Asian Fetish / Yellow Fever
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About
Asian Fetish, also commonly known as "Yellow Fever", is defined as sexualised objectification or stereotypization towards people of East Asian and South East Asian descent. As a debated and analyzed phenomenon, widely considered to be problematic, it is associated in meme culture with captioned images of WMAF couples or of Caucasian and Asian males and females trying to capitalize on fetishism.
Origin
The possibile origin of Asian fetishism is likely grounded in countries like the United States, where women of East Asian descent are often stereotyped as as submissive, passive and quiet via Orientalist tropes.[1][2][3][4] Asian fetishism is a subject often brought up by Asian-Americans and Asian diaspora, with an almost unanimous negative view of it.[5][6][7][8][9] The term “yellow fever” comes from the afterword to the 1988 play M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, the writer of the play. The term “yellow fever” is a derogatory pun on the disease of the same name. While most commonly associated with East Asian females, East Asian males (Koreans, in particular) are also subjects of fetishization.[10][11][12][13]
Spread
Discourse and online debates about Asian fetishism, are often represented via comics and vignettes, usually spread by news outlets and independent blogs. On June 25th, 2013, The Japan Times published an article titled "'Yellow fever' and the fantasy of the Asian female"[14] written by instructor and cross-cultural communication consultant Nicolas Gattig, which had a vignette (drew by Adam Paison) depicting an African-American and a Japanese woman dining together while visualizing each others as stereotypes of their own cultures (shown below, left). On November 6th, 2019, the Japanese American Citizen League published on Medium an article titled "Yellow Fever, Asian Fetishes, and Sexual Violence",[15] with a pyramid graphic (shown below, right). The article received over 90 claps in 2 years.
Another Meduim article, by Bridget Nam, titled "Dear White Guys: Your Asian Fetish is Showing"[16] showcased an artwork by Hannah Kang that depicted Asian females as exotic food being eaten with chopsticks (shown, below).
Examples of classic memes about "Yellow Fever" were collected by meme websites such as Quickmeme and Memes Monkey,[17][18][19] consisting majorly of Impact Font captioned images (examples shown, below).
An article published on January 6th, 2018, by the New York Times accused the alt-right of having an Asian fetish, pointing out that various white nationalist or former white nationalists had Asian female partners or were formerly in relationships with Asian females.[20] However, white supremacist and alt-right cartoonists such as A. Wyatt Mann, Hedgewik and (more subtly) StoneToss, all commonly displayed sentiment against miscenation towards East Asians in their comics[21][22][23] (examples shown, below).
Filipino-American cartoonist Joshua Luna also published a comic about the subject, called RECONCILASIAN. On April 10th, 2018, American writer Jennifer de Guzman criticized RECONCILIASIAN, commenting that Luna went out of line, as the comic implied that Asian women's preference towards white men was participating in white supremacy [24] (shown, below).
On March 2nd, 2020, American actor Nicolas Cage caught the attention of Korean netizens, as highlighted by the website AllKpop, while walking around with his Japanese wife Riko Shibata, his third consecutive wife of East Asian descent[25] (shown, below).
On YouTube
On January 29th, 2010, Wong Fu Productions uploaded a video titled "Yellow Fever – (2006) Re-Release Official", being a re-upload of their original skit released in January 2006. The video received over 970,000 views and 15,000 likes in 11 years.
On February 4th, 2016, Wong Fu Productions uploaded "Yellow Fever 2" with a more modern take of their original video released 10 years prior. The video received over 2,600,000 views and 56,000 likes in 5 years.
On July 27th, 2014, Anna Akana uploaded a video titled "Why Guys Like Asian Girls" towards the topic of Asian female fetishization. The video received over 6,400,000 views and 146,000 likes in 7 years.
On September 2nd, 2024, Joy Regullano uploaded a comedy skit called "White Fetish", in which she's playing as an Asian woman fetishizing a white guy. The video received over 1,200,000 views and 4,800 likes in 7 years.
A sequel to the skit was uploaded on November 6th, 2014, titled "White Fetish 2 – His Apartment" and received over 215,000 views and 1,300 likes in 7 years.
On December 23rd, 2018, Apri Park uploaded a video titled "The K-Pop Boy Fetish" discussing Korean male fetishization due to the popularity of K-pop. The video received over 320,000 views and 22,000 likes in 2 years.
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] Wikipedia – Asian fetish
[2] University of Pennsylvania – Made in the USA: Rewriting Images of the Asian Fetish
[3] Vox – The history of fetishizing Asian women in Orientalist tropes
[4] NPR – A Sociologist's View On The Hyper-Sexualization Of Asian Women In American Society
[5] The Boston Globe – He asked me if I wanted to date a board member: An Asian American grant writer on being treated like a commodity at work
[6] ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – Women subjected to racist and demeaning Asian fetishes on dating apps speak out
[7] Bergen Record – It was my shame: One NJ professor's struggle with the 'Asian fetish' stereotype
[8] Teen Vogue – Hollywood Played a Role in Hypersexualizing Asian Women
[9] Sydney Morning Herald – Because I am small and Asian, I am fetishised by some white men
[10] LiveJournal – I Love Korean Boys: The Problem of Fetishization
[11] KissAsian – The Most Disturbing Things About Koreaboos As Explained By Koreans
[12] South China Morning Post – BTS fans defend K-pop band after YouTube star Ethan Klein brands their love for the band a fetish
[13] Affinity Magazine – The Rise of K-Pop and the Fetishization of Korean Men
[14] The Japan Times – Yellow fever and the fantasy of the Asian female
[15] Medium – Yellow Fever, Asian Fetishes, and Sexual Violence
[16] Medium – Dear White Guys: Your Asian Fetish is Showing
[17] Quickmeme – yellow fever memes
[18] Quickmeme – yellow fever memes
[19] Memes Monkey – Yellow Fever
[20] The New York Times – The Alt-Right's Asian Fetish
[21] r/VaushV – Weeaboo Stonetoss ripoff tries confusingly to say Asian racemix bad. This a sad for weebs.
[22] Benjamin Larsen – Benjamin E. Larsen blog
[24] Twitter – I’m sorry, Joshua, but this is out of line. Are you accusing Asian women who have relationships with non-Asian men of participating in white supremacy? We don’t owe Asian men relationships in return for them not being misogynists.
[25] AllKpop – Korean netizens comment on Nicholas Cage's Asian Fetish
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