Asian American culture has long been ill-defined, stereotyped and viewed in the shadow of whiteness. But a new generation coming of age on TikTok is putting their heritage on full display — and going viral for it.
It’s a new era in Asian America, and the TikTok generation is running it.
“They’re moving through the world in a way where they don’t feel like they have to explain themselves,” said Christine Bacareza Balance, the director of the Asian American studies department at Cornell University. “There’s an enjoyment of being Asian American.” Digital communities began to form, giving birth to new kinds of stars. Facebook pages like Subtle Asian Traits made space for mutual recognition; middle schoolers who were the only Asians in their towns could now log on and talk to thousands of others. Filmmakers like Wong Fu Productions, which made Asian-centric short films, took their work to YouTube.“There were no longer gatekeepers. You no longer had to wait for Hollywood to greenlight you,” Balance said.
“There were group chats, not just for Asian people, but also just anyone nonwhite on Twitter, because sometimes Twitter felt very white,” he said. “That kind of helped develop my consciousness a little bit more around race.” Storytellers, comedians and musicians weave culture into their content in ways that feel implicit and natural, young people said. There are Asian people who show off their daily routines in Los Angeles and New York and others who live woodland fantasies.
“Especially with younger people I talk to, there’s not really that issue of ‘Oh, I want to see someone that looks like me,’” he said. “To be honest, when I hear that sentence, I think the person might be 35-plus.” Clad head to toe in an ornate South Indian blouse and skirt, she films herself doing ancient traditional steps to the beats of Beyoncé and Apollo Fresh. The video she’s recording will drop to an audience of 350,000. Views and likes often hit the millions.Growing up in her white suburb, she never really felt the need to hide her culture. But she remembers being teased by her white peers once when she performed Bharatanatyam for them.
TikTok is really bringing all these cultures together that don’t know about each other, and we’re learning without having to be baby-spoon-fed."For Sheth, that means not forcing herself in either direction. In her fashion content, she often wrestles with whether she should be leaning into her Indian identity more. But ultimately, she wants her work to feel authentic to her.
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