Asian American social networkers make their presence felt

INTERESTING STATS, eh?

The graphic above, from pollster Nielsen suggests that the typical social media user is a mid-20s Asian woman who graduated from college, has a pretty good income and most likely, is a Red Sox fan. (I think if the same poll was taken today, it would show that she is a fan of the Giants or Golden State Warriors.)

In June 2012, the PEW Research Center issued a report on the use of social media among ethnic groups. "Their" ethnic groups were Whites, Latinos and Blacks.

This caused an uproar among Asian Americans who felt they were slighted. "What about us?" they asked. PEW explained that Asian Americans were difficult to poll because of our great diversity and languages and beside, Asian Americans -- all 17.3 million of us -- didn't make up a big enough ethnic group to be significant.

Not significant? Reduced to insignificance again! Well, that riled up the AAPI community again.

The following three paragraphs is what I imagined happened within PEW's office -- and keep in mind I'm making this up:

The response from the Asian/American community hit a nerve and in order to compensate that particularly vocal minority -- from academicians to ordinary Tweeters and Vimeo users -- PEW staff decided to do another study of the Asian American community. That report, titled "The Rise of Asian Americans," which conjures up an "invasion", came out later in 2012 covering the usual categories of where we live, family income, out-of-race marriage, etc.

PEW researchers were probably surprised at the response. Here they thought they were doing something good to appease its Asian/American critics and all they got in response was ... more criticism! 

Now they were being criticized for portraying the the Asian/Americans as well-educated, better than average income, loyal Americans, strong family ties -- in other words, the data presented reinforced the stereotype of the "model minority," an image that I and millions of other "average" Asians have had a hell of a time correcting.

The criticism apparently hit a chord (again) and in 2013, PEW updated the report to include data from other Asian groups and emphasized the poverty and lower test scores for some of the Asian groups.

I don't think PEW will put "insignificant numbers" and "Asian Americans" in the same sentence again, especially in regards to use of the Internet and social media. Therefore, it would seem, Asian/Americans should be included in any study regarding the Internet or social media.

Other polls have come out indicating Asians' use of social media goes beyond their numbers in the United States. If you go to to some social media sites such as Yelp, Twitter, etc. simply judging by the photos of the users, you will see the preponderance of Asian participants.

RELATED: Asian/Americans love the Internet, social media

When the TV show "How I Met Your Mother," recently aired an episode where its white actors donned yellow-face, the social media response was swift and heavy as Asian Americans flexed their new-found virtual muscles. It wasn't long before the show's producers issued an apology.

The online outcry that occurred when Asians were made the butt of offensive jokes at the 2016 Oscar telecast rallied people in the entertainment industry to express their disappointment which eventually led to an apology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts.

RELATED: Chris Rock went one joke too many during the Oscars

Despite its apparent flaws, I found the PEW report interesting for the important information that they presented. It may be the closest thing we have of a researcher's acknowledgement that Asians are part of this American stew and although small in numbers, the influence of Asian/ Americans goes beyond their numbers. Business, political consultants, marketers and policy makers need to keep this in mind when viewing the data.

PEW's response indicates that a lesson was learned. America is not just a black-and-white world and the country's perception -- and the world's perception, for that matter -- of what an American looks like needs to be broadened beyond the broad brushstrokes used by traditional mainstream media,

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