Buzzfeed: Asian/Americans mimic vanity Fair has nothing on Asian/Americans

Asian/American Buzzfeed video producers mimicked Vanity Fair's Hollywood cover.

YOU KNOW those iconic Vanity Fair covers this time of year? Academy Awards time? The Hollywood covers usually feature a bunch of movie stars in full makeup, hair perfectly coiffed and dressed to the nines. They look fabulous and other worldly.

The covers are folded over so that the beautiful people can be extended over two or three standard magazine pages.

The Vanity Fair covers also set standards of beauty that are impossible to attain for the average Joe and Jane. And if you're of Asian descent, the covers just remind you how Hollywood still doesn't consider Asians or Asian/Americans for leading roles.

Last year, in the second year of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the cover featured the women who are considered at the top of their game in the acting world. In the sensitive times we live in, the magazine editors thought it important to show diversity.  The pull-out cover featured Viola Davis, Lupita Nyong’o and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The inclusion of three black actresses is a welcome nod to diversity and a far better cover than in 2010 when the contentious cover featured all young, white ingenues. It should be noted that the last time Vanity Fair had a black woman on its cover it was 1999.

Perhaps we should thank Vanity Fair for realizing it is 2017 and acknowledging the demographic changes occurring in the country. But it took 18 years for black women to return to the Vanity Fair cover.

And where were the Latinas? And, where, oh, where were the Asians?

Our Buzzfeed friends recently did a John Cho (remember last year when #StarringJohnCho went viral featured the actor in various movie posters of hit movies demonstrating that an Asian could easily have played all those roles). 

Meet the 'glamorous' Buzzfeed employees

The irreverent band of 22 Asian/American video producers at Buzzfeed put aside their  usual street attire of hoodies and skinny jeans and dressed themselves up, got made up, and their hair styled to create their own version of the Vanity Fair photo shoot as a visual commentary of that mainstream magazine's lack understanding what constitutes  real diversity.

They looked absolutely fabulous!

Why does this matter? If beauty is in the mind of the beholder, the minds of readers are being subtly brainwashed when they see an influential magazine cover of mostly white good-looking people (with a token sprinkling of beautiful black people). In defining who is beautiful, Vanity Fair editors need to get out of their limos open up their eyes when they walk through New York City's streets.  In one of the world's most inclusive cities, they will see beauty in all hues and races.

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Do European/Americans get too stressed out when talking about race?

From a BuzzFeed video.

DON'T BE too hard on your European/American coworkers or classmates. Life is getting more uncomfortable for them as they find it nearly impossible to not interact with people of color in our changing America.

As the Black Lives Matter movement, the political rhetoric of the presidential candidates,  the attacks against Muslims, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia and the attempts to use the Model Minority Myth against other people of color clearly demonstrates - race is still a dividing line in America.

The lens through which we People of Color (POC) see the world is dramatically different from the way European/Americans see the world.

While European/Americans may find it difficult to talk about race, that is a topic most of us are all too familiar with since we deal with it every day. EVERY DAY! 

Racism has taken a different form from the days of lynchings and cross-burnings that spurred the Civil Rights Movement.

In our country's discourse, racism is still defined as a matter of individual, intentional and overt action. If there isn’t a noose hanging, many people will not identify an action as being racist, even if it results in racial disparities. Redefining racism as something that is often systemic, unconscious and hidden is a reboot that all Americans need right now, whatever their age.

The brilliant satirist Molly Ivins said: ‘The second George Bush was born on third base but believes he hit a triple.’ In the same vein, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's father gave him $1 million to start his career and the Donald believes he's a self-made man.. That gets to the heart of what white privilege is all about, Bush, Trump and many folks in the top 1 percent are people who achieved their status in life and believe it’s solely because they have sacrificed and worked hard.

it may be too easy to dump on Euro/Americans in retaliation for all the slights and microaggressions heaped upon you as you were growing up, you might unwittingly push them into a self-defensive corner.

As this video from our friends at BuzzFeed demonstrates, not sharing the experiences of POC, even the most well-intentioned EA's - many of whom we call our friends - get tense and awkward about the topic or race. They may be reluctant to join the race conversation, you shouldn't avoid it either when the topic arises. It is important that they understand your perspective if you want your friendship to flower or professional relationship to prosper.

When is the best time for that conversation on race? It could be anytime or anywhere. Drinks after work, at a friend's party, during a video game, at a pizza joint or in the classroom. Your EA friend/corworker/classmate should feel honored that you trust them enough to include them with the thoughts we have been taught to keep to ourselves.

When the forbidden race topic comes up, try hard not to get defensive or too combative, says Derald Wing Sue, a psychology and education professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and author of “Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence.”and “Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation,”

“Most whites get defensive – ‘Oh no, you are just over-sensitive. You are reading something into it,” Sue says. “Entertain a possibility that the individual bringing up the observation, complaint or a problematic situation may be accurate. Don’t shut it off immediately by denouncing it because it is not within your consciousness."

When people say that they are "color-blind" in their relationships, they are missing the point. The color of my skin helped define who we are. If someone doesn't see the tone of our skin, they are not seeing us.

People of color shouldn’t let themselves off the hook, either, says Sue. Consider how you might respond to the earnest efforts of whites you know by asking questions and allowing them to be human, too. “Committing blunders is okay if we learn from them. When you commit a racial blunder, it’s how you recover, not how you cover up. ... I try to communicate that we are all good, moral, decent individuals. I don’t see you personally as the antagonist or the enemy. ... You weren’t born wanting to be a racist. ... You took this on, through a painful process of conditioning, just like I as a person of color have been culturally conditioned in ways that have been harmful to me. . . . We need to work together to overcome these shackles of cultural conditioning.”

We are all human and we all have our own personal biases based on our own personal experiences and the environment in which we were raised. Maybe admitting that is Step One.

For more news about Asian/Americans and Pacific Islanders, link to AsAm News.

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BuzzFeed beefs up its Filipino content

TWO RECENT hires by BuzzFeed gives you an idea why that site is so popular with Asians, Asian/Americans and other minorities.

Last month, Advertising Age, noted BuzzFeed's successful strategy of targeting ethnic groups with their very specific content:

"Asian-Americans have quietly overtaken Hispanics as the fastest-growing multicultural segment in the U.S., albeit from a much smaller base, and brands are taking notice. Combined with the fact that the median household income for Asian-Americans surpasses that of the total U.S. median income by 28%, you have a highly lucrative segment that demands to be courted.

"By publishing content aimed at specific ethnic groups such as "22 Signs You Grew up With Immigrant Chinese Parents" and "21 Annoying Comments Filipinos Are Tired of Hearing," BuzzFeed has become a destination for Asian-American voices that are fresh, funny and truthful." In order to make that strategy work, BuzzFeed knew it had to create relevant content.

In 2013, while in college, Matt Ortile started out as an editorial fellow and summer staff writer for BuzzFeed. He was given free rein to talk about his Filipino identity.

Matt Ortile

Today, Ortile, at the ripe, old age of 23, has been given the role of Buzzfeed Philippines editor.

"It's quite casual, but it's been a lot of fun producing Filipino content for Filipino audiences," he said.

But for Ortile, writing BuzzFeed Philippines  #Asianallows him to stay close to his Filipino roots.

"How I dealt with being someone of color, someone who is gay, it was just really sticking to what I knew -- finding a home in that, really learning to love that part of myself," he added.

A week before Ortile's appointment, BuzzFeed hired Meredith Talusan as its first openly transgender writer assigned to write about issues concerning that community.

EDITOR'S NOTE: In earlier versions of this post, a picture of Manish Dayal was misidentified as Matt Ortile. We apologize for the error and any confusion it may have caused.

"My goal is to examine transgender issues for BuzzFeed in dynamic and multifaceted ways," Talusan told The Huffington Post. "I think BuzzFeed is an amazing fit because they also publish in many genres, and I'm really excited to see how I can utilize as many of them as I can to give readers a really deep picture of what it means to be trans in the U.S. and the world today, while still finding ways to have fun."

Talusan, whose background is in academic and creative writing, said she believes in tackling serious issues with a certain level of humor -- what she calls "balancing social commitment with self-care."

BuzzFeed LGBT Editor Shannon Keating told HuffPost:

Meredith Talusan

"Meredith's particular worldview — as someone who grew up in the Philippines, as an academic, as a trans woman well-connected to the world of trans advocacy — will enable her to take on a wide variety of projects," Keating said.

The Philippines is a viral heaven for BuzzFeed. While only 4 out of 10 Filipinos are internet users, the Philippines ranks No. 1, with 6.3 hours, when it comes to the number of hours spent using the internet per day. The U.S. ranks 12th.

When it comes to number of hours spent on social media daily, the Philippines is tied with Argentina for the top spot.

Buzzfeed's Philippine-related stories have gone viral, many reaching more than a million hits.

"Anytime a Filipino topic comes up on a global platform, one of the first comments will always be, I'm proud to be Pinoy right? You can't help but feel so happy and proud to see your motherland on a huge, huge global stage," Ortile said.

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