By Leroy Tran
You’ve probably seen some Asian stereotypes.
Wearing Stussy, going to Seaside Bakery, attending UC Irvine, raves, boba — it’s believed that these things are common or popular among the new generation of Asian Americans. Maybe you’re familiar with the more historical and overtly racist stereotypes: getting good grades, being good at math, having certain features, racial uniformity and bad driving. Most importantly, you may know about the model minority myth: the idea that all Asians are successful.
You may have heard these because, even if we don’t like to acknowledge it, racism is rampant. People aren’t being held accountable for their underlying biases, especially on social media—not just in our peers, but in the people we watch.
In recent years, Asian American content creators have taken to exploiting historical or contemporary stereotypes about Asian Americans to keep the attention of viewers. Given the advent of short-form content, using stereotypes to draw in viewers is more volatile than ever.
However, given the susceptibility of viewers to the ideas in short-form content, they are playing a crucial role in the expansion of the stereotyping of Asian Americans.
In general, Asian American content creators have an ethical responsibility as representatives of the Asian American diaspora to create content that doesn’t create generalized perceptions of Asians. Yet, we increasingly see Asian American content creators perpetuate Asian stereotypes.
Take for example this video with over 2.4 million views by TikTok creator Bo Xu, under the TikTok handle bomiiao. In it, he uses various Asian stereotypes for comedic purposes. Although in a comedic context, Xu’s video is still a medium to communicate Asian stereotypes to a wide audience. Through this video, viewers are enabled to engage with the content in an unintended way and begin incorporating these stereotypes into their beliefs.
Of course, content creators are not responsible for how a viewer interacts with their content; however, they are still indirectly accountable for contributing to the propagation of Asian stereotypes. People will inevitably begin to take in the information and spew it elsewhere, to the detriment of Asian Americans everywhere.
As an Asian American, I will admit, the video is funny. Asian Americans, and any other minority group, should be allowed to joke about their experiences. But to reiterate, the comedic value of the content does not outweigh the potential social harm that can arise. As consumers of online content, we fail to recognize the effects of content on our biases, and content creators similarly fail to recognize that their content may affect people’s biases.
Asian American content creators need to do better. The same goes for other content creators too. We can’t undo all our efforts to find a place in this harsh society by posting about Seaside Bakery.