 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 was so many other people. Faris movement had fly like a G6 Rocketeer during this time. Jabba Walkies was taking over the game. Kabba Modern Asian choreo looked like it was just going to sweep the earth. Make sure you hit the like button if you remember this time, 05 to 2018. All right everybody, let's talk about some quotes from Wong Fu because listen, they have 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 with the rain. 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, he goes 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, 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 gotta, you gotta give them their flowers because when they started making videos, there was no YouTube platform. They actually just started uploading on YouTube. 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 that 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 has 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. 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 like 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, you know, our job at work, you know, 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, 80% Asian. It is different. I mean, listen, when you're a kid, you just grow up in your fishbowl. You're not like 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 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 de-prioritized or left YouTube behind all together. Even for Wang Fu has 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 overwrite the amount of years that they watch. 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 on Wang Fu in a similar boat, even though there are 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. Feng, man, thank you so much for everything you taught me back in high school. 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, chance stated, or stay within people's conversations and stay afloat. Wang finished a 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 Instagram. Who knows if TikTok is 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 and 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 taken 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. 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 inspirations and breaking the entertainment was to do to pioneers like Wang 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. I'm sure like J Hope from BTS gives Tiger JK props. Who 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, Wang 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. Obviously the alumni from Wang 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 Wang Fu has, but you know, it's been so cool to work with people like Nora, aka Aquafina 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, Jay 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 Wang Fu. They gave them props. Thank you for humanizing us. That being said, I do feel like Wang 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 reach a limit and a ceiling to meet. The classic. Well, I don't hate them. I'm just saying. All right, so. Asian is so critical, man, that on the tiger, tiger parents to everybody. We got to. Bella, 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. Like, I don't know any great artists that does that. Like, like even like 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. You know, 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 Faba FUBU is like for us by us. Obviously the black owned clothing brand Faba is for Asians by Asians. That world, I haven't seen them reward like a super edgy Asian. It is more the wholesome, I guess you could say churchy, you know what I mean? Clean boy Asians. Yes. Very PG. I would say, yeah, but I would say maybe I guess would you guys like to see Wong Foo do like a hood Asian movie? You know, that would be crazy. You know, they are in six to six. Man, you just got to 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 Foo 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 Foo scene. It doesn't mean that they bid it from Wong Foo. It might come from just a similar place, parallel thinking, right? Okay, 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 Foo way, maybe even before. All right, Andrew, our five major takeaways on being from that boom of like 05 to 2018. It was 13 years 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 seems super corny to me. Now, 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 going to give them the shot. Yeah, I would say the closest thing I've seen maybe it came recently like Emma Chamberlain maybe and she's still like a host in the digital, 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 roller coaster. It can can put you through a roller coaster. Oh yeah, 100%. And you have to have some type of driving force, some type of direction that's going to 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. Oh, so we're talking about like Asian parent memes, high expectation. Why are you not an Asian? You are an Asian. Why you get a P? Yeah, I think that it's always there's always the 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, you know, shout out to uncle Roger, shout out to Stephen He, but that stuff is very, very like warm to you because you're like, oh man, I wish like my uncle. Sometimes when you talk to really Asian people and you say something cold, they're like, oh, it's so cold. Whereas Western people, they're like, 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 that. Are you saying like how there's been way more players from Asia and the NBA and NBA summer league than there were Asian American players? Yeah. There's way more European players, Yolkic, MVP, some of the best players in the NBA are European. Then 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 called fall down, some dig themselves out of a hole and shoot back up. You're seeing 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 and 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 on PC for a 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 and or like whatever? Yeah. I mean, that's 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 Wang 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.