Philanthropy YouTube Style

“Maybe we can see Kevjumba!”

The Daughter was excited about that possibility of meeting the YouTube star Kevin Wu as we neared U.C. Davis.    I had a meeting there with a graduate student who I collaborate with on research, and since the Daughter was thinking about our fearless leader’s Alma mater as a prospective college, I brought her along.  She was disappointed when I told her that the possibility of meeting Kevjumba would be zero, because as he points out in this video, he’s back home for the summer.  What’s interesting about that video is that it isn’t in his usual channel kevjumba, but it’s in a new channel called the JumbaFund where all of his YouTube proceeds for that channel go to a charity of the viewers’ choice.

We talked before about the lack of Asians in the mainstream media and stereotyping of those who are there.  We have also talked about young Asian-Americans are using social media and sites like YouTube that enable them to create works that include and speak to them.  The results from the JumbaFund channel show that this new generation is really making some headway and getting some clout, at least financially.  Kevjumba is making some serious money for a college student.  May proceeds for the JumbaFund channel were $1708.  Given that his regular channel (kevjumba) has almost 3 times the number of subscribers, if you extrapolate the number of subscribers to income as a guestimate, he is pulling in $5K a month.  There are other estimates that says he is making even more than that.  It’s great to see him share some of his wealth with charity.  The charity that got the most votes in May was St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.  College students didn’t make that kind of money or engage in philanthropy on that scale when I was an undergrad.

The Daughter liked U.C. Davis and is seriously considering it.  As you can see in the Jumba fund video embedded above, U.C. Davis has Asian American Studies classes, with guest lecturers like Kevjumba.  I wish my university had Asian American studies courses when I was an undergrad.  Sadly, it still doesn’t, more than 20 years after I graduated.  As you can see at 2:52, U.C. Davis has girls getting freaky in class.  My university never had that when I was an undergrad!