8A Blogger Goes Recon at Asian Ave

Mike posted about presidential candidate Obama having a profile page on Asian Avenue, which now goes by Asian Ave, and that prompted me to sign up for an account. Not because I support Obama as President, but because I used to have an Asian Avenue account in high school and wanted to see how the site may or may not have evolved in 10 years. So I register with the alias I always use when I go undercover: Paroxya. (I suppose now I have to think up a new alias…) I debated whether to post a profile photo of my cat or me, and went with an overexposed photo of me where you can’t see my face.

After an hour of checking out hot Asian chics (I would have checked out hot Asian dudes, but there weren’t any), I tired of the site and logged out. That was the end of that, I thought.

Then today, almost a week after signing up, I logged in to change the e-mail settings (spam from Asian Ave flooded by inbox in torrents all week long) only to find a load of friend requests from precisely the kind of men (or boys) that your prejudiced presumptions would lead you to credit as the kind of men (or boys) that would message random females on the Internet. You know: The kind that snap lopsided photos in the bathroom of themselves half-nude and send you notes that begin with “Hey baby! You’re looking mighty foine…”

6 days of complete inactivity on my part accrued 15 notes, 3 virtual gifts, 23 friends (I bulk-accepted the first 23 and then ignored the subsequent 20), and 117 hits to a page that had nothing more than a shoddy photo and miscellaneous facts like I’m female, residing in California, and a Libra. Apparently that’s all any of these men need to know. Not a single female bothered to contact me, though. Guess I’m unattractive stuff to the Asian lesbians.

I even had Mike log in as “Paroxya” to check it out. He commented, “you sure have a lot of young Asian boys as friends,” then proceeded to point and laugh at me. The profile page clearly listed my age, which was like a decade older than most of them. Are teenage Asian boys these days fetishizing over older women? No, seriously.

Asian Ave now has a professional network. I searched the network for “attorney” and found 2 listings. I tried “lawyer” and found 1, a white-haired white dude whose tagline is “self-employed.” For a site catering to the model minority (which should mean lots of lawyers up in there) with over 1.4 million members, you’d think there would be more than 3 legal professionals, one of them not even Asian.

As for the 15 notes mating calls in my Asian Ave message box, they were absolutely fascinating. Like, what girl wouldn’t stumble over herself to reply? “Hit me up sweet thang and show me some luv” intrigued me, though I did not write back due to a fear he may not have the right characterization of me. Sweet thang? I’m about as sweet as sour grapes. Others sent me an unsolicited litany of their hobbies and interests, e.g., “I like to meet new people and explore new places…Do you like to do these things, too?” No, I do not like to do these things, too. One of them really flattered me, complimenting my very nice face…only…you can’t see my face in that picture. Oy. All of the notes received implied some level of amorous interchange.

Thus, although Asian Ave has a separate dating network, I cannot seem to figure out the difference between the dating network and the regular one.

I will say, however, that single Asian men looking for a good time should definitely sign up for Asian Ave. There, you can find lots and lots and lots of hot chics who seem ready and willing. I recommend listing your college degree information and using the tagline “I have money.”

Many of these hot Asian chics have babies, though. That would be another mystery to me: these young women clearly have children to attend to, and yet they’re posting dozens of photos of themselves scantily clad at night clubs. I know many women with children and you know what they look like? Exhausted and no makeup on, hair disheveled, and wearing loose jumpsuits with a baby pack slung over their shoulders. And they haven’t seen the inside of a night club in years.

The overwhelming majority of men and women on Asian Ave have not or not yet pursued higher education, it seems. I came across a lot of 30-year-olds with high school diplomas. There’s nothing wrong with that, except if I happened to be 30 years old with only a high school diploma, I’d be out working, not surfing Asian Ave.

Have I noticed any difference in 10 years? Well, back then I recall most of the members I came across were college-age individuals in college. 10 years later at Asian Ave, I only come across college-age individuals not in college, probably because the college-age individuals in college are on Facebook.

Any utility at all in Asian Ave’s existence? If you ever need to dispel the model minority myth to someone, point them to that site and…wait… so that’s where they got the stereotype that Asians are all thugs and hoochie mamas…