 Are these comedians playing into racial stereotypes by doing these accents? Or is it just what people want to see? Welcome everybody to the Hot Pop Boys, David and Andrew here, David. We got to talk about this. Emotional damage. Hey, y'all, there've been 100 Reddit threads, 100 op ebbs, and we probably received 100 direct messages asking us to give our hot take on Nigel and Uncle Roger and Steven, her emotional damage. Are they sellouts? Are they bad for Asians? Or are they just funny and representing Asians on a global stage? Yeah. So let's run through some of their most famous clips. We're going to talk about it. We're going to analyze. We're going to give our thoughts at the end. We're going to answer a lot of these tough questions. So if you are interested by this video, please hit that like button and check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys. Let's get into it. Jamie says egg fried rice is side dish when Uncle Roger going up when my mom make me egg fried rice. That is the main dish. I never tell my mom, oh mom, this egg fried rice is only side dish. Where the main dish? Where the main dish? I would have been beaten to death. Emotional damage. Where's the therapy button? Last time I see whole this big, I still with my ex wife. All right, David, um, these clips did kind of make me laugh. Uh, but I guess, uh, the question is, are accents funny and comedy? Are they acceptable and when are they acceptable? All right. First off, I got to just admit, I'm jealous of getting 50, 40, 30, 20 million hits. I don't think we ever were that popular even in our heyday when we used to do accents and things like that. Um, I'll say this long story short guys. I always rank things in terms of IQ, sophistication for different worlds, right? Zero, uh, one to three, three to six, six to 10. You know, it's just like basketball. If you like zero to three type basketball, you like watching professor and like all these tricksters, right? If you like watching, you know, three to six, you like watching NBA highlights and if you're six to 10, you're watching schematics, play action, all these. Offenses and defensive schemes that people are running. People like burgers. Some people like Shake Shack. Some people like French Brazzaree steakhouse burgers. So long story short guys, I don't want to be like a snob or anything like that. I would like to think that we enjoy everything across the entire spectrum, but I will say this. I think these type of characters and these type of accents primarily appeal to people from a zero to six rating people from a six to 10 rating may see this type of accent driven uncle character, a little hacky. And I think that's where the criticism comes from. I think people who watch a lot of comedy are like guys, this isn't the most advanced stuff. We've heard this particularly Cantonese accent for decades now. It's been laughed at. It's been done before. Why is this still funny? But I think it just goes to show you this is what people want to see. And I think that every generation, I think that we get farther and farther away from this accent being funny. But actually to this day, it still makes people laugh. I think there's just more market fragmentation amongst Asian comedy consumers than there ever has been. You know, previously everybody made media material to cater to the middle. Pretty much you're like three to six zone because like nobody really was outside of that nowadays. There's people who like living in the zero to three to three to six, six to 10 and everybody wants comedy at their level and everybody feels so alpha about maintaining their consumption range. So I just think that, you know, this is for the crowd that would have enjoyed Peter Chow, you know, data from Goonies, Indiana Jones, Dr. Jones, Dr. Jones from that last comic standing Russell Peters. You're going to get a hurt real bad. Oh, maybe you say 50 cents today, 50 cents tomorrow. Then you have $1. Then you take a $1. Then you invest. You know what I mean? Like it's just all one thing. And by the way, I thought all of that stuff was funny. Maybe not Mickey Rooney's Mr. Uniyoshi actually even though low key, I kind of thought that was funny too in a messed up way, but like there's just always a market for it. But let me ask you this, David. If there's always a market for it, how come the market for the Korean or Japanese Uncle Roger is not as big? I'm not saying there's not people doing it out there, but it seems to me that the Cantonese accent between Steven and and Nigel, they're getting like a hundred million views. So I'm like, is there some about the Cantonese accent? Is it that Cantonese people are very goofy? Is it that this is the funniest Chinese accent? I don't hear a Beijing accent being this funny and garnering this type of audience. Well, the truth is Cantonese people are goofy. If you look at like Tso-Sing Chi, Steven Chow and all there's like that's goofy. Steven Chow kind of led that Asian comedy where like the water flows out of their mouth and they're like, you know Kung Fu also traditionally even throughout history, Cantonese people take themselves that seriously. But also I do think they've had a lot of interfacing with the British. I think the same thing with Indians. Malaysia, Singapore, obviously a lot of Cantonese people live in Malaysia and Singapore. They were also former British colonies. So I think there's just something funny about interfacing with the British for hundreds of years and also coming from a culture that doesn't take itself too seriously that creates this environment where the Cantonese accent is so funny. It doesn't even matter. Maybe you say problematic things. You say conservative things. You say liberal things. It's just funny. Hey, David, maybe we just do the rest of this video in the Cantonese accent. And this video will get more views. But I do think that, you know, Koreans take themselves very seriously and they would never do that. I mean, like even when JK was popular there, none of them obviously Korean. They have the Korean characters. But it's just like there's just different cultures have a different level of self-deprecation and the self-deprecation ranking for Cantonese people. I'd say it's up there with the highest in the world. Maybe like 9 out of 10, 10 out of 10 to be honest. Egg fried rice. Don't be afraid. Who afraid of egg fried rice is the most common dish Everybody eat egg fried rice. Who afraid? Why are you afraid of egg fried rice? Wear your courage. Uncle Raw just scared ghost. But you scared egg fried rice failure. Give your failure simple and easy to follow directions. But here's the key. You must contradict yourself. Okay. Hold it high like here. Okay. Like this side. Okay. Hold it high up. What are you trying to do? Fail geometry, huh? Why are you holding it so high? Hold it low, low. Okay. Like this. Like not any lower or any higher. Like just here, just this high. Yeah. Okay. What are you trying to do? How are you holding it so low? Can you see that? You said hold it low. No, as low as your IQ. What? Stop moving. Why are you moving the line? Hold it still. What are you moving around trying to start a disco? All right. I think that we've have established that obviously accents can make things funnier. I think that obviously if you remove the accent away from their videos, they're still getting some views, but not nearly even maybe maybe one tenth of the views. But I think that I think there's a question like, is it considered steer typical or easy to lean on the accent? Because that's, I think a lot of people are like, Oh, I don't want to do accents because that's easy. That's just an easy way to get a laugh because you could say something very, you could say a joke that's not funny in an accent. It could still make people laugh. And then you could say a very clever joke in an accent and it makes people laugh. So, yeah, the difficult thing that a lot of people don't understand about comedy is it's very hyper contextual, even to the comedian telling it. There's a reason why hot girls like Nikki Glaser tell hot girl jokes about like hooking up with guys at the bar because you believe that they live that lifestyle. Amy Schumer makes fun of how she looks because she doesn't look like a conventional hot girl. All her jokes are like about being a fat girl trying to be hot. You know what I mean? Like Gabriel Iglesias makes fun of how he's this like fluffy fat Mexican like and so many of his jokes rotate around that. And that's just how comedy works. When you want to be a mega star, your content has to align with the character that you're playing on stairs. Larry the cable guy is actually like a rich, educated guy from private school. How come he talks like Larry the cable guy? Like I grew up on a Louisiana backwood swamp land. So in a way like for success reason, I don't really think it's bad. I mean, I think a lot of comedians have a gimmick and some comedians actually acknowledge and play with their gimmick harder than others do. But a lot of comedians actually have this underlying thing that makes everything funny. Sometimes it's the way they look. Sometimes it's the way they sound. Sometimes it's, you know, the culture that they represent. Yeah. And I think especially for Nigel's Uncle Roger character, he's actually attacking and going at sort of these like Anglo-Saxon or Western world chefs that sort of are bastardizing Asian food and they're just like going at it. So there is more content. You know how like that fan was funny too, but he was just making fun of his mom being like, Oh, don't step on the water sprinkling because I'm laying mine. You know what I mean? Like he was doing that, but he wasn't like necessarily saying anything about current events like Nigel's like talking about current events as your 90s middle class like kind of educated kind of blue collar uncle that's Cantonese. And you know what I couldn't help but think after seeing some of their videos get 30, 40, 50 million views is like the last time I saw an Asian guy garner this many views was Rich Brian with that stick. That's also from that, you know, colonial Indochina. Right, right. But he was essentially doing an accent. He was essentially trying to sound like the scariest like hood gangster that he could have in that song, which that's actually not how he talks. But it couldn't help make me think that like as an Asian dude to get this many views, you have to be a character. Like you cannot act like a regular Asian, a Westernized Asian dude. But the truth is a lot of people with that organic accent cannot make those jokes. So it's like really somebody who used to have that accent and lost it due to Westernization coming back to it. That's like the funniest juxtaposition because to be honest, when you meet people that actually sat first of all, there's not a lot of people with that 10 out of 10 exaggerated action, but there are some. They're just not going to have those thoughts and they're not going to be so funny with the cadence and the timing and the punches and the tags. Get them sizzling straight away. No, you don't sizzle spring onion. Nobody sizzles spring onion. If you cook spring onion now, it will wilt. It wilt. This should be garlic. First step should be garlic. So for me, that feels like a good cheat. You can hear it sizzling. You hear sizzling. I hear my ancestors crying. I had to walk through fire. I fly to school every morning. I had to fight two lion, two lion, try fighting sharks. I fought a Tyrannosaurus with nunchucks. Your Tyrannosaurus had nunchucks. All right, I have three major takeaways, Andrew. I think that Southeast Asian Chinese or like British colonial Chinese, it's just like the perfect point to represent Asians or like Chinese people, but sort of be disconnected from these like very messy, muddy geopolitics. I just think that it's like they do enough traditional things like, I take off your shoes or you will lose and all this type of like, you know, these like goofy motto devices, but then it's like you're disconnected from anything too serious, you know, because you're like Chinese from Southeast Asia. I think point number two is that a lot of people really like different things. Like I said, some people like double cheeseburgers and that's their favorite type of burger for the money. Some people think Shake Shack is the best burger for their money and other people only like all Cheval, you know, French brasserie burgers and that's their best burger for their money and they're all looking down on each other, right? Andrew, the guy who likes McDonald's is like, dude, I would never pay that much for like Wagyu and the guy who's getting the French brasseries like, dude, I haven't been to McDonald's like since I was a kid, since I was like 12 years old. Well, listen guys, different people like different things. Somebody is eating the donuts at the gas station. For example, Andrew, me, I don't really like a lot of blue collar British humor or even middle class British humor, for example, I'm not a huge fan of Russell Howard. That's not my cup of tea, but I could see if I was raised differently and I was white, I would think that was really funny. At the same time, I don't expect people in the UK like an average proper white person to think Cat Williams is funny because they didn't grow up with anybody who acted like that, you know, because there's no relatability factor. And last but not least Andrew, low key, I think a lot of Asian Americans, they just like, this is the comedy that's at their level because they might have more like uncle thoughts in their mind than like they would ever want to admit. You know, a lot of people that are raised in sheltered Asian households in the Western society, whether like in enclaves or this or that, they like carry a lot more that influence from being around their aunties and uncles than they would ever really want to like admit in like public life. Uncle Roger, when he's like, oh my gosh, what these Guelos don't know how to do this? That's actually like a side of them, not a hundred percent that they like want to itch and let out and exaggerate. All right, my final takeaways are that, you know, when you find something relatable on the internet or you feel like that person grew up like you, you're just going to consume everything from them. And I think that's the funniest thing is relating to someone else so that anything they say, because at the end of the day, even if the joke isn't super clever, you're just like, oh my gosh, I relate to that. That's so me. I feel seen. The voice of the people. It's that type of thing. Yeah. And then also I would just say, you know, I want to give a shout out to Nigel because I know Nigel is a real stand-up comedian. I've seen a stand-up live. We met him in New York when he came and he is a funny stand-up. He also has this character that's kind of a gimmicky Uncle Roger, which is kind of like if somebody else was an actual funny comedian, but they get millions of views like kind of doing pranks on people, which I don't fully like, I don't love prank comedy, but like it's just something they know they have to do. So, but big shout out. I mean, he's rolling with what's working right now. And I think ultimately it's going to lead to people finding out how funny Nigel actually is as a comedian. Honestly, it's very much like a comedy sophistication crowd that's like one to six. And I'm not dissing that one to six sophistication level. That's where the bulk distribution majority of people are. And I think that it's people who probably haven't really studied it super deep or anything like that. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Maybe you're just living your life being happy in the micro day-to-day IRL. But I'm just saying to be honest, like it's very, very difficult to explain to people what it's like to be Chinese because there's a very strong ancient culture and there's still a very amorphous, non-defined modern culture. Whereas Japan and Korea both have a defined ancient culture but even maybe even more so a defined modern culture that they're all living in. I think for a lot of Chinese like is it viewed as bad? Is it viewed as good? Is it viewed as outdated? Do we hate our uncles and hate our grandparents for like making us so misaligned with the Western society? Or do we like them? And to be honest, I think that Uncle Roger and Stephen He help not everybody but they help a pretty significant portion of Chinese Americans sort of deal with it. So I do get why Asians in the Western world get nervous, right? Because you grew up, you know, maybe people yell at you from outside a moving car and they're like, yeah, ching chong chong, go back to China. So I would say a lot of the comments I see on the Reddit thread where they say, oh, is Uncle Roger racist or is doing an accent racist? A lot of it stems from what I call the white gaze, you know, get all academic. But if you look at the comments there, most of the comments are actually people quoting the lines of jokes I have and people are also laughing at Jamie Oliver. Right. Because there are tons of comments saying, yeah, Jamie Oliver is a prick anyway. He did this and yeah, I wish never like this stuff. So I think sometimes Asian Americans or Asians who grew up or born in the Western world, they have this insecurity but this paranoia almost. And you can argue with like whether this is the right medicine they need or is it a placebo or is it just like a sugar pill or whatever? But this is like what they want. Dude, this is the same comedy as our Asian parent videos from nine years ago. It's the same stuff which is, it's a little different. I mean, like they have different jokes. I'm not saying that they're biting the jokes but it's the same level of comedy. I was always shocked at those videos with CC who's not actually not a real mom did like six, seven million two. Yeah. But guys, it just goes to show you this is where the people are at and you know, I got to respect it but also, yeah. I mean, it is interesting how I think 10 years from now the Cantonese accent still going to be funny. I think 20 years from now the Cantonese accent still going to be funny because I think the people will still there will still be a large market of people there. To be honest, it's just driven by a cultural attitude and it's just driven by like how you see yourself and what assimilation pattern you are or are not running and to be honest, I just think that like Cantonese Southern Chinese or really just Chinese in general, they're having still a very, very, very slow assimilation plan more so than even other Asians. But it is what it is. And until then, man, shout out to Nigel, shout out to Steven. All right, guys, we're going to end it right there. You let us know in the comments down below what you think about Uncle Roger and Steven's emotional damage characters. Do you watch them? Do you think it's really funny? It doesn't just scratch that itch that you just think is goofy funny or do you think, you know, what else do you think about? Maybe if you think they're problematic and holding Asians back you let us know in the comments down below too, because anybody who's that popular is going to garner some criticism too. So, but shout out to them guys. I do think that they're funny people regardless what you think about the accents but please let us know in the comments down below. I will say this. I think as fellow Cantonese comedians and you know, some people are going to be like, Oh, I don't even consider you guys comedians which is fair or whatever. But like you really don't understand it on this level. Like I haven't seen any of the discussions on Reddit discussing Steven and Uncle Roger like really breaking it down because people are like outside the culture they're inside and they have this opinion and they're that opinion and they're so fired up about this or that side to it. But it is very nuanced because like you said, if that's where the crowd is at who are you to say that entertainers should not give the crowd what they want? I mean, they might even be aware that it's campy and cheesy to an extent but they're getting the bag. Is this what you want? All right guys. Thank you so much for watching. These are the hot pop boys and until next time we out. Peace.