the moment called for. I always knew when stuff was wack. I never liked that movie, Crazy Rich Asians. I was on set for it. I was an extra in it. I thought actually that wasn't, you know, it was a pleasant watch, but like, you know, Simu was my boy, but like Shang-Chi was not good. Point number three, your representation heroes are not that heroic. So this is weird for me because I actually know a lot of these people. I'm so happy for them. They accomplished their dreams. I saw them sacrifice a lot when we were all coming up. You know, everybody can take care of their family now and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and do whatever they want. Obviously, you know, a lot of people still have like really big career aspirations. So they, you know, keep attacking and I encourage them to keep attacking, you know, but basically what I'm saying is, I'm glad that Asian kids can see the possibilities to become a movie star now and make millions of dollars off of it. But do I really think that people are looking at any of the people I know for Asian American leadership anymore, whether they wanted that role or not to be fair, some of them wanted that role. Some did not want that role. Somebody tried and was just like, yo, this is annoying. Some of these questions don't even have answers to be fair to them, right? But you know, like even Michelle Yeoh, everybody's like, oh, our queen, Michelle Yeoh. If you made me describe Michelle Yeoh's worldview, it is much more closer to global elite, like neutral global elite than like Asian community leader. That's not an insult. That's an international movie star and that's just a fact. And you are just completely idiotic if you think anything else. To be honest. So why did we decide that winning an Oscar made somebody the president of Asian America? I think that, like I said, back to the Professor Jongtae topics, people are starting to become so aware of like serious topics in the world right now that maybe less and less people believe this over the years. But basically it went from this Asian person made it to this Asian person is responsible for the wellbeing of our entire group on a narrative, storyline, emotional level. Listen guys, they're actors, comedians, musicians, influencers, and directors. They are not elected officials. They are not Martin Luther King Jr. You know, maybe we expected too much. We shoved the torch in their hands. Some people dropped it. Some people fumbled it or some people just didn't carry it very far, but maybe we shouldn't have handed them the torch in the first place. Now, obviously I know not everybody handed them the torch. Like I know my dad was always like, you know, David, they are just actors. They are just reading some white writer's lines. It doesn't mean anything. But it's just so hard when people are so starved, especially the representation crowd that to be fair, I interface a lot with over the years living in LA and New York. They're just like, you know, they're latching onto it. Like I could understand both sides, but ultimately my dad was more right. So a lot of people are, you know, hearing me go on this rant right now and you're like, okay, where's this all going? Tell me something I don't know, right? I'll tell you this. This is where we're at right now. Point number four, we're back to ruthless capitalism, okay? Hollywood is not a civil rights organization. I believe that Hollywood does track with the times or what is like politically active in the moment, but it is not a political rights organization that tries to fight for like different underrepresented groups of people. Basically at some point somebody goes, who is watching this? Where is my ROI on my money? Because I need this to make money. And different audiences watch different things for different reasons. Like honestly guys, if you really take a look at sports even, like white people tend to watch hockey or tennis, depending if they're blue collar or white collar. Black people tend to watch basketball in the NFL, you know, because they make up 70% of those sports. Like if you look at Latinos, they tend to watch soccer. Most of the best Latino, you know, soccer players in the world are Latino. Asians, they watch a lot of tennis and golf and a lot of gaming too, e-gaming. I mean like there's a few Asians sprinkled, honestly everywhere and like every league, but there's no like league that is dominant of Asians except e-gaming. Asians are dominating e-gaming. Guess what a lot of Asian nerds watch? E-gaming. So people are watching things that they feel like they're physically represented in or their tribe dominates it, right? It's human nature. It's not PC to talk about it, but it's very real. And you know, there's assimilated Asian Americans that just watch whatever their white friends watch, Ted Lasso or whatever, you know. And basically Hollywood is not going to make Asian American content because Asians will support it. Because is that even true? And you know, basically Hollywood is at some point, it's just like, why am I even making this? This group is very like mercenary. They kind of will watch good things from every group of people and they don't really need to watch their own thing. And if they want to watch their own thing, they can go back to Asia and watch it. And basically you can make the argument for fairness, opportunity and equal treatment. Those do matter. But basically capitalism will say, I don't care. Think about capitalism a little bit like jujitsu or something like that. You have to have superior or inferior positioning. You basically have to have leverage points, choke points, grapple points that are your key hot zones where you can take control. And I would just say that, yeah, Asians had a little bit of moment after stop Asian hate because people were just like, oh wow, Asians really are a minority. Everybody blamed them for this big thing, OVID, right? But basically since then we lost that risk control or whatever you want to say. You know, I'm not a BJJ guy, but I just know enough, right? Like you have to have leverage positioning and Asians just don't have a lot of leverage positioning when it comes to grappling Hollywood in a capitalistic way. Maybe Asians in Asia do and specifically really only mainland China, to be honest. That's why, you know, even trying to put Sam Bingbing or Liu Yifei was a thing for a moment, you know, with the co-productions and stuff like that because people are trying to find this merge point. You know what I mean? To grab both buckets of audiences and pull from all these different demographic groups to make more money. But I would say that ultimately the co-productions thing between America and China, it's hard to say. I didn't really see it have any big wins produced. Point number five, guys. This is a tough one to talk about. And sometimes it's always interesting to drop this at like a university talk from some bros or whatever. Asians have an emotional value problem in the West. And this is a harsh take. Like I said, you know, I always got a brace for people feeling uncomfortable in the crowd or whatever. But I just think that Western society has historically given Asians tremendous economic value, value added on an economic side and very little emotional value, right? Especially Asian men and some Asian women that do not conventionally fit beauty standards or don't like Western people. You know what I mean? They only stick with Asian guys. Then they kind of get shoved in the unlikable, no emotional value lane. And emotional value is incredibly important for entertainment and media because a lot of people kind of like judge your value on that. It's not about what you contributed to the bottom line of a company. It's like what you contributed to the bottom line of my heart and my feelings and my like dopamine, you know? So the West understands the value of an Asian doctor, engineer, programmer, scientist, small business owner, nail salon owner, a kid with like a 1600 SAT who's an AI Kwan who's gonna help, you know, be the Asians on America squad to go against the Chinese on China squad in the big AI battles that'll define the next 20 years of the world or whatever. But basically, you know, they value the kid that's making half the stuff in your house, you know? But emotional value is different. Like who does everybody want to be in their dreams when they're not like looking at an Excel spreadsheet or their bank account, right? Who gets romanticized? Who gets to be sexy? Who gets to be dangerous? Who gets to be rebellious? Who gets to be cool? Whose swag gets to get copied? Whose heartbreak actually matters to somebody? Like, you know what I mean? Like you just care about this person. People care about the Kardashians even if they don't buy any of Kardashian's products because the Kardashians have their heart, right? They have their emotional value, right? It's clear. Maybe not to you as watching, but you have to say they do because they made like a trillion dollars off of it. So basically that's a different type of cultural currency. And I think that representation activism made one big mistake. We thought that people explaining injustice clearly enough would make people feel differently about us enough. And that's not how people work. It's not how not to just to say, oh, that's not how white people work or how mainstream America works. It's literally just not how human psychology works. A racism PowerPoint or a PowerPoint about how Asians contribute a lot economically to America, but nobody like emotionally cares about us is not going to make somebody emotionally identify with you because that's like what they would think a robot would do right to them. So you're just more further confirming the robot non-humanoid sort of persona that they put on Asians in the first place or Mongoloid people anyway. So, I mean, look, it's just like in China, bro, there's no amount of videos that like people can make about Wang Shui Niu, you know, that white guy who just did a, you know, this crazy pickup artist thing and got with like a hundred girls in China. Like the next Wang Shui Niu will be able to do it again too. Honestly, it's just like, it ain't nothing people can do to guilt people into doing the right thing when there's emotional or dopamine triggers that are built into them doing a certain behavior or like following a certain pattern. There's nothing that anybody can do, you know, it's just not how humans work. They're just, you know, you can't just like question people's framework and all of a sudden they just change their emotional reactions and their push buttons, right? You know, we're talking about, guys, the way we perceive a group emotionally comes from like a million different reps and reinforcing moments. We're talking about parents, school friends, society, who got dates, media, you know, sports, music, movies, porn even influences the mind as much as people, like I said, I'm gonna say non-PC things that I truly think are societally impactful, right? You know, advertising, dating apps, who everybody thought was cool at 14, creating those brain imprints that are like frozen, like Han Solo and Carbonite for many people's like personality personas, whether they like it or not forever. You know, you just can't demand an emotional connection and that's why cultural power has to be created, not requested. But here's the problem, it is created very, very slowly. Like, I guess this is cultural power right here for China though, this Mishue, sort of. Everybody always clowns on Mishue's quality, but when you need a 40 cents ice cream cone that does give you that McDonald's feeling and McDonald's is charging 185, 285 for it, you're going to Mishue. Point number six, guys, AAPI is not becoming one giant political body. I think that this is another big point, right? I just don't see it. Everybody's trying to shove themselves under AAPI and I was part of it too. You know, I was trying to support it being a political entity. You know what I mean? It was going to be on the left, let's be honest. Of course, any sort of ethnic thing is going to be more on the left side, but it was going to guide the left to be a little bit care about Asians more. But the left is very emotional, the Asians have no emotional value. That was a flawed plan. I mean, without getting too much into it. So then Asians are like, all right, this plan of making this AAPI thing on the left is not really working. They're not really messing with us because we're not like an underserved minority enough or it doesn't fit their definition, right? So guess what? People just lean into raves and EDM and sneakers and restaurants and essential hoodies and Keshi and Keshi's offspring and gym culture. And just like, now you just got all these buff ass kids on all types of whatever. You know what I mean? They look cool as hell, but yeah, I mean, basically just Asians, that's just what the AZN world turned into guys. We didn't develop anything deeper than that. It literally, it ain't that, I would say the Johnny Angel days arguably had more culture than we do now. Arguably, arguably, I could see it going both ways. So it's just like, what even is Asian culture, right? If you look at Asian culture, it is very pragmatic and they have different solutions for different situations, which is very different from the West. The West tends to govern from ideologies. If you look at a lot of the way that Asian countries run and not every Asian country is run the same way, but there is a general philosophy is that they would like have abortion, but they would have strict crime punishments. They would have like really strong governments, but still be pro-business. You know what I mean? They would have like conservative family expectations, but without religious Western conservatism of anything that's Abrahamic, right? Education would become actually a religion to people and upward mobility and doing the right thing and being a proper society and person, just coming up in the world in a proper way would become the religion. And these things, they just don't map into Republican or Democrat or any sort of modern anglospheric political spectrum whatsoever. And not only on top of that, on top of that, people have like different things that they're optimizing for. Some people are just optimizing for their own wallet book and other people are optimizing for their sense of society or other people are optimizing for the welfare of their tribe. Their specific like subset of a subset of a subset in America is like highly variable and very diverse, right? So basically AAPI could be a useful coalition, but it's just not one civilization. And on top of that, even if people share the same civilization, they're not all optimizing for the same thing. Some people are optimizing for like currying favor with this group or currying favor within that group, whether it's the golf club or like the woke activists, right? Like everybody, you know, some people are trying to pander and then some people like the way America works is like people love you until you disagree with them, right? And then people turn against you. That's why people feel like they need to buy a basket of ideas, right? Of course, if you think about it logically, why would all humans agree with like a basket of ideas? You would like say, I agree with this one. I don't agree with that one, right? But because of the divisive nature and take all, win all politics of America. So anyway, without getting too much into it, guys, it just doesn't work. It doesn't work for like Asians. AAPI is never gonna be any political group in America for those reasons. And maybe it's better that way because at least we're being us and we don't map cleanly anywhere. It's like trying to put something that's a circle into something that's square. So without being a cohesive political body, then people can't pander to you. So you can't get to pander pieces. You know, that pander to your community. They try to extract monetization from your community by echoing your preexisting thoughts and being like rah, rah for what your community believes because your community doesn't believe one thing. It believes a bunch of million fragmented pieces of a lot of things. So all of this sounds very doom and gloom, right? Like I just lifted off a bunch of things that I think are objectively true, right? Obviously some people would go, you know, things can always get better. I don't go off that for me personally. This is, you know, just how I think. This is my video. You can make your own video if you disagree or leave a comment, boost the engagement, whatever. But I'm saying that here's the solace point. Like here's a point of solace or here's the hopeful point. Some people are gonna say copeful for cope, but I think it's hopeful. Is that basically not needing the West and any of its institutions like Hollywood or Netflix or any sort of digital media platform, any sort of media dissemination platform has never been as good as it's been, right? And this is the biggest change for me personally. I think that if you were growing up in the 90s and 2000s and like America had a monopoly on global cool, it was the only screen to watch, you know, Hollywood, hip hop, MTV, Nike, Michael Jordan. What else was there? Rock and roll, you know, Johnny Knoxville, you know, the Nelk boys and all these new jester maxing guys are just a continuation of Johnny Knoxville and Jackass, right? Or Tom Green or whatever, you know, American celebrities and movies. So when the machine told you that Asian guys aren't cool or like Asians aren't cool, they're just like conservative nerds and not like tracking on the rebellion, cool, like rebel without a cause scale, that mattered a lot. And you know, Asian artists have been saying, stop seeking Western validation forever. But actually in 2026, you can do it because look at there now, anime's been popping, it's mainstream now. It's not just for like geekazoids anymore. K-pop, Asian gaming, Chinese technology, Korean beauty, pho, everybody wants to eat pho. Pho's like probably the best noodle soup ever made, you know, like, and a lot of people agree with that too. It's just like, it's really beefy and really like healing tasting. It's just delicious, right? Japanese and Chinese fashion brands, Asian food culture, Asian creators, Asian cities feel more futuristic than American cities now in 2026. So Asia basically also exported the best parts of the West and left the best, you know, the worst parts of the West. So Asia now has the best parts of the West. I got cotton on right behind me. I got a Starbucks. I got a McDonald's right here, but they even got a Fuller Burger. So they even got better burgers in the West. Everybody knows McDonald's menu in America is like notorious for like not evolving, you know, because they're, I don't know, for whatever reason, they don't want to complicate their process, supply chain or whatever. But anyway, what I'm saying is like, you can take what you can like from both nowadays. Like Asia has a lot more pros and a lot less cons than it used to have. And just like America's opinion of Asians is no longer reality. It's just America's opinion of Asians and America, to be honest, and it hurts me to say this as America, it's just not as dominant and not as relevant as it once was. I'm not saying it's still not way up there, but it's just not the end all be all of how we should feel about ourselves anymore, you know? And I'm just not waiting for a Netflix executive or a Hollywood executive to tell me that I'm cool. You know what I mean? You can always have a good life outside of Hollywood. And I would say that that's one good thing. I remember, you know, I got to say this. I got to shout him out. You know, my Southeast Asian friend, he's Viet. And I remember he always told me when we were going to, you know, these AAPI events during the representation days, he goes, you know, he goes, man, I care about this, but not really. Cause at the end of the day, they don't even know what a Southeast Asian is anyway. Like they don't know if we're whatever we are, you know? So it's like, we just live our lives outside of this in the enclave or not in the enclave, but we don't think too much about these types of things. And I always remember being like, yeah, man, that's just a good life. And I just think that back then, especially East Asians, especially like an educated, yappy type of East Asian, you know, like a lot of time when these people, they were just so concerned with it. And it's crazy that we got to a point now where we've beaten it, but not because we've won the game. It's because the game of rising up that ladder just ceased to be that important anymore. And it ceased to be like nearly relevant enough to like deserve that amount of attention and heart that we were giving it. So listen, there's an entire universe outside of this now. So you don't have to settle for some quiet meager existence because the industry didn't pick you. That is my biggest conclusion. Representation still matters, but needing somebody else to represent you matters a whole lot less once you've learned to represent yourself. And right now Asia is booming on so many different levels. I think people are seeing through the facade of Hollywood and they're just more like, nah, magnets matter more. Actuators matter more. You know what I mean? So anyway, guys, that's generally what I think about AAPI representation. I still think it'll go up. You know what I mean? But it'll just be slow and, you know, you know, it just won't be exciting, but it's okay because it doesn't mean that you can't have the best life that you've ever had. Like, I think that the Asians ability to have a great life is the highest it's ever been, despite us being in a major pullback and exhaustion of like too much Asian representation that Hollywood possibly doesn't actually really care about deep down. It is what it is, guys. So think about it, guys. You just can't base your self-worth off what Hollywood sets the price at, the market price at. Like, it just doesn't matter. Just go live your life. Anyway, guys, that's what I think. You know, I know that, you know, like I said, I've been in this space for a while and sometimes people will be like, oh, well, you're in Asia. Why are you still talking about Asian America? Just tell us about Asia. Well, I think about Asia, but I think about Asian America because I just saw that thread pop up and a bunch of people sent me a bunch of videos being like, yo, is that crazy that there's a high budget show like the Dangs? And it looks like I would watch it, you know, about some Chinese via family, kids living in New York, trying to be hipsters or whatever, and the parents don't approve. That's kind of like my own life. But still me, I'm like, yeah, it's kind of cool, but I don't want to watch it. I don't care. Because at the end of the day, my mind is on more important things. Like, just the representation days are over. They don't matter anymore. Like, they don't matter nearly as much as they used to. And so that's kind of where we're at. But it's good. It shows the development in society. And it shows obviously, to be honest, how the world is changing.