There’s this group of Gen Z YouTubers I’ve become fascinated with. There are four of them, and they’re all Asian (actually three of them are half/part Asian, just like me!)
Every Wednesday I tune in and watch Kelly and Ashley’s videos. I admit I’m more invested in the two of them because they’ve strategically been planting a relationship arc over the past few months.
This is the future I fantasized about as a teen: they’re out there, living their lives and sharing every piece, including their Asian-ness which I spent too much time trying to distract everyone from growing up. Who would I be if these kids were active on YouTube when I was in high school?
The Asians I watched in high school and college are Natalie Tran, Tabi Eats, and Michelle Pham. I was so infatuated with Natalie’s accent, it made me obsessed with Australia. I’d trust Shinichi and Satoshi, the couple behind Tabi Eats, to pick everything I eat for the rest of my life. Michelle Phan’s makeup transformations blew my mind.
I guess the difference is it feels like when I was growing up, YouTube was all about skits and comedy, or very service-driven. YouTubers dabbled in vlogging but it wasn’t their main thing. Now there are all these people who just hang out online, sharing the intimate parts of their lives, and people flock to their individuality.
Another famous half Asian girl is best dressed—also named Ashley. She hasn’t posted on YouTube in over a year and has made IG her primary platform. I think what happened was, someone found out where she lived based on a video she posted on YouTube and stalked her. She had to move. This might've happened multiple times. She seems to have pivoted to modeling / influencing on IG quite nicely. She does not share very much else about her life anymore.
In college for my sculpture thesis, desperate for something new to show my advisor in a lull of creativity, I spent a late night using the green screen feature in Photo Booth, rambling on to the camera, dissociating more every minute I spent staring at myself. The artist is showing vulnerability in the facade and fragmentation of the digital space.
I presented the videos to my 70-something year old advisor and he simply said “looks like what young people are doing on YouTube.” No other comment or feedback. My advisor was the most intimidating to many of my peers because of his pregnant pauses and bluntness. His main tactic was asking a very flat “why?” in response to work. There were two ways to respond to that: blubber on like an idiot, making it explicitly clear that you never thought about the “why”, or give a response with enough confidence and forethought that effectively means “because I said so.”
I had nothing to say about my green screen videos and I certainly don’t have anything to say about them now. But I’m glad Ashley and Kelly are racking in that sweet, sweet YouTube ad revenue and falling in love.