[Weekly Update] April 19th, 2020

Wow, a lot of new faces this week. Thank you all for the support! I hope you find the extra content here satisfactory.

If you wish your name in the video credit to be different than your Patreon user name, please contact me or leave a common below.

Without further ado, here is this week's update:

ABOUT THE CHANNEL

• Our Ip Man 4 video turns out to be a attention grabber in more ways than one. Not only did the view count sky rocketed in the first 3 days, the comment count is 5 times that of the channel average.
• Disappointingly, I have never seen so much justification on racism, not even on our "Asians in Hollywood" video. Yes, people genuinely believes racism is an acceptable, if not, a good thing.
• Conversely, I have also never received so many heartfelt fan messages in my life. There are people who worried about my emotional state (I'm doing better, thank you!), and also many individuals came forward and tell us how the video affected them, many overseas Chinese, Chinese Expats, Indians who live in a ethnically diverse area, and mix-race individuals.
• Of course, there are many civilized discussion in the comment section, too. It's not all black and white.
• The final take away is: Judging by the current Like to Dislike ratio of 96.9%, those who justifies racism is but a vocal minority.

• On a lighter subject, next episode, we'll leave Asia again, and talk about something much more light-hearted. I think we all need a bit of levity.
• The channel is almost about to hit 100k sub. Should we do some sort of special video or events to celebrate? Leave a comment below and let's talk about it.

BEHIND THE SCENE

• Last update, I said due to time, I cut out about half of the script that focuses on my personal experience. Turns out that's a good decision. What looks to be a 10 minute script turns into a 15 minute beast.
• But also, judging by the comments, people really hate when you bring up the victim card in discussion about racism.
• However, everyone here have decided to directly financially support this channel. So, I think it's only fair to let you see what I wrote.
• I understand if you don't agree with me on my points, because this is not your usual essay analysis. This is just my on personal interpretation, and I wrote them with the intention of starting a discussion.

• So originally, the script for this episode is about internalized racism. The lack of racial diversity and education on the subject matter leads to many Chinese people feel very comfortable at being... racist, towards others but even themselves.
• Over past year in this channel, there is one group and only one group of people who consistently criticized my accent...
• My fellow Chinese.
• Now, most people to bring up the topic of accent were very polite, fans of the channel. They wish me well, and they want to see my English improve.
• There are also some flatly calls my accent annoying, and to those people: Trust me buddy, I hate it more than you do.
• Regardless of the intention, however, they all have an unintended subtext.
• That my accent is somehow... Not proper.

• There is a percieved insider good accent, and outsider bad accent
• Indian English is also a native English, and so is Nigerian English
• But nevertheless, they are percieved as outsider accents, they are not proper
• There is an illusion of control over your accent
• Like criticizing a streamer for being ugly, or a comedian for being fat
• You can put on makeups, you can lose weight, but it adds an extra burden to people
• If top actors in Hollywood couldn't do accents (looking at you, Nick Cage), It's only natural I couldn't either.
• That's internalized racism.

I think I mentioned this a few times when replying to people in our channel: Donnie Yen is a real inspiration for me, and the reason I started this channel. Not because of his movies, or his Kung Fu.

It is because he speaks with his accent in Rogue One with such confidence, he makes it sound cool. He owns it. He embraces it. And he is better because of it.

So, thank you for the concern. I will continue to improve my pronunciation (which, admittedly is a problem), but accent is not going to be a priority.

Grammar on the other hand... Yes, I know I'm bad at that. I'm sorry ;p