COMMODIFICATION WORKSHOP On Wednesday, April 11, 2001, Eric and I were invited to speak at UC Irvine's student center as part of Asian Pacific Islander Month. Other advertised panelists included Leela Lee (who does Angry Little Asian Girl) and an editor from another Asian-related magazine, but neither showed up for reasons that are unclear. No problem, since we filled up the hour and a half easily on our own. The theme handed to us was "Pop Culture and Commodification." What exactly is commodification? We define it as selling something without caring about it or giving back to it. The organizers probably expected us to rag on The Man, pointing our fingers at Urban Outfitters for selling shirts with random Asian characters on it and Jack in the Box for selling weak Jackie Chan toys. Instead, we focused on how one can be commodified, giving examples of ways Asians sell themselves and their culture out. Then we suggested other ways to go. We arranged the hour-and-a-half session around the outline that follows. There were a lot of random ideas and spontaneous examples thrown in--and some of it was left out, too--but you get the idea. You'll have to trust that it was conversational, energetic, and funny. Have some Korean food before reading this and kick back with boba tea afterwards, and you'll feel like you were there. EIGHT STEPS TO COMMODIFICATION 1. FOLLOW THE LEADER--EVEN IF HE OR SHE SUCKS Drive car with the same accessories listen to the same booty music, wear the same clothes, and have the same haircut as everyone else. Get a tattoo of an Asian character even though you donıt know what it means. If you really care about these things, really like the haircut and clothes, then it's fine. It's when things (such as Asian culture) are treated as trends that it's not cool. What we think: Try to change things up even when you're successful. We're been reviewing food, candy, etc. for years now. Now everyone has been trying to do that (but they're never quite as good). Last issue, we reviewed Asian-American haircuts instead. Likewise, we've been covering a lot of Japanese artists (Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo NaraŠ) so we added a Hong Kong artist, Michael Lau. It's not enough to be consistent; you have to get better consistently. Repetition sucks. It turns you into a caricature. On a somewhat related note: This drunken white girl was spouting off Pizzicato 5 lines to us in Boston once. Her boy-toy came up and she blew him off: "I'm busy talking to these Japanese boys now. You're Vietnamese; you're dirty." Obviously, this is problematic. 2. CELEBRATE MEDIOCRITY Admire Asian bit actors from lousy movies and say they're good. Hold up Asian bass players from overexposed bands, rap posers, and other crumbs from the mainstream and mainstream wannabes. Buy weak magazines just because Asians made it. Even if they put a star on a cover with no text about him or her inside, worship anime even though a lot of it sucks, and writes about Hong Kong movies that came out 10 years ago Be excited when a major network takes the Monkey King and makes it so a white guy steals the goddesses' heart and saves China. Supporting junk helps no one. You have to promote stuff that's good and make stuff that's good as well. What we think: Even when GR just started, we didn't see it as a throwaway. It was small but it was good shit. We tried to give as much info as possible to be a resource, not a babbling book. If you're over 25 and still making a staple-and-fold photocopied rag, you should be shot. The idea is to take things that are mundane or studied-to-death and find a different angle to it that no one's thought of. And take things that seem irrelevant and take them seriously. 3. BECOME A JACK-OFF OF ALL TRADES (TO PARAPHRASE JOE ESCALANTE) Do a lot of lot of things and be good at none of them. Be distracted from your mission in business, academia, your campus organization, Bible study group, or frat, or whatnot by making t-shirts, hosting parties and other extracurricular, or whatever. Do things like sell girlie calendars and host Web sites that will offend most of your so-called readers. Allow your real goal to be obscured and have fun or profit by becoming innocuous and pointless. By going through the motions, you become someone who makes useless junk instead of products that have any meaning. Whatever you do, donıt get distracted by the unimportant stuff. Remember what makes you unique and emphasize that. What we think: At GR, we have a great Web site and store, cool clothes, and a lot more, but we never forget that the magazine is what gives the other parts identity. For us, anyone can make a cool shirt or sell great stuff on the Web. No one else has been able to create magazine content like we have. (And our design is solid and great, too.) 4. BE A GROOVE-DIGGER. People like to exert the least amount of energy possible and just go into autopilot, but that's often the wrong thing to do. It's so much easier NOT to change things even when theyıre fucked up--like if you're in a bad relationship. Same thing for your academic life, personal life, or professional life. An example in academics or writing in general: Don't do research. Do lousy interviews by phone or email. Quote other people. Have no original ideas or information. An example in life: Go to the same places time after time even if you don't like them. See crappy movies then complain about them over and over. Go to clubs or bars just to do it. Go into in repetition. You have to think about why you are doing things. You have to care about what youıre doing. What we think: At GR, we keep trying to get better. How did we go from being a staple-and-fold with a local circulation of 200 to having an international circulation of 40,000? By raising the bar in every way. From advertising to writing to layout, everything is a process. We are never done. Search out new things. 5. GO SUPER-ASIAN Buy only cell phones, televisions, cars, and other items of Asian descent. Pride yourself in having only Asian friends. Make excuses for actors, businesspeople, athletes, and others who are Asian if they suck. As in, "The acting in that movie was weak, but I give props to my Asian brother who made it." Subscribe to any magazine that's for Asians even if they are irrelevant or short on content. Preach Asian superiority even though youıve never even been there. There are Asian pride kids who learn shit, and try to apply it everywhere. For what reason? It's like that jail rape scene in American History X. Life doesn't work that way. Tell others how to live and not do it yourself. Preach bullshit. Become a nonsense-babbling product. Just because it's Asian, doesn't mean something's good. That applies to people as well as products. And what about the Killing Fields, sweatshops, mail-order brides, Japanese Occupation, foot binding, gangsters, Sanrio's black Sambo, and Kia cars? There are lots of fucked up things about Asia. What we think: An analogy: Only an idiot lives in Los Angeles but doesn't eat Mexican food, Ethiopian food, or Cuban foodŠ And only a fool eats bad yuke. Being more-Asian-than-thou just leads to incestuous ideas and disastrous results. You just have to be critical in everything you do (and not just book reports). 6. KNOW IT ALL This is an extension of the more-Asian-than-thou: telling other Asian people the right way to be Asian. Every now and then, we get zines from students who have just discovered their Asian roots. The articles will include Hello Kitty (pro or con), pho, Filipino DJs, Hong Kong movies, Seam, and the Mountain Brothers. That's okay, because we like all of this stuff, too. But acting judgmental and superior--often calling us sell-outs-- when we covered the same exact material years ago is not smooth. Judging people for wearing Nikes, being punk rock, or liking hockey. No one has the right to judge someone else's Asian-ness. When you raise yourself so high above others, everything seems like it's commodified‹even when it's not. What we think: We get a lot of people telling us that they like our honesty when we write about topics. We don't pretend to be "the voice of Asian America." When we write articles, we're often learning about their subject matter for the first time. Actually, that's what keeps it fun for us. 7. BE A FAME WHORE (PROPS TO JON MORITSUGU) Expect people to do your scrub work. Be too good to drive a reasonable distance to do things for free (like this). Just try to meet famous people without intending to write an excellent article about it (and waste everybody's time). Being more concerned about having a good picture or having your name mentioned in a GR article Come into a situation wanting to be the star writer or designer, but not make mail runs or go to the copy shop. Culture is not about a single person; it's shared by a group of people. Once it's down to one individual, it's just a personal ad. What we think:. We dump our own trash and still hand-deliver magazines to local shops. None of us is bigger than the magazine--which has become its own subculture. 8. BUY YOUR WAY IN Become Asian by renting Hong Kong movies, playing Bust-a-Move, and hanging out at the boba shop. Get dim sum in Monterey Park, sushi on Sawtelle, soondeboo in K-Town, and pho in Westminster. And drive there in your lowered Honda. All this is cool, but culture is made not bought. You donıt just buy your way. Culture must be created as well as consumed; itıs a living, changing thing and not a product. What we think: Giant Robot doesn't merely report on what's popular. We find things that others forget and overlook. We look ahead for the next things. What we make and the angles we take give back to culture, and don't just rip it off and sell it. CONCLUSION People who sell Asian culture just to be trendy will leave when the next trend comes along. They will be filtered out. We will still be here. Don't just consume culture; create it.