 A lot of Asian foodies and small business owners are turning on David Chang for trying to copyright the word chili crunch, affecting a lot of their businesses. David, let's talk about it. We thought Momofuko was trying to help promote Asian-American, but now we find out you just wanna dominate the rest of Asian-Americans. Let's run the clip. Here's our take. Chili oil, chili crisp, chili crunch has been a thing for quite some time. It's been around even before I was born. So what gives? Why are we repeating the same third culture bakery nonsense? A lot of us started this business during the pandemic and eventually it became our careers. But for some of us, it's still a small business. We don't make an enormous amount of money. We don't have extravagant investors to fund us and we sure as hell don't got the money to fight and pay for legal fees. Amila and Homaia, Homiya have been around the block for a minute. So they're leagues ahead of us. At the same time, there's plenty of pie to go around for all of us. And to be honest, it's only time until David Chang and Momofuku go after us. This season to SIS game only means you're scared of competition. You're scared of your own people making it in this world. Why can't we just inspire ourselves and continue making great products and innovate the things we love to make instead of putting each other down? We're not sure what's our plan of action. And there's probably gonna be ways to skirt around it. But for sure we're gonna keep on keeping on. And we've gotten this far and we're not gonna let this celebrity sell out, take this shit away from us. We put out too much blood, sweat and tears to stop our dream to be business owners. And so we'll see where that goes. Boom and listen, if you follow Asian foodie spaces on the internet, this is going viral right now. Let's just read the title from the Guardian article. Trademark bully Momofuku turns up the heat on other selling chili crunch. Andrew, he gave a cease and desist to Milo which is another big brand. Right, so guys this is for specifically the phrase chili crunch and chili crunch. Now, if you look on the trademark search, which I did, chili crunch with the E is already registered under Momofuku so they successfully have trademarked that. But chili crunch is still pending and I think that's where this comes into play because chili crunch is gonna be a little bit harder to trademark because those are two regular words and it's used by a lot of different businesses. But regardless, this does affect a lot of small businesses that make their own chili crunch because they're gonna have to change their labels and change their name if this goes through. And basically a lot of people are feeling like David Chang, he was already rich and why is his squad and himself trying to squeeze out all these little people and give them cease and desist? So Dave, we're gonna go through the comments section and if, you know, maybe our people right for hating on David Chang and Momofuku right now or is this overblown, is it legal? And we're gonna talk about, so please hit that like button, check out other episodes of the hot pot boys. And of course, check out smallassauce at smallassauce.com you can get it for pre-order right now. The second batch is coming soon back better than ever. I'll tell you this, man, the Asian foodie world has this sense of like wanting to represent Asian culture in the West. But a lot of people that are coming into this space, it's like, they might be just like, well, I introduced the word, this product first to the Western market, let me own the whole thing. Right, and we have to acknowledge Momofuku is the largest brand that uses chili crunch, even larger than Mila, which we know like Simu is involved in and we've tried their products as well. But Momofuku is probably the most successful one that uses particularly chili crunch. By the way, Lao Ga Ma, the auntie one uses chili crisp. Right, and they were around since 97, the ingredients around for a hundred years, all around China, the Chinese diasporic, Southeast Asia places, they were making some version of chili crisp for like a hundred years. And I think the one thing that people don't like is David Chang sometimes on his podcast, he talks about how much he loves different Asian cultures, Pan Asian culture, he cooks, I mean, he named Momofuku a Japanese name, he got famous for doing Momofuku buns, which are really just Chinese or Taiwanese guabaos. But so a lot of people, Eddie Huang was really mad at him back then for not attributing it to Taiwan or China originally. So basically, a lot of people are saying that David Chang built a career, Columbus-ing things from other Asian cultures, not even his own, and then trying to own the trademark for them. Right, so here's my thing about food. I don't know if nobody owns the Taiwanese buns or the Chinese buns, you know. Like it's so- Right, there's some debate of who, from Hunan, Hunan to Taipei. So to me, him serving like Chinese-inspired food is fine because a lot of his food was inspired by Western China as well, right? But the trademarking thing is kind of a weird move. It's kind of a, what a lot of people consider a D-back move. It's not illegal to do, he can do it, he's the big company, they got the money, they have the legal team. He was first to market, first to market in a Western sense. Obviously he didn't invent this product at all, but he was the first guy to use the word crunch. But- And some people are saying it might be people on his private equity team, but at the same time, he's gonna take all the heat for it. Maybe he okayed it. I don't even know if at this point he has any ability to stop it. But it goes in line with like a series of, a pattern of behavior that people have recognized from David Chang and his squad. Right, right, right. I will say this too, it's like, it's really messy when, if you are a self-proclaimed whitewash Korean guy from DC, you name your company Japanese and then you sell a lot of Chinese or Western Chinese or Chinese diasporic products, people are gonna raise an eyebrow. Yeah, I mean, I think it kind of goes along with surprisingly his reputation that he has, which is kind of like, he'll just do whatever he wants with no regard. And I think- But he just doesn't care if you're not rich and famous, basically he doesn't care about your opinion. Yeah, I mean, and now that even us, David, we're kind of entering this space. We don't do chili crunch or chili crisps, but we have chili oil, right? First of all, no one can, I don't think anybody can trademark chili oil because that's just been around for too long. But it's like, I do feel the pain of these small businesses because they're trying to come up and it's true that they're not rich yet. Momofuku's kind of like the big dog in the market. Why not let the little guys do their thing and use chili crunch still? Because why are you trying to almost monopolize the market, it seems like. Yeah, I do think that there's also potentially, from me reading the comments section, there's a feeling like, not obviously not all, but some Koreans don't really care about other Asians and will like possibly, you know, see things from other Asians, take it, rename it because they're just trying to come up for themselves. By the way, guys, this is from the comments section. I'm just saying there's some underlying tone that I read. Right, right, right. Anyway, let's just get into the comments section. Somebody said, what a dork, this guy is so toxic. Obviously some Koreans themselves are coming out against him being like, listen, us Koreans, we don't co-sign this. We understand that chili crisp or chili crunch was Chinese originally. I don't want any part of this. Of course, other people said, you know, him turning into the villain was inevitable. He became too rich, too many rich friends and started hanging out with too many white celebrities. Do you think that there's this sense, Andrew, that Asians, once they make it, they're like, nope, I'm the only cool Asian. I'm the only Asian in these elite white rich, you know, whatever spaces, everybody else, back to the enclave in whatever towns you Asians. Guys, well, I made it. So, you know, I'm the only Asian that matters. That's how it sounds like. I'm not saying he doesn't care, but this is a type of move that you make when you think you're better than other people. Now, I do want to be clear, guys, Fly by Jing is another good chili oil, chili crunch brand, and they are also trademarking Sichuan chili crisp. Specifically, Sichuan chili crisp is the phrase that they're trademarking. You can go look it up on the website right now. Is there anything wrong with trying to trademark Sichuan chili crisp? If Fly by Jing, Jing herself is from Sichuan, it's a little bit more specific. You can't trademark chili crisp, but you can do Sichuan chili crisp. Even for me, I'm not from Sichuan, so I'm not gonna tell her what, but if I was from Sichuan, I might feel like, but Jing, I can't make Sichuan chili crisp. You know what I mean? But she was first to market too, so she took the risk. I'm not saying that I can't see any argument from Momofuku's IP department. I can see the argument, like I'm not gonna give them zero legitimacy. Isn't it that, listen, in America and in this capitalistic society where anybody can create a brand, also a lot of people can trademark things. Now, this is completely legal. It is what it is, but the people also have the freedom to speak up about it. Andrew, why not Kim Kardashian try to trademark Kimono when the bronze team tried to trademark? Taco Tuesday. Taco Tuesday, when Disney tried to trademark the day of the dead merchandise for a second because they were coming out with all those movies. Oh, Dio Stos Los Muertos. That was a big deal because you, I'll tell you this, the people who trademarked the things in the Anglo-English dictionary, they don't necessarily care about the motherland culture that it originates from. But the people from the motherland culture that have been living in that culture for hundreds of years, whether that's Los Dias de Muertos or Chili Crunch, Laogama, whatever, you know what I'm saying? Like they don't really necessarily understand the American legal trademark system either. Do you know what I'm saying? So they'll just use it, but they won't trademark it. And then a lot of people were like, oh, you know, if this guy was thinking like David Chang or David Tran could have trademarked Sriracha, even though he's a Chinese via guy who reinvented a Thai sauce and rosemeade, he could have did it because nobody else knew what Sriracha was in America at that time, but he didn't do that. So he lets everybody else call it Sriracha because he has some sort of at least cultural respect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess it's one of those shrewd business moves that's not a good look and it's gonna get you bad press. And I don't blame a lot of people because I think the Asian-American foodie community, especially I would just say the Asian-American community at this point was starting to gel together, kind of felt like at least on the food side. Like we're rooting for each other. Yeah, we were all trying to check each other and be like culturally sensitive, help each other out. And even, you know, me talking to a lot of other, even sauce people, there's always this abundance mindset and we're trying not to be like crabs in a bucket. You mean growth mindset versus scarcity mindset when it comes to the economic pie? Yeah, and we're all nice to each other. Even if you have competing products, I know people who have the Asian hard-sellers who are still friendly with each other, even though they are technically in competition. Now that David Chang kind of feels like he's stepping out of the Asian-American community by doing this. Like he's like, well, you know, you guys aren't my responsibility. I'm just doing what I need to do. Maybe it was his legal team, but he's gonna take the heat for it. Right, right, right. I mean, some people were even in the comments section saying it's like, these guys weren't cool when they were young, like in middle school and high school. So they like, once they got their status, they want to like elevate themselves above the community or the Enclave communities that didn't make them feel cool. Like, you know, this is some psycho behavioral like teenage adolescence sort of thing. Yeah, sure, sure. You know, I mean, I think that he had an opportunity to kind of be a, maybe he didn't want it, but he had the opportunity to be kind of a leader in the Asian American space as far as brands go. And he kind of was, but he's not being like a benevolent leader. He's no longer a respected leader right now. And I know that Eddie Huang went through the same arc too. Like a lot of people saw him as fighting for Asians in the Western spaces, journalistic spaces, New York time spaces, HBO vice spaces that a lot of Asians weren't in, but then a lot of stories started arising that it's like when Eddie Huang's around other Asians, he tries to put himself up here and all other Asians down here, especially Asians, Enclave Asians, Asians who only know other Asians. Yeah, I really see that a lot. I'm not saying all, but I see that a lot from a lot of Asians who gain like mainstream kingship or night ship. Somebody said defending him that he was really just going after Trader Joe's, but here's the thing. He's giving C and D's to all the little guys. So it's not just coming after Trader Joe's. No, he's not just going after Trader Joe's. Their legal team is literally going after the little guys. A lot of people are saying, what is the deal with trying to trademark stuff from other types of Asians that you don't belong to, Andrew? What is the rule around like you're Korean, you name your thing Japanese, you're trying to trademark Chinese names, is that okay or should you stay in your lane or where are the lines drawn? Man, if you start drawing lines, then like certain chefs can't serve different food, right? Or is it more of the trademark thing, right? Because there's a sense that if you trademark it, right? You, no one else can make it. Now, if we trademark Smala, that makes sense because that's such a specific name. I'm not, I'm not trademarking chili oil. Andrew, you're not from Sichuan. But what is Smala? That's a made up word. We made that word up. But you're Cantonese. You cannot even take the Mala flavors. That's true. We should have said it in a Cantonese term. But I think that I don't know if I can draw a line specifically for other Asians appropriating or trademarking other Asian stuff. I just know that there's gonna be backlash and that you deserve backlash if you're gonna pull a move like this. Yeah, I think that here's the thing. I think any Asian can cook any other Asians food, but just call it what it is. Like you show it the respect. Don't rename things. I remember in New York, like Taiwanese Shave Snow got renamed New York Shave Snow because people didn't wanna accredit Taiwanese people. I didn't like that. My old thing is like, you know, cause David Chang has a reputation for this. He called them Mo Mo Fuku Buns, but they're actually just guabaos from Taiwan or Hunan or wherever you wanna attribute it to the original source. He was probably trying to, but like I'm saying that it's like, I just am saying like, I get it. White people, they don't know a lot. The Western world doesn't know a lot about the East, but we shouldn't take that as an opportunity to try to dominate the Asian-American narratives. Like we, we should have a growth mindset. We should share. And I hope that David Chang tells his team to retract this request. Even though I get that they do have some case for it cause technically they use crunch and Lao Gan Ma wasn't using word crunch. You guys let us know what you think about this. Down below, do you feel any type of way he is? They are sending cease and desist letters. Basically those letters mean that telling you to stop using the phrase chili crunch if you have it in your brand and on your product right now threatening legal action. It's like a warning letter pretty much. So let us know how unfair is this? It is legal, technically I think for them to do it, but it's definitely not cool and it's kind of divisive. I'll say this, David Chang, I think he's like in his 40s. I don't know if he's 50 or not. The younger Asians, I feel like they feel like more with the growth mindset and not just like oh, I'm the first people to bring this to the whites. You know what I mean? I think the younger generation is not thinking on that. That's an older generation thing. I will tell you this. Anybody from the Momofuku team that is watching, people are trying to boycott your products right now. So I don't know if it's really gonna affect your bottom line. But we don't care because we only care about what white people think. We don't care. Mainstream market, you guys aren't mainstream. Not part of the voter block. All right everybody, let us know what you think in the comments down below. Foodie controversy, trademark controversy, Momofuku controversy, chili crunch controversy. All right everybody, until next time, we are the hot pop boys and until next time, peace.