 Comedic character Uncle Roger has just dissed on lowing Cambodian food, and that made a lot of people mad, David. Let's talk about it. Yeah, this is going super viral right now. Long story short, you know, Uncle Roger, some people say he was joking. Some people say he was not joking. Let's just run the clip. We serve Southeast Asian food. Predominantly Thai and Filipino, but a lot of inspiration from Malaysia, Vietnam. Yeah, not all Southeast Asian country got good food, you know? Yes. You don't want food from Laos, Cambodia. What? I love those countries. Yeah, don't talk shit. Don't talk shit. Laos food like shit version of Thai food? Man, I mean, I can see why it sparked such a big thing on the internet, but it's also very silly to me because it's a fake character and he possibly was doing it already like with a plan. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, but you know what? I'll say this. I made a response when I saw it. Some of the most trendiest Thai dishes right now are all from the Isan region, which is essentially loud food. All right, and Cambodians, man, they got the flavors kicking with the prahok and the kutu and everything in between guys. Listen, Uncle Roger, you know the right thing to do. From one Chinese guy to another, out of love, I'm telling you, do the right thing. Uncle Roger is a character that is played by Nigel Ng, who is a comedian. Who's a friend of ours? Yeah, we just got done. I threw him this assist in the game. Yeah, we know him, but I will say this, that line that he had, it hurt some people because Uncle Roger as a food character is genuine about his food beliefs. So when he does diss on a dish, people do take it like, oh, he's actually calling that dish trash. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. And not only that, too, I think that the perception is that he's always pro-Asian against Western. And then for him to get into the subdivisions of Asians and almost ranking him out in the hierarchy, it was hurtful to a lot of people. Yeah, and it is true. Uncle Roger is a Cantonese Chinese character and he's dissing on Lao in Cambodian food, you know? So people even perceive that a certain way. Right, right, right. So we're going to get into all of that. Make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications, Andrew, from silly to serious. I think that it's silly, but I'm never going to tell anybody how to feel about something, right? Because some people, they care about things, especially like, Lao or Cambodian people, I do know a lot that were offended by this. Now, some of them may see later, you know, once it all comes out, that it's like, oh, okay, they threw me for a loop here or whatever. But initially, they're not wrong for feeling how they're feeling. I mean, even if the characters... Have felt offended for them. Even if the character is comedic, the words can still be hurtful, especially for a lesser represented group such as Lao and Cambodian people. Even of the Asians, they're the more underrepresented. And they're going to get left out of like, CRA and like we said, who's the invisible of the invisible group, right? Anyway, let's get into some quick thoughts. Andrew, Lao and Cambodian food are incredible and especially Lao food, it might be one of the very best foods in the world, to be honest. Gordon Ramsay said it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say this. I think every cuisine, that we've had a lot of cuisines out there, every cuisine has some fire dishes. I think some cuisines are larger than others and have more dishes. So therefore, a more opportunity to have more, I guess, popular dishes. But yeah, Lao food is essentially Isan food. Isan food is the most popular style of Thai food as we know right now. You know what the Lao style is. Well, it's the most trendiest. I would say Bangkok style is the most ubiquitous. But Lob, Som Tam, Nam Tok, all these other things that you can find sometimes at general like Pan Thai restaurants. Oh, the Jiao? They are attributed to the Isan region, which is very similar to Lao food. The spicy eggplant and pepper dip is incredible. Unbelievable. Point number two, Andrew, I do think that Uncle Roger was joking, to be honest. But here's the thing. Do I think that that joke ended up being more explosive and more offensive than he initially intended this whole project to go? Probably a notch. Yeah. And it's because, you know, he has something coming out with a Lao chef, Abebe. Who knows? Like I said, maybe it'll come out that it was like it was playing this way for months. Possibly. I mean, this is this is still media guys, but I could see how the words for hurtful regardless. I do think a lot of things in the Asian community, point number three, Andrew, are still in a sensitive zone because it's almost like the Asian community hasn't talked about a lot of things yet. Certain things haven't gotten properly addressed on a mainstream platform yet, like in a Hollywood movie. So everybody's at a different level. You know, like if a Hollywood movie addresses something, it's almost like it brings everybody's point in the timeline of where that discussion is up to the same level. But nobody's at the same level of a lot of different discussions. Exactly, I agree. Point number four, Andrew, I do think this opens the door for a lot of Lao or Cambodian cuisine influencers to have a little bit more magnetism for what they're doing. Yeah. But they got to have projects going too, but there's going to be an increased ability for them to get more spotlight. I do think it's a shame, point number five, Andrew, that negative things draw more eyeballs than positive things, but that's just how 2023 is. Like this is going to get bigger press in the Asian American community than Gordon Ramsay saying that Lao was his favorite food destination in the world at the moment. Right, right. I mean, technically, Gordon Ramsay, he is a ultra-trained chef, even though he's a white guy, he's an Anglo-Saxon from Britain. At the end of the day, he knows food better than Uncle Roger does, better than all of us do. So I'm saying when he says he loves Lao food, it should mean more, but of course, it's harder to celebrate compliments than it is to be offended by things, which is just the way that's how media is. Point number six, Andrew, you made a response video almost being viewed as what, the Pan-Asian Chinese guy versus the judgmental Chinese guy. I said, listen, Uncle Roger, from one Chinese guy to another man, don't set us back with this comment, all right? Well, let's play part of your response. Yeah, and obviously my response, I'm not fully taking what he said 100% serious, but I do understand people were offended, so I did want to respond, because obviously, we do eat a lot of Southeast Asian food, and we've gone out of our way to explore Lao, Cambodian, Hmong food. I mean, really like all, as many little nooks and crannies as we could. And I'm still trying to look for some of the more groups that don't have a nation state, like Tidom and stuff like that, or Montagar, yeah, like, I'm looking for everything. Point number seven, Andrew, do you think that this did turn, there's an undertone, not that everybody's bringing it up, of like East Asian, Southeast Asian, sort of like the bigger groups, like, oh, like, oh, you're just judging the smaller groups, and you're ranking them, and you're not even a part of these groups. For sure, for sure. I think there is a little bit part of it. Uncle Roger is a Chinese character. Even though he's like, even though Nigel himself is Malaysian Chinese, right, man? He's Malaysian Chinese, but I'm just saying Chinese, like, you know, just general Chinese character. Sino, right, yeah. He's a Sino character, so of course, when he's dissing on Southeast Asian, especially the smaller, lesser-known groups, it kind of takes people back to that point, and they're like, ah, yeah. Right, right. The powerful groups get it the same. The East Asians that are popular, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, that are going to be dissing on the smaller Southeast Asian groups, foods, at least, you know. So I do think there's that feeling. Yeah, and I think Chinese in particular, because Chinese, they have such a gigantic diaspora in Southeast Asia, whereas Japan and Korea, and they're more like, in their respective countries, Chinese are like everywhere. I don't want to like, see, I don't want to bring this up, because now it sounds like I'm just trying to like, save Chinese people's image, but I'll say the fact that Chinese people who even talk about Lao and Cambodian food means that we're a lot more into it. We have a lot of heavy contact with it, yeah. Then Koreans and Japanese, like, I don't know any Korean or Japanese chefs that publicly eat Lao and Cambodian food. Yeah, I don't know any Japanese or Korean people who have personally ever had Lao food. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm saying there's a lot of Chinese people who at least have had it. But anyways, that's besides the point. Point number eight, Andrew, people love it when you say stuff they agree with, but they hate you when they disagree with you. So some people were saying, man, this guy, this Vietnamese guy said, okay, everybody loves Uncle Roger when he's making fun of Rachel Ray's pho, but then when he pits one Asian against another, everybody hates him. And someone said, man, I thought he was funny, but I'm not, don't think he's funny anymore, and I unfollowed him. And is it, is it almost like tit for, you know what I mean? Like, I agree. Now I hate you. I don't know if anybody remembers, but we made a video about Uncle Roger and even emotional damage Stephen Hew's characters. And the one of the things I said that people really like about Uncle Roger and ride for Uncle Roger for is because it's kind of like East versus West. He kind of represents the East and he's always dissing on Western people, or I should say non-Asians cooking Asian food. Or non-Mongoloi people, I guess, right? Right, because he's dissing on some Indian, like British chefs. But anyways, so that's what a lot of people ride for him for. And they're like, yeah, go Uncle Roger. And then it felt like he was being divisive internally. And then now he turned a little bit of his hate or, you know, fake hate or whatever opinion towards other Asians. Yeah, point number nine, Andrew, he talked a lot about in a response video. And like I said, he might have had this whole thing planned out with Lao Chef, A-Bae-Bae, and it's just, you know, everybody's getting rope-adoped right now. But he basically was like, Asian, the number one thing that Asian like to do is talk trash about each other. And then a lot of people have comments about that saying, yeah, you're right, my older relatives or my parents or my older uncles do trash talk other types of Asians. But Asian Americans, now that we're all in this diasporic experience together in America, are trying to move past that. And it felt like he didn't understand that, but he's from the UK and he's from Malaysia. He might just not have resonated with that because he doesn't know that everybody's trying to be Pan-Asian now. Or was he so deep into the Uncle Roger character that he's just representing the opinion of a guy, of an uncle from Asia versus in Asia America, we all understand, hey, we all get targeted and treated the same. So let's all get each other's back to some level. This is kind of like, you know, it's kind of what we represent. That's the A-Z-N culture. That's everybody's at arena together. Yeah, everybody's partying and drinking, hanging together. And it's just then every, all Asians are equal, at least in that sense. Right, you're saying whether it's Kevin Kim, Kevin Lin, or Kevin Nguyen. We all are going after the ABGs, okay? ABGs of every shade and creed. Let's get into the comments section, Andrew. People were going against him as a whole character. His character perpetuates Asian stereotypes. They reinforce negative Asian stereotypes, faking the accent, blah, blah, blah, blah. It almost like, this is almost a classic debate that you hear, right? It's funny that because he did something that offended a lot of people, then now his whole idea of this character gets questioned again, which there have been people on the internet questioning this character, Uncle Roger, since its inception anyways. Yeah, I would say my biggest thing in knowing Nigel, being friends with him, is like, he's just not from America. I doubt that an Asian American is going to create this character, not that nobody ever has. But it's like, he's from a different, he's from Asia. I mean, it's a widely popular, hilarious character. Of course, other people were saying, it's funny to me as an Asian. Other people were saying, oh, why do you want so much Western approval? The white people are laughing at him, not with him, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Someone said, I love, I'm Asian. I love Uncle Roger. If he thinks loud food is not good, then that's his opinion. Change his mind. He sure seems open to it, because he did kind of issue a challenge of being like, okay, then cook it for me. I want to try. Some people said, I noticed that a lot of the people who fervently defended him initially were white people who give his comedy as an okay to punch down. And a lot of people had took some issue with that because I would say Uncle Roger's audience is primarily Asian, but there's a pretty sizable portion of white people. And I will say this, if you're white, and you do not care about Pan-Asianism, you don't even care about the health of every single sub-Asian community, and then you immediately defend Uncle Roger to a level that he would not even defend himself, then isn't that a little bit like, that is a little sus. You mean like, why are you defending this character so much? Yeah, you're defending this character because you like him and you don't even understand or even fully care about Asians. That's, that is your... Yeah, impossible. And by the way, guys, if you balked at Nigel, I think he understands why everybody's offended. Like, he might have a different threshold of being like, no, don't worry, I'm gonna make it up to him, but he understands it. He understands it. Somebody said, man, he has such careless words, but then other people said, I'm Lao and I'm not that sensitive, so why is everybody so hurt about it? What do you think, Andrew? It goes back to the sensitivity in the Asian community when nobody ever gets talked about by these high-profile figures. Should the words cut so deep or is that up to your thick skin or what you've been through in life or everybody's got different sensitivities? I think it's tough because again, like at the end of the day, any time a underrepresented group is brought up on a platform, you want it to be positive because you don't want the only time that your group is talked about to be a diss, you know? Right, you're saying if you charted out all the mentions, you don't want like 80% of the mentions. And it is true that Uncle Roger has not shown, his character has not shown to eat a lot of other Southeast Asian food or give them props before or work with a Lao chef before, before he dissed it, you know? Like, we don't know what his background is. It seems like he's just wanted to diss it, to diss it, you know, for fun. So I guess that's why. Joke went a little too far. People were bringing up the East Asian, Southeast Asian element here. People were saying, oh, all these rich Chinese descent people from Bangkok, from Thailand, they don't respect the Issam people and the Lao border and like, I don't even know any of this. I'm not saying it's not true, but it was just getting into a lot of internal stuff. Somebody said, man, I hope deep down it was just a rope of dope. Ultimately, I think that Uncle Roger wants to stimulate the popularity of Lao and Cambodian food, but he just went about it in a very kind of crude way. Oh, that's a good point. I think so. I mean, I don't think that he's, I think that he wanted, I think it's possible that he wanted to work with a Lao chef. And this was a kind of- You mean a WWE, like, like he played the heel? Put on a show, man. Somebody said, no, he's just clout driven and greed driven. He's not altruistic. And then somebody came in with a moderate comment. Listen, whether or not his intention was to promote Lao and Cambodian food or not, he's stirring the pot, and ultimately that's going to move the community forward to the next phase. Honestly, that was a hell of a comment. I agree with you, sir. Interesting. Andrew, let's get into our takeaway. Silly to serious. You know, you never can predict on Instagram, Nexshark, what things get like 600 comments, 6,000 comments. This pushed towards a lot more comments. Other stories get a lot less comments. Everybody was so engaged on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, hey, man, let's, I hope that Lao chef is good. I hope Abebe, the Lao chef brings it, man. Yeah, Lao food is good. For me, the community, and we've been trying to push the community along. However, I can't control whether it's a drop, five droplets or a splash of water in the ocean. You know what I mean? But I think the Asian American identity is still very much in its infancy. And that's why you see certain things make you go, oh, man, that had an outsize impact. I didn't know that. I mean, Nigel himself probably was like, yeah, the plan's working, but I'm getting a little bit more negative, negativity than I imagined. Let's hurry up and do the reveal. You know what I mean? I just think that it just seems like in 2023, I think my biggest takeaway is like, it still seems like hate is more powerful than love. You know how in movies, at the end, you know, when there's like two laser beams shooting out of the good and the bad guy, the good laser beam always wins. That's just the movies, man. That's not how it works, man. If I was a sports book better, Andrew, you know, like on fan duo, I'm betting on hate. I don't know. Like at least, at least for magnetism, but I do think that these gestations, they sort of just move the community along. Not all of the gestations, you know, I mean, imagine these are aesthetics and things in the stomach breaking down the community. They're not all pretty, but it does move the community forward, right? To have more discussions and shout out to all the world. I mean, we made a bunch of content about it already. I mean, look, I made a response video and now we're making this video just because of the controversy that it sparked. I'll tell you this. I do think that every single Asian American needs to try as many other diasporic Asian American subgroups cuisines as they can and try to just know like two to three facts about it. You don't got to be like me. Try to learn, you know, us try to learn 10 things about every group. Try to learn a phrase from every group. But how about this? Everybody just try everybody's food for sure. Like, you know how like some people are like, well, I could either try the 79th restaurant from my own cuisine that I've had or try the very first of another type of Asian. How about you try the first time having another type of Asian cuisine? That's funny. Yeah. I mean, that's just my recommendation. So we can just move this whole train along because I get it. We can't change whatever happened in history. We can't change like community metrics. Like everybody community got a different metric. Like we can't change if like these group groups were beefing in the past or the older, the parents, the uncles. But it's like we can just try to move forward. That's my general feeling. All right, everybody. We're going to leave it right there. Thank you so much for watching the Hop Pop Boys. Let us know in the comments down below. Is it just a joke? Do you care? Is it offensive? Is it true at all? And yeah, I mean, let us know what you think. All right, everybody, until next time, we out. Peace.