2007 was a big year for 8Asians.com – and when we say a “big” year, we actually mean our very first year as a website. As the year is about to end, we figured it would be fun to take a look at the year behind us and list the most popular posts of this year. To do this, we calculated some statistics: Permalink views, Homepage Views, Comments, Pingbacks and Trackbacks. What you find to be the most popular posts of the year may surprise you. Or maybe not.
8. When White Standards Are Still The Measure of Asian Beauty
Why do feminist activists in the Black community scorn some Black women’s desire to bleach their skin, reduce the size of their nose, and buy hair extensions? Because it represents the internalization of the aspiration to be more acceptable by white standards, the very standard that had them exploited and subjugated for centuries. Likewise, Asian women who apply a white standard of beauty to themselves are cheapening the struggles of their ancestors who fought against Western Imperialism.
7. Congressman David Wu Highlight on The Daily Show
Congressman David Wu, the only Chinese-American in Congress, makes a quip about Vulcans and Klingons on the congress floor. Jon Stewart to the rescue! Also, John’s very first post to 8Asians.com.
6. Why Asian Girls Go For White Guys
A friend (who happens to be Caucasian guy and married to an Asian American girl) asked if there really are more interracial couples than intra-racial couples out there. “Asian guys complain about all this interracial dating, but is it really all that common? Or are they just noticing the few interracial couples out there and making a big thing out of it?”
If there was an award for “most troll comments contributed to a blog post,” this post would win, hands down.
5. Push To Achieve Tied to Deception
Vong’s article cites a number of anecdotes about the heavy academic demands of Asian immigrant parents. “For the bulk of Asian parents it is all about succeeding, and there is no middle ground.” “Oftentimes Asian immigrant parents don’t know how to give positive reinforcement or show their kids that it is OK to make mistakes.”
4. Rosie O’Donell Sees The Light
[Beau Sia’s video on YouTube] was perhaps the most well articulated response I’ve ever seen – EVER. I mean, most responses to inappropriate comments are usually done with a knee-jerk reaction, filled with anger, crying for blood and lack the insight needed to make the uninformed party informed. Beau, on the other hand, did it in such a way everyone had to respect him for it. Not only did he understand his responsibility in this issue, he actually did something about it. He was articulate, well-informed and above all, he got through to Rosie.
3. Hizashi no Naka no Rairu
Once upon a time, Min Jung posts a blog entry about a Japanese porn video game for the Nintendo DS. Min Jung also leaves a link to a torrent on it, oh, and an image. This blog entry single handedly gets most of our traffic from Google and requests on how to download torrents and get them working for their Nintendo DS. Dear Google readers: I DON’T KNOW.
2. Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal
I mean, being an engineer in the web industry, I’m sure it has some of the standard features that make a social bookmarking portal interesting and relevant, but seriously, who were the branding and advertising geniuses that came up with this one? I mean sure, it’s based in Germany, which is practically a whole world away. Maybe people aren’t as sensitive to political correctness as they are here in North America. But seriously, one of their web badges has the slogan “ping pong, king kong, Mister Wong.” Which I, of course, interpret as “ching chong, Mister Wong” and get INCREDIBLY FUCKING ANGRY.
The fallout from this post was crazy – the CEO of Mister Wong eventually took down their mascot, leading to angry commenter’s from their users accusing American Political Correctness and posts to Spiegel Online and Newsweek. It wasn’t the most popular post from a stats perspective, but took the highest toll from me.
1. Virginia Tech Gunman Allegedly Asian Man
8Asians.com isn’t a breaking news blog – never has been, never will – but when a shooting broke out at Virginia Tech, Joz was able to not only learn that the gunman was Asian American, but was able to learn that an early circulating photograph of VT Police arresting an Asian newspaper photographer wasn’t the killer.
