0:00 thank you [Music] this is going to be a very special episode because I like special all we're gonna do is say congrats to Wong Fu for 20 years wow 20 years long 20 years man that's tight yeah so they started in 2003 wow yeah yes at UCSD huh what did you guys 2007 what was the first thing that you guys did with Wong Fu oh wait what was the first thing the first thing you collaborated on I don't think we actually collabed on a video have we however no they they had us on Asian Bachelor oh yeah yeah yeah we did that Steve was on
0:51 that yeah yeah you run that too no oh yeah I think so [Laughter] but I don't even remember I wait did they shoot Ryan's thing Ryan higa's um best crew thing were you guys a part of that uh no no wait they did uh girls on the dance not girls that's the first thing we do that's like Michael Jackson yeah we did this Far East Movement had a song called dance like Michael Jackson back in like 2000 I want to say seven or something something seven or eight and then uh Philip was I don't know if all of Wong Fu did it but I remember Philip was there and then that was the first time that we worked with them we did the music video for it it was like Quest Crew Far East Movement and Wong Fu like the three together yeah that was the first thing yeah I don't know I feel like we they they had us uh play a something in
1:43 whatever but just a bunch of like random I remember being in a music video with uh David Choi and KevJumba I forgot Ryan Higa was in it oh what was that that's the first time I saw Anthony in in person I think oh really I was like this fact I love to smoke cigarettes because he was fat and he just kept smoking he kept smoking cigarettes in between every ████ take I'm like damn dude you're supposed to stress the ████ out I think that's really that's what they do right that's really what you thought that then yeah man this is funny because you would never think that's Anthony yeah a fat smoker I was like that doesn't describe him at all my favorite is like uh when they have you know because they have Boba mofo yeah very nearby very good and now like um because these guys are always ripping
2:33 on uh Wong Fu like when I first came there'd be like jokes and ████ and then uh I think one time you were like saying that all right guys if any of you guys are in the area you need to take a ████ [Laughter] after we went there to I guess we got drinks there after one of the adventures the stinky tofu yeah like don't even go there for the drinks just you totally again you just clog it up it's very good really good I like their teeth because it's a spin on uh like Taiwanese food with like modern Fusion oh I didn't know so it's like it's like one of my favorite things they had up so they have like a bolo sandwich thing which is like a you know like the Bola bow and they make like a but they use like like the Nashville Fried Chicken in the middle that was crazy good I had
3:24 their uh like mapo tofu but instead of maputo it's like Maple tater tots so they did they'll take like Taiwanese things and spin it with American it was really really good my favorite thing was so they came out with the video uh recently kind of like commemorating their 20 years and even though you know how many people they've put on through the years you will still be like that's more than I thought like because they put it all in a row and you get to see just like everybody in there you know like uh like Kina Grannis like like a lot of people's introduction to so many of these Asian artists and actors honestly was Wong Fu like it's pretty it's pretty trippy like C moves on there of course you guys now uh you your own Asian Bachelor with them I think weren't we you did the first one I did the first oh okay I did the second one you did the first okay it's cool to see like that was like a reunion kind of
4:14 yeah that was cool like seeing everyone just wait yeah yeah also they they did Isa right which was so good like yeah and we performed that like a few isps there was nothing really during that time except for collaboration that brought Talent together in a community yeah even the ISA basketball games oh yeah oh that's them huh that was them the charity basketball events yeah they really did put a lot of like people on from that specific Community I don't know if it was Kev Jamba or them but then we all did a soccer game for charity event too yeah but no one watches soccer so yeah it's dope if you guys have have a moment like check it out it's just uh the video's like four minutes long but it just shows everybody enroll you just like remembered how uh how everything
5:05 looked back then like like seeing Kathy Nguyen in video and see dogs and like yeah just all them like seeing them in a row for the years even like Harry shroom and like just it just like really is a nice nostalgic dose they really did it for like the Asian American culture they do and they've stuck to it and that it's still like what they're about now yeah and they're seriously like you know how they're brand a nice guy right and it's like yeah right like are you really no it's like no no they genuinely are nice ████ people and like and um even though Ted went off to doing his own thing like every even like just individually they're like genuinely cool ass nice folks right yeah so this is I I this I mean as a fan like I'm just like I'm sad that like they're not all three
5:55 creating content all the time but I know like even for us we couldn't like for JK films right it's like YouTube making sketches and shorts and stuff like that like it's hard but they actually keep doing it yeah and they're one of the first ones I ever saw do you know like uh romantic like comedy or romantic uh things with like Asian Americans writing yeah good writing and like something you can kind of see yeah yeah that's why I was never casted I like that they they even put Victor Kim on like when um when they had that uh was it a way we oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah they they like gave him a shot and he wasn't like acting or anything but then uh they literally approached
6:46 him like Hey you want to be this character and that like changed his whole like thing like he would he really like got a big self-esteem Boost from that that they they um showed us like what was possible because we always get compared to them because there were only two kind of YouTube Asian film teams but then all we were doing was literally like oh Wong Fu did that cool and later on I found out from Phil that he was looking at JK like oh you guys are turning this into a business and I'm like you did this first really that's funny yeah like they um came out with the awkward animals and they're telling us like yeah merch is the way to go because during this time AdSense wasn't making a lot of money because we're we're just bootstrapping everything from AdSense and they're like you guys need to like do merch and stuff and we're like oh merge and then they
7:36 hooked us up with their connect and that's when we did the Uncle Sam hats oh wow I didn't know that yeah so the people that was making awkward animals you know helped us make some of our first merchandise and then we got into all that because that's like how you feed the art right you need business behind it so throughout the time that like it was like Wong Fu and you guys did you communicate a whole lot about just what you guys are all doing not really because it's funny that like from the outside like we would assume that because you guys are the people making ████ I just thought you guys were talking all the time I think we would talk for events and talk here and there but not like um business yeah not as like like us and David would talk way more yeah you know it's almost like we were like the two Neighbors on the street that talked a
8:26 lot I think it was just like we would talk whenever we ran into each other at events but I don't think we um like actually communicated out on a personal level oh wow yeah well like Phil will come through and we would collaborate and then it was always this mutual respect but I think like me personally I wasn't very business minded so it never went beyond like hey I like you let's hang out and then like just talk about normal ████ and I'll be like okay see you next time when I see you at an event or whatever right but then it never went beyond that yeah um but like I think it's because maybe I felt like they were always busy or like just you know subconsciously you think oh they're probably like I don't want to bother they're always not the same about you guys yeah whereas someone like David I'm like you ain't doing ████
9:17 get your ass over here let's go play basketball it's different we've had basketball games with Phil too we did though yeah you're right we used to play basketball here um when we had like a whole like uh like crew and staff probably two or three times a week and I knew Phil played basketball because of the ISA basketball and then I'd come he would come down and would go play yeah but I always felt grateful when um Phil would invite us to stuff because I know what he I knew what he was trying to do which is like build up like the whole Asian American culture and like have more presence so he didn't have to but he would always invite us to do like remember that one thing we shot at uh the Youtube studio and Playa del Rey oh yeah like like he would always like I would always feel him like try to craft this Asian American narrative and then in his brain I can almost feel like well it's not Asian
10:08 American narrative without the influence of JK so even when he wrote that book he wrote it with uh angry Asian man like kind of documenting the last 20 years like he put JK in it too so I would always felt like he like oh yeah JK has a huge impact like I'd always feel feel him try to pull us in which is really cool I think that's what people don't know about Wong Fu is like you might just enjoy their videos and content but they're actually like Community Builders like they build like like a whole platform so like and then they invite everybody because most people are like like I'm just trying to be famous myself or like I'm out here making films for myself right like us like we're not building a whole ████ show and inviting everybody to be a part of the variety show or whatever like everyone's just in their own game whereas Phil I think is like thinking
11:00 about how do you build an industry around this thing we have or like he thinks on a bigger kind of scale right yeah yeah so I think like that was the cool thing about it is when he's having he partnered up with like Facebook and like he would do things like that charity basketball event Isa whatever annually and he's always thinking about like how do you tie this and then build like a huge audience and then collaborate yeah and that's what I like loved about it is it's always this like collaborative like approach from them instead of like competitive yeah yeah yeah I felt like they were always really good at doing that and it was it was inspiring to like want to do the same thing with the same tone yeah yeah to be more like inclusive with everybody doing the same thing right yeah and I also think a lot of people don't have the capabilities that
11:51 they did of putting on an event even if they wanted to because we looked into the whole economics of it we wanted to get an auditorium and all that and then like they were able to get like a t they were able to get like major sponsors yeah and I think it's because the whole nice guy brand like they don't cuss like there's like it's brand friendly right when you're brand friendly you could pull bigger projects together because more people are willing to jump on board sure yeah over here we're talking about ████ rim jobs all day yeah and it's kind of hard to get a t jumping on board you know what I mean like Metro PCS Maybe Comedy Central maybe but then I always felt like uh the way that they were tying things together with mainstream
12:42 and then community building that was a big inspiration for me because I'm like oh ████ and then I'm like we can do that but the degenerate way [Laughter] sponsors that will yeah yeah it's like maybe Bangbus will sponsor us or like you know what I mean like we just we're trying to find our atnt that's actually a good idea you know it's funny because like like prepaid T-Mobile it's just like you said I think like the same thing happened to us when when we were like all doing the same uh Asian Americans in in independent entertainment Conquest we all thought everyone was so busy like the quest girl yeah everybody like I thought you guys are busy yeah like I was like you know what I'm not a hood hopping ████ so when I saw that Kev Jumba and Ryan Higa and the Yum Yum not
13:34 the Yum Yum crew but the yeah yeah and then they like you guys teamed up with questions yeah I was like all right that's that's their click in my head I'm like that's their that's that's their game it's just dietrich's victory but you guys were all purple yeah yeah that's your fault yeah well that's all that's purple right that you guys are you guys are the purple jackets the the ytf we wanted to create the WTF ah we got the what the ████ man because when they look at us they're like what the ████ I don't want Asian representation from this group we're not affiliated with that you guys are YouTube friends and then the what the ████ well see that's what's nice about Wong Fu is that no matter how much off the rails you went they always made sure to include you in the credits of like these guys did 100 I felt always Unworthy of the inclusion like being
14:25 included because I always felt like I didn't fit in with the normal rib drop guy I am I don't want to tank the brands that with your taint no because dude look at ISA awkward at like it's cute it's clean yeah what we did it was like bro come on man like that was not cute but at least for like a Asian like entertainment like we're all kind of in the same thing so we're still the same Community you're still representing it's just like a different Channel exactly yeah exactly one's the porn Channel and then the other ones Sesame Street yes and yeah yeah yeah congratulations 20 years holding down for Asian Community just everybody in general [Music]
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