“Is that Kina Grannis?”
“You know who Kina Grannis is?”
The Daughter was looking at a video of Kina Grannis, and she was really surprised I knew her. She was surprised not only because most teenagers think that their parents don’t know anything, but also because she didn’t think I would know about an artist that wasn’t so mainstream. I was surprised (pleasantly) too. When I was a kid, there were no Asian-American musicians or performers that we could watch, or at least none that we would want to be caught watching or listening to. Now I find my own kids are looking at Asian and Asian-American artists without any pushing or lectures about being Asian-American from their Dad. That being the case, I thought I’d provide brief snapshot of the kind of things that some Asian-American kids (mine) are looking at on the Internet. I can’t say that they are representative of all Asian-American kids, but for the most part, they hear about these from their friends who are Asian-American.
A few days ago I saw The Daughter looking at local indie band April Chase, a local (to San Jose) band that one of her friends pointed out to her. I like their music and have never heard of them before. Guess I should read ChannelAPA more!
Number One Son watches K-Pop videos like this one from Super Junior:
He says that he and some of his friends try to copy their dance moves. I should put Number One Son onto Pop88, although as he is a teenager, I think he might just go and do the opposite. He recently has been spending time looking at videos of Naruto manga like this one. That’s right, he watches videos of books! I suppose I should be happy that he is at least reading something.
Number Two son tends to just watch Pokemon videos. That’s pretty much all he does that’s Asian or Asian-American on the Internet, but I’ll keep track of what he (and his siblings look at), and I may do another update if I see them watching anything particularly interesting.
