Did K-POP Help ALL Asian Men?

Asian guys finally get on, they finally get trendy, but then it just reinforces the unmasculine lack of testosterone feminine Asian male stereotypes. There's a lot of debate going on right now about whether the K-pop wave truly did positively impact all Asian guys in America or not. And that's because there's a portion of Asian men, of course, who do not fit that look naturally. And they're just like, kind of confused. They don't know how to feel about it. Yeah, this is kind of a trivial debate, kind of a serious debate. But you see it pop up on various platforms, Instagram, Reddit. So we're going to break it down and make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. There's two parts, Andrew. Number one, understanding that the K-pop look is probably more nuanced than people think. And point number two, what are the things to keep in mind if you are confused whether or not the K-pop wave helps you as a specific Asian male or not? Anyway, let's get into it, Andrew. Long story short, Andrew, I think there's two major misconceptions. One is that the K-wave or the Asian male wave of the last five, 10 years only includes K-pop because I don't think that's true. There's K-dramas. There's K-jocks, which is the physical 100. There's K-rap, which is more of a hip-hop look. There's like K a lot of things. And then number two, Andrew, I think there's a common misconception that only the Western world had like buff, really cool, like alpha Chad bros, like that the Western world never had this like more feminine side. Oh, no, no. Actually, especially when it comes to pop music, pop singers historically have always kind of been a little bit more feminine looking. And we're going to go down the list, guys. Look at this. So there's a lot of stars from Asia that are comparable to American stars, just because because the reason why is because a lot of Asian guys are thinking, like, dang it, Asian guys finally get on. They finally get trendy. But then it just reinforces the unmasculine lack of testosterone, feminine Asian male stereotypes with these feminine, soft singer guys. That's one side of it. Right. And that's the extreme, by the way. And then on the other side, the extreme is like, really, you think it's bad? Because for me, I look like K-pop. So it helped my life like 10x. So don't be mad just because you don't have to look, you know, I'm I'm killing it. It helped me. And of course, there's a lot of people in the middle. Moving on into this guy from TikTok went super viral. I believe he's a Japanese teenager and TikTok girls were going crazy over him. He looks very much like 2010. Where are you now, Justin Bieber? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think for his look, I could see a lot of different types of women, just non-Asian women also enjoying it. Right. And just like Bieber had a very universal appeal across a lot of races. Obviously, not every look is as like, you know, some are more universal looks for women and some are very niche looks. Moving on, Jungkook, Andrew, I tried to find a Western icon that he looked like and I was only able to come up with ultra young Nick Carter from Backstreet Boys. That's a good comparison. I would say G-Dragon and David Bowie, both kind of androgynous looking. Yeah. But both Prince as well. Right. Extremely popular. Harry Styles, Taeyang, Andrew Taeyang, the original Kevin Witten, aka the Kevin Kim, almost like more of a Western look for a guy from Asia. Like I literally thought when you just look at him, you just think he's from America. No, you look like an Asian-American with a little fauxhawk. Also, you mean the ultimate Lambda? Yeah, he looked like a Lambda. That's why he was so popular back then. And he looks like he looks like Tom Hardy because he has some ultra sharp features. But ultimately, the base is like more masculine. Tom Hardy's characters, obviously, that he plays in a lot of movies are a lot of like guys who shoot people or beat people up. Moving on, Andrew, Jimin. Jimin was hard to come up with. Or Jimin, I'm sorry, but I came up with 1980s Mickey Rourke. Oh, that's. But of course, Mickey Rourke always looked more like cigarette-y and more like edgy, but actually does feature for feature look like Jimin. Andrew, Park Seo-Joon looks sort of like you. And you sort of remind me of Eminem and the Professor and Tyler Hero. And weirdly enough, Andrew, you've been compared to Bill Maher. It depends on a haircut, man. I got more of like, you know, the low cut fade with the bangs. And it looks like a looks like the Professor haircut. And Will Young Lee, who actually was in a Mariah Carey video at one point, probably the biggest Asian hunk actor from like the late 1990s, even though I'm sure a lot of you guys watching this are not aware of him. Andrew, he actually reminds me of Johnny Depp. Yeah, he's kind of got that cool like beady eye look. Current top C-pop star Jackson Wang, who was obviously trained as a K-pop star originally, Andrew, looks like Chris Evans mixed with Amber Liu. Oh, interesting one. No, that makes sense, though. David, we got Jay Park here. Looks like one of our friends. Nelly Nell Chan from Hoopin' Life. And Nelly Nell Chan, interestingly enough, Andrew, looks a lot like Tyga. Yeah, Nell's got this in-between look. Well, Tyga is part Asian. He's a fourth Vietnamese. Basically, it kind of goes to show you that you can compare Asians to people from other worlds that were previously. David, David, let me talk about your comparisons over time. And this is throughout history on YouTube, where you've had some different looks, whatever. You have been compared to Jimmy Kimmel, OT Genesis and Channing Tatum. Yeah. I also got called Psy before. I'm not going to lie. But yeah. Hey, guys, I'll take Channing Tatum. Moving on. And by the way, I just got to, you know, I just got to get in better shape. Moving on to the second part of this video, Andrew. I think these are nuanced insights that a lot of people lose in the hole. Is K-pop good for Asian guys or not debate? I mean, the truth is and the quick answer is it is absolutely a net positive. Yeah. Now, obviously, it depends on how close you are to the blast zone. If you're like a Korean looking guy or you look like the K-pop guys and you're very close to it, well, it helps you more. You're going to feel it more. You're going to feel it maybe five, ten X times. While if you're on the outside, you're still going to benefit from the amount of eyeballs on Asian guys or just the increased thought of Asian men as a possible option. And then maybe women or the attention or men or women, whatever you're looking for, they would be like more interested in all types of Asian guys. Yeah. I remember even in college, my first girlfriend, I remember I went to her spot and she had like rain posters up, seven posters up, Vanessa Wu from F4. But David, you don't look like those guys at all, but it kind of goes to show you the general mind and like westward wind that the mindset is into. So actually, like we said, Andrew. Yeah, of course, people close to the blast zone, they get the most affected. But people on the sides and the tertiary of the wave still get impacted. Andrew, different types of girls like different types of guys, right? Every car buyer is different in terms of what they're looking for from a car. There's the charming boyish K-pop look. There's the physical 100 look. There's the K-drama gritty cigarette. I had a tough life look from a thriller. There's the Asian-American G.I. Joe look, which is more like Kevin Crider and our friend Jack Liang. And so there's a lot of different sides of Asian male archetypes. Yeah. What you got to give it up to the Korean media companies like they're producing so much content and they're actually including a lot of different types of looks now physical 100. I think if you watch the show, some of those guys still kind of just look like beefed up kind of K-drama guys. However, I will still say like some of them have more stocky looks, you know, and you would also look at like if you feel like you're like a bigger Asian guy and you're lacking some role models, you do have to look at Asian athletes like Su Bingtan or there's this one Olympian, a winter Olympian. I forgot his name. Young, young soon. I'll post it up. I always looked at Shohei Ohtani because Shohei Ohtani was like a big, beefy Asian dude, too, because I was like, yeah, man. Yeah, it's a show. They are out there. But of course, I would understand that they're not necessarily being pegged as like the heartthrobs. I guess what people could see more of is some of these beefy guys get into the romantic roles because really you want to see your type of man, your type of face be seen as romantic. That's key. So, yes, I think that's one thing that could be increased in the future. Also, I think a big part of about that plays the K-pop look lane or not is like ultimately, like, can you fit it right? There is some things where it's like if you're like a transformer, Autobot and you're trying to pick yourself to be a car, right? Because the girls, let's say, for example, in this analogy are the car buyers. What cars can you realistically even transform into as your Autobot robot? Yeah. And I think for this to happen, sometimes a lot of Asian guys are like, oh, well, I don't see my type of image out there. There's no representation. There's no representation. You got to dig a little bit deeper. There's a lot of different stars from all over the world, especially Asia. You got to expand it and look at Asia, because obviously we know Asian male representation in America. While getting better, it's still not the full spectrum. Hey, I've been looking at a lot of those famous Mongolian wrestlers, man. If you're a truck, Andrew, let's just say, for example, keep let's not break from the analogy. If you're a truck of a guy, maybe think about not just liking the girls who like the two door Maserati coupes. Yeah, I mean, this is comes down to the type of woman that you're looking for, like for an Asian guy, right? Like you, it will be tough if you only want like K-pop girls, because generally K-pop girls will generally like that. Look now, I'm not saying not all. Not a hundred out of a hundred, but a lot. Not all K-pop fans. And I would say even a lot of K-pop fans don't necessarily want to date BTS. Right. You're saying whatever posters they have on their like metaphorical wall does not necessarily represent who they date. Yeah, dude. I mean, I mean, dude, listen, people are still like realistic at the end of the day. Andrew, last but not least, this guy left and this was the Indian comment from one of the forums said, man, racial stereotypes affect everybody, not just guys who have a perceived lack of masculinity, which is obviously probably the East Asian male problem. But all Asian males in general to different extents. This guy said Indian guys have big beards and people still sometimes have stereotypes about them. Or Arab guys are stereotypes as masculine. And some people still have stereotypes against them. Yeah, that's true. I would say stereotypically that, yeah, I mean, a lot of like brown guys, they they're never really called like feminine. I think that's not really their issue. They look like girls because they have generally a lot of facial hair. Yeah, that is not womanly looking. The more facial hair you have, generally the more like masculinity you are considered having. But so they're not they're not emasculated as much. But then they're still not considered always that hot or attractive. I mean, they're still considered niche products, right? Theoretically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I guess that a brown guys and yellow guys can definitely share in that aspect of being like both being like, hey, man, what's up with that? Yeah. So these are a lot of ways to just reframe the discussion from that classic binary. Oh, yeah. Was K-pop good for us or bad for us? Because it's like, dude, it's way more complicated than that. Ultimately, Andrew, right? This comment said K-pop is overall a plus, but it just isn't everything that Asian men need. Guys, I think that one thing you have to realize, and I'll keep saying this in multiple videos because I don't care because it's true. Now is the best time to be an Asian guy. Even with everything that happened, even with the geopolitics that are going on literally in America, it is the best time to be an Asian guy. So you have to like like soak it in, you know, like you're still if you're still leaving messages on this Reddit board or having these discussions, you're probably not fully securing yourself. You're maybe not married with children as much. I mean, I'm sure even married guys still can have this conversation, but they just don't care as much because their life is already set. So I'm saying like if you're if you're of the age and you're single enough to still care about these issues that much and all you want to do is talk about it, you have to understand that you could be spending a lot of your energy looking for different role models, looking to better yourself and really soaking in the moment. I would say whether or not your particular archetype is at the crest of the wave or considered the best of the wave, you're still happy there's a wave because a wave is still movement and momentum. But yeah, obviously, let's acknowledge where you're positioning on the actual wave itself for sure has an impact. Of course, of course it is. And I'm not saying everybody can you can't. Not everybody can be an eight out of ten, no matter how hard they try. Just that's the fact. But but a lot of people, you can always use all the knowledge, all the role models, all the the community that people have and give yourself a shot. You know, I would say just in general, humans really need role models in different lanes, though. That's one thing I've realized. I don't know if it's a uniquely American thing, but I think it's just a human thing. If you look at the African-American community, Andrew, the number of like you could be like Virgil R.I.P. You can be like Earl, the sweatshirt and Tyler, the creator. These childish Gambino people that were considered super odd. I know that there's a lot of black influencers on the Instagram now that are real estate guys, even stock guys. They're creating new archetypes that didn't exist even five, 10, 15 years ago for their community. And one thing, Andrew, would you agree with me? Humans do like prebuilt paths that they can walk upon. Dude, I think the easiest way to improve yourself is you just see something that a role model does and then you just copy that. Like everybody does it. But when we were somebody's got to be the pioneer, though. Yeah, somebody's got to forge before you knew what a role model was or what a superstar was or a celebrity was. You were copying your father. You were copying your brother, your older cousin, whatever it was. You were copying somebody. You were copying, I don't know, maybe something you saw in an anime. And that's my final takeaway, Andrew. As important as these macro media narratives are, even more important is IRL. I think that that's one aspect that's heavily overlooked. Whether people have their shaping as a guy from their father or their uncles on how to be a man, Andrew, sometimes women have their shaping of also what they see to be a man in their formative years in their household. So yeah. So anyways, guys, we're going to leave it right here. Let us know in the comments down below any thoughts that you have or advice that you have or tips that you have to Asian guys who do not fit the K-pop role. Maybe they're very far from that look, that typical K-pop look, but maybe they look more like Physical 100. Maybe they look a little bit more like a K-drama star. Maybe they look like a Korean comedian. Whatever it is like, what are some thoughts or advice that you might have for Asian guys out there? Because I think there's always post from Asian guys. And it's happened for years, a decade already now, where they're always like wondering, like, hey, is it better for us now? Yeah, and I do know, I do, by the way, I'm acknowledging this video was a little bit more East Asian centric. Let us know if you want us to do a Southeast Asian one. We're bringing a special guest. Until next time, we're the Hot Pop Boys. Let us know in the comments section below. We out. Peace.