Holy crap, has it been five years already? It sure has. Five years ago Christmas weekend, 8Asians.com was launched. I KNOW, RIGHT? That means that over the next couple of days, we’re going to focus on some well-deserved navel gazing and reflect on some 8Asians posts we’ve written over the past half a decade or so that you may have missed.
Here are eight posts that 8Asians readers have found “controversial” – things that have made you guys angry, caused large groups of commenters to scream at each other (or in the case of one commenter, quit commenting permanently) or just generally take that warm fuzzy feeling that you get after a hug and kick it in the nuts. Read our curated list after the jump!
1. Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal (2007)
“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. It’s like Jeeves, the ask.com butler and Uncle Ben had a stereotypical illegitimate Asian son.”
2. Racist Superbowl Ads Written By an Asian (2008)
“According to an article published in late December 2007, “Salesgenie.com Ready to Reclaim Crown as Super Bowl’s ‘Worst Ad’ Champion” the copywriter and creator of the concepts for these ads were none other than Vinod (Vin) Gupta, the founder of SalesGenie. For the record, Mr. Gupta is of Indian descent, hailing from Uttar Pradesh. So for everyone who is up in arms and asking “Who could be this insensitive and racist?” The answer is: one of our own is responsible for this.”
3. Is a Tall Geeky White Man My Ideal Mate? (2009)
“Needless to say, those nice and geeky characters I enjoyed on screen have turned this gal, who always thought she’d marry Asian, into a gal who desires a tall, geeky, white man to replace the tall, burly Asian man of her daydreams. But it makes me wonder… does this make me a traitor?”
4. Who’s Afraid of Being “So Asian?” (2011)
“I’m at this function with the one other Asian female. At a point in the conversation, my fellow Asian sister said something that I thought sounded very typical Asian, in a good way, too, mind you, so I gleefully exclaimed, “That’s so Asian!” Rather than laugh in acknowledgment, she looked horrified. […] She narrowed her eyes and glared at me with a “How could you!?” expression, like I had just aired her dirty laundry in public. Honey, I wanted to say to her, They already see that you’re Asian.”
5. An Open Letter to Alexandra Wallace, Ranting UCLA Girl (2011)
“I want to let you know that I am not going to call you a bitch, whore, or slut as many of my colleagues are doing. Because that’s degrading as hell. Nor do I think you need to expelled from UCLA. Nor do I think your rant is hate speech. And do I believe that it is just for people to post your contact information up for all the world to see? Hell no. But I DO have a few words to say.”
6. A Nativist View on Immigration Reform (2011)
“For some reason to be involved in Asian American jurisprudence is to dabble in immigration law. And as much as I wish they would not, these immigration cases put dents in my nativist views.”
7. Open Letter to Shiuan Butler, Author of the Petition Against 8Asians & Sexism (2011)
“I shouldn’t have to say this, but Koji’s response is to use humor to acknowledge that — like most heterosexual males — he likes breasts. Although the majority of 8Asians’ readers read Koji’s article and found it funny– almost 60% of our readers clicked “laughing” on Moodthingy for that post– it is evident that Ms. Butler did not find this amusing.”
8. An Affirmative Action Plan for the Interracial Dating Disparity (2011)
“So what do we do about this, this [Interacial Relationship] disparity? Well folks, what has America always done to counter the effects of discrimination, benefit an underrepresented group, and fix a disparate impact? Affirmative action, baby!”
