We Need To Talk About ABGs in 2022 | Fung Bros

Should people leave the term ABG alone and stop trying to redefine it? Or is just anything Asian American not serious? So just call it whatever you want. What's going on, everybody? It's the Hot Pop Boys, David and Andrew here. We are talking about the term ABG and the potential redefinition of it. And if we continue to redefine that term ABG, does that mean that we just want to keep diluting our unique Asian American culture? Oh my, ABG is like the only word that people use, guys. If we keep redefining it, we just won't have anything. All right, so this was sparked by this viral meme on Your Everyday Asian. It has four different types of ABGs. It says, which type of ABG are you? Asian baby girl, Asian boss girl, Asian Bible girl, and Asian boba girl. Obviously, the traditional one is Asian baby girl. Now, we got to talk about why people want to keep redefining ABG and why people want their own ABG meaning for their own identity. And I do sympathize a lot with Asian females, where they just don't have as many different representations in the media. Obviously, white women, you could be like Megan Fox. You could be like Kim K. Whereas it's like for Asian women, are you a private school theatrical girl like Cassandra Oh? Or are you a loud hipster girl like Ali Wong and Awkwafina? And then you don't have a queen ABG that penetrated mainstream media to help you define a girl that's from an ethnic enclave. I have some reasons on why I think ABG is still such a used term. Here's the thing. It's the only AZN term that has standed the test of time. It's almost like the Air Force One. Reason number one why ABG has stuck around is one, it implies that you are Asian American. Not from Asia, but you're Asian American. Number two, it implies that you're kind of a desired woman from your group. So whether you're an Asian Bible girl, Asian boba girl, you are like the cute desirable girl at church. I like to use Asian Bible girl as an example because it's like the farthest thing from the original ABG. The most ridiculous re-appropriation of the term. Right, but Asian Bible girl would be like, yeah, well, like I wanted my own Bible churchy term to be part of the Asian American vocab. Real quick, guys, I just want to go through this meme because I reposted this on Instagram and it actually got a ton of shares. Asian baby girl. This is the traditional definition. They use Gina Darling. You know, we've made a video about this in the past and basically, you know, it's shifted over time to just be a look. But originally it was girlfriends of gangsters. Yes, just like the word Chola is meant for Latina girls of gangsters. And a lot of people don't know, Andrew, the Chola was actually a lot of really smart people believe that was the original inspiration for the Asian baby girl in 93. Moving on, number two, Andrew, probably the biggest rival to the Asian baby girl is the Asian boss girl. And this was started probably from an entirely different group of Asian women who were not ABGs at all. Like they weren't graduating from ABGs and then became boss girls. It's really just meant for like the yappy career minded. You know, they're probably educated in college and they went on to do business. Maybe they're entrepreneurial. But either way, their calendars are filled up and they're very productive. I will say this, though. I think that Asian boss girls still go to Asian clubs. They might not go to the same Asian clubs that the ABGs are going to. But I think they still like themselves in all Asian social environment. And I think Asian boba girl and then Asian Bible girl, they're done as like a little bit more like parodies almost. Now, I do want to go back to Asian boss girl real quick. If we keep diluting ABG, the original meaning, then are we just diluting other Asian American terms? Because we should probably have a set dictionary definition of things. Because what happens is that the professional, the yappy women, which yappy is actually a term you can use. They kind of, I don't know, maybe appropriated or repurpose this term from a different group of women and then use it for their own kind of professional term. Right. You're saying that if ABGs came from a certain set of experiences that like Taiwanese girls don't generally go through, for example, and Taiwanese girls come up with Asian boss girl, and let's say Viet or Lao girls came up with ABGs or were the first group of ABGs, then it's a little bit like they don't have the right to reappropriate. And of course, this is just a silly Asian American term. Maybe it's just a free for all. Maybe that's how it should be. I'm asking you guys, I want to see your feedback in the comments down below, whether you think the ABG term should be protected to its original meaning, or now it's just this abbreviation that can just mean literally anything. I think you have to take a look at other communities. For example, African American community have terms, These are things that are generally only make sense within that ethnic enclave, right? That world. Tita, in Hawaii, it's a term for like a brash Polynesian woman of large stature. Snow Bunny, Southern Belle, indicating, you know, a girl in Denver. Jap, not the derogatory term for Japanese Americans. I'm talking about Jewish American princess. That's a term that only sort of like in the Jewish American world, they use people outside of that world. No idea what they're talking about. But since ABG just says Asian baby girl, that kind of left the umbrella meaning very open, which it could encompass all types of Asian women. So if you want to state Asian baby gangster, like it was in 1993, then it would be less, it would be more concrete and less fluid. Yeah, maybe because then you couldn't say Asian business gangster because that wouldn't really make sense. Or like you could, but it really wouldn't. You'd have to be really ruthless that business to make that logically make sense. If you look at like Southern Belle, Andrew, that definition has never shifted to include Kim Kardashian. That's like very trendy in 2022, but that can never be a Southern Belle because the Southern Belle obviously has a lot of movies and a lot of celebrities that sort of verify and solidify that archetype. In some sense, we have to just let terms be the terms that they've been for like 20 years. Right, even though like the word fob, a lot of people kind of disagree whether we should still use that term. It does have a meaning and that meaning does not change. You cannot redefine fob. It means you weren't born in America, basically. Yeah, but you're not redefining that term. Right. It means what it means. If we want Asian American culture to continue and build up and we want to build up this dictionary of Asian American terms, then we cannot keep redefining ABG. As silly as this sounds and as maybe over serious as you think I'm taking this, we probably can't do that. So many Asian American words, Andrew, in the past 30 years have like come in vogue and gone out of vogue, whether that's AZN. I still like that word, but a lot of people think you're outdated for using it. And then I remember Phil Wang, he was coming up with something for second gen Asian Americans, ASN. So we would just say ASIN instead of like Asian because Asian would be for people from Asia. It never took. You know what I mean? Ricer. Ricer's gone because most guys who used to drive souped up, JDM rice rocket cars are more like onto exotics now. So it's like, Dan, can any terms like just stick around? Because doesn't that make you feel like you're part of a zeitgeist instead of always looking back to Asia and referencing like UwU and anime and Naruto. Why do we always got to reference everything from Asia? Can we have anything of our own? Or is it just what it is? Because we're not like making a strong enough cultural push to develop our own identity that's not linked to the motherland. I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just trying to ask people, what's the plan? If these words from our Asian enclaves in America cannot stand to be unique, then what does that mean for the future of our unique Asian American culture? That's the question. All right, everybody, that wraps it up. Please let us know in the comments down below. Maybe nothing is to be held sacred. I don't know. Anyways, thank you so much for watching that. That is the hot pot boys, David and Andrew here. And until next time, we're out. Peace.