Tag: racism

If life were wrestling, Stacey Abrams turns heel now

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I never wanted to be a person whose gave much concern over politics, but maybe it’s a symptom of getting older, or the world is just getting so progressively fucked up that people like me are organically becoming more aware of them, but I’ve found myself caring enough to the point where when the political season starts heating up, I feel the need to ignore everything, because I care, and I’m treating the whole thing like how I treat sports game that I’m vested in.

That being said, I can’t say that I’m the least bit surprised at the results of Georgia’s political battleground, namely the two key races that most people have been paying attention to.  Despite all of the available facts out there, Georgia unsurprisingly embarrassed themselves on a national stage, by having a legally brain-dead Hershel Walker garner so much voter support, that his deadlocked race against Raphael Warnock is now headed to a dreadful run-off race next month.

To my recollection, Democrats haven’t won a single run-off since I’ve lived here or paid any attention to, so instead of losing in November, Warnock seems destined to lose a bigger and more scrutinized race in December, because from what I can observe, the Democratic party can’t seem to put together a single winning strategy against the formulaic low-fruit smashing tactics of the GOP.

But the main point of this post is about Stacey Abrams, who lost for the second time to Yosemite Sam for governorship of Georgia.  I can’t say that I’m at all surprised by this outcome, but I was hoping that Sam’s bickering with the orange guy in 2020 would have done enough damage to him to where it might have shifted some voters to not vote for him, but when it really comes down to it, and the exit polls kind of confer, Stacey Abrams being both black and a female just makes it way too hard to overcome both racist and sexist reflexes of the Georgia voters that actually decided to vote.

According to census numbers, Georgia has about 7 million people who are of voting eligibility, but only about 4 million people actually voted.  Obviously, this isn’t to say that both Abrams and Warnock’s chances of victory would have been improved by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s still frustrating to learn that nearly 3 million people just didn’t vote at all.  If I’m a Hershel Walker supporter, I’m just as frustrated by this, seeing as how the margin of voters between Warnock is what’s sending this to a run-off in the first place.

Either way, to no surprise, Abrams is taking her loss with dignity and class, as was the case the first time around.  She vows to continue to fight for Georgians, and is saying all of the right things that those in the political career should be saying.  But honestly, if I’m Stacey Abrams, and life were actually professional wrestling, at this point I’m fucking sick of Georgians, tired of trying to win Georgia, and I’m turning heel on the state and vowing to move onto bigger and better things.

3 million motherfuckers not voting at all?  What’s the point of Fair Fight when there are a bunch of people who just don’t want to fight at all?  Twice now, Georgians have left Stacey down by not turning up to the polls, and she’s basically had to eat a shit sandwich twice over now.

Abrams is no stranger outside of Georgia too, as she was one of the names that was on the short list of potential Vice President candidates.  Who’s to say that after jobbing twice to Dutch Mantell that she just stops giving a fuck about Georgia and doesn’t move on to bigger and better opportunities in Washington? 

Frankly, I think it would tickle me delirious if Stacey Abrams were to go have a press conference on WSB to announce what she’s going to do next, and unleashing a scathing promo on the state of Georgia, that she’s sick and tired of trying to prop this sexist and racist backwater state up to civilized standards, and that she’s peaceing the fuck out of here, before dropping the mic.

As she gets down from the podium, a bunch of white rednecks in UGA sweatshirts are seen throwing Bud Light bottles and toilet paper rolls onto the stage, like a 1998 episode of WCW Monday Nitro.

At this point, I can’t say I’d blame her.

David Chang has apparently gone full Gusteau

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last week or so, I’ve been getting inundated with ads for David Chang’s (endorsed) air-dried noodles, which effectively has taken David Chang from being a well-known restauranteur and into the arena of an actual home cooking brand. 

I have this love-hate opinion of David Chang, because when I first heard of him, I thought he was this weeb that sold out his Korean heritage by opening a restaurant called Momofuku.  But then I learned that not only did he grow up in the same area I did in Virginia, one of my cousins has classes with him in high school, adding to the parallels I felt I had with him in this self-loathing manner.  But then I really did enjoy his first Netflix series, Ugly Delicious, because it was a well-produced series that had a lot of heart and soul in it.  But then anything he did afterward turned into this cringey star-fucking humblebrag, because of his increasing celebrity, so I’m mostly at this 60/40 scale of thinking he’s uncool, because anonymous people on the internet’s opinions totally matter.

Never mind that the product is about the whitest alternative to instant ramen there possibly could be, and their marketing pitch strategy that seems to think people are choosing to eat these 17¢ pucks of freeze dried noodles in pure salt water because they have a financial choice, and that “at ~$4 a meal” buying Momofuckyou air-dried noodles are a superior alternative.  Or that we’re supposed to believe that Chang himself was actually involved in “ten years of flavor research” when the guy is a few years older than I am, which would imply that he actually had any time at all in his early 30s to give a fuck about how to make a more white people friendly version of instant ramen.

It’s that by entering the world of producing DIY home cooking products, David Chang has basically turned into Gusteau from Ratatouille, spring-boarding his restaurant brand and celebrity status into a cheesy food brand.  Sure, it will in all likelihood make him richer beyond my capable dreams, but on the less-significant and internet coolness side of things, make him kind of a lame sell-out. 

Obviously I’m of the belief that such is always the goal of those who achieve fame, because securing the financial freedom for your family and possibly the generation(s) beyond you is always more important than what strangers think of you.  But I really wanted to make the comparison of David Chang to Gusteau, because it’s what I think he’s on the cusp of doing. 

Sure, Gusteau is dead [spoiler-alert] and it’s his crooked sous chef selling him out, but if Chang decides to go beyond noodles, and starts trying to sell DIY Indian food or soul food or Caribbean food, then he’s basically a real-life Korean Gusteau, worthy of having a series of tasteless cardboard cutouts of him wearing stereotypical garb of various nationalities.

Either way, I’m sure the internet and their endless parade of algorithms will know that I’ve got any opinion of David Chang at all, and when he inevitably releases Momofuckyou’s DIY chicken tikka masala, I’ll be ready and waiting to photoshop his head on Dhalsim’s body for an I-told-you-motherfuckers-so brog post.

Any team that wants to move a metric ton of merch needs to sign Steeve Ho You Fat

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today o’clock I learned that there is actually a guy on the planet Earth named “Steeve Ho You Fat.”  Normally, I’d criticize the fact that there appeared to be an extra E in “Steve,” but when your family name is somehow, “Ho You Fat,” his first name could’ve been spelled “Steeeeeevuh” and nobody would probably have noticed.

Like, I have no earthly idea how this is even possible.  The first line of defense is that “he’s French,” but obviously a name like Ho You Fat even raises eyebrows in the land of the frogs.  Digging a little deeper, it should seem obvious that French colonization probably had something to do with it, but from what I can glaze over, he’s of mixed descent and somehow has the name Ho You Fat as a family name.

Either way, the fact that he’s a 14-year veteran playing in the NBA G-League, it doesn’t seem likely that he’s ever going to get the call up to the big leagues any time soon. But honestly the fact that this guy’s name is a literal golden ticket to move a metric fuckton of merch in jerseys and shirseys should get this guy onto a roster for any team that wants to bank on his incredibly profitable name.

Seriously, he could easily be the 13th man on any NBA roster, the guy that’s always listed as being on injured reserve, or better yet, be the mascot player that only gets onto the court when the team is either up by 20 or down by 20 in the fourth quarter.  No matter if they’re at home or on the road, the crowd would undoubtedly erupt at the sight of Ho You Fat taking the court, and people in the crowd left and right would be whipping out their phones to check on the legitimacy of his name, and if they haven’t already, they’re purchasing merch with his name on it, or running to the clubhouse store and grabbing Ho You Fat gear off the shelves.

Considering most teams’ seasons are decidedly over by December, there’s absolutely no harm for any of these teams to take a flyer on Ho You Fat and just make a mission of making as much profit through merchandise sales as possible.  If you can’t win on the court, might as well try to win in the bank instead.

Anyone else feel this way too?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was inside a Target recently, mostly to admire #2’s prevalent presence in their baby section, and over the PA system, among the music that usually is tantamount to white noise, I was able to pick out the lyrics to Ricky Martin’s She Bangs.

The strangest thing to me, was the fact that it was actually Ricky Martin’s version of the song, and just how foreign and alien it sounded, hearing it for the first time in like, maybe 18 years.

Because in my head, when I think of She Bangs, the only version of the song I ever hear in my head is William Hung’s terrible rendition that he tried to audition on American Idol with.  In fact, while at Target, I was kind of awestruck at the simple fact that the lyrics actually continued past “looks like a flower but stings like a bee” because I practically expected there to be an interruption by Simon, Randy and Paula, except there wasn’t one, but instead a whole lot of unfamiliar lyrics.

It’s no secret that FOX and the internet gobbled all of William Hung up for making an ass out of himself on one of television’s most viewed programs, but in hindsight, Hung took it like a champion, and parlayed his abysmal appearance on Idol into all sorts of appearances and gigs afterward.  Given the crash and burn nature of so many Idol alum, I think it’s safe to say that in spite of everything, Hung still came out smelling a lot better than many who were probably a little bit more successful in the show than he was.

Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, She Bangs belongs to William Hung.  Anyone else feel this way too?

150+ years before the Game of Thrones… Westeros had Asians

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife and I went into House of the Dragon with the level of excitement of a DC Comics film and the expectations of, a DC Comics film (extremely low, if I have to explain).  As those kind of book snobs, we’re salty that George R.R. Martin has become the television writer I knew he was going to become, instead of writing any of the fucking books, that the television show blew past where they left off, in like season 4 of GoT.  But as inherent fans of the property we still are, we knew it was inevitable that we were going to watch it anyway.

Anyway, I’ll reserve heavy reviewing of the show until more of it has come out.  I’m still learning all the new faces and houses, and much like its predecessor, I’m sure I’d benefit from re-watching some shit at a later date to really absorb early occurrences.  Except that all the Targaryens are funny looking to me, because they’ve all got bright-ass hair, but unlike Daenerys and Viserys, they’re all kind of tanned-complexioned, which kind deviates from how most Targaryens are described.

Whatever though, the whole point of this post is really the marvelous realization that it only took an entire 8-season series and two episodes for an actual Asian man to get 3 seconds of screen time in a GoT property.  Yes, I know Jessica Henwick was one of the Sand Snakes, which is why I specified man, because when it comes to representation, Asian men obviously get the shaft when it comes time for everyone to become woke.

And not as an ambiguous and heavily make-upped Dothraki, Meereen slave, Flea Bottom beggar or any inconsequential character.  No, this guy is a fucking knight, with armor and presumably some degree of honor and bravery, if he’s representing House Velaryon.

I have no idea who he is, what his actual specific heritage is, but either way, he’s still a fucking hero.  And the fact that he made it into the GoT universe after just a decade is still like, three decades faster than Star Wars really decided to start giving Asian men some screen time.

Progress is progress, but all the same I have to say it: it’s about fucking time.

Let’s talk about Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As is often the case, I’m late to the party on both of these shows.  Full disclosure, I have no knowledge of the Moon Knight character whatsoever, all I knew was that he existed, because Wizard magazine once made a joke about him being mistaken for Space Ghost, but otherwise, I went into the show with absolutely zero knowledge of the character, at all.  As for Ms. Marvel, this is a lot of gray area, because in the comics, Ms. Marvel is Carol Danvers, which movie goers have already been introduced to as Captain Marvel, so again, I went in blind to the adventures of Kamala Khan, the teenager.

By virtue of living under the rock of parenthood, I’ve been fortunate enough to have avoided the vast majority of chatter when it comes to both of these shows.  I’d only heard bits and pieces, like subjective opinions of Moon Knight, and I knew that Ms. Marvel has been somewhat completely re-imagined to feature a teenager, and a Muslim one at that, but neither really deterred me from going into them, because as a fan of the MCU, I still feel that it’s somewhat necessary to watch every piece of Marvel programming that is released, with the expectation that the knowledge will be useful when they converge storylines in the future.

Going in chronological order, I finished Moon Knight before going into Ms. Marvel, and I have to say that in more ways than one, one of these is very much not like the other.  One show I thought was good, entertaining and refreshing, while the other one was completely horrendous, and I would dare say be arguably one of the worst editions into the entire MCU, and all of its extended reaching properties.

Continue reading “Let’s talk about Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel” →

Being an orange guy supporter fan is basically a meme

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On my way to the office, there’s this house that I’ve noticed.  It was an obvious tear-down and flip, because it’s a home that sticks out that it looks absolutely nothing like the aesthetic of all the other properties in the vicinity.  It’s hard to describe it, but it almost seems fortress-like, because there’s almost no landscaping other than fresh sod, there are high fences that flank the sides of the property, and the only vehicles in the driveway have been two giant fuck-you trucks.  The trucks are black and white respectively, and for the matter so is the house, with it being primarily white with black shutters, doors and accents.

I don’t really know why, but I had this hunch that the people that lived there were probably the types of people who supported the orange guy that tanked ruled ‘Murica.  But recently, on my latest commute in, I noticed that they had two signs in their yard, in support of Bubba Kemp, the orange-guy worshipping incumbent governor who is up for reelection in November, and it basically validated everything I theorized about the residents of this property.

But then it got me thinking, how easy it’s become to pick out orange guy supporters, even if they’re not so flagrantly broadcasting their fealty.  And that they’ve basically become living breathing memes of human beings with their brainless worship of a clown.

Sure, there are the very obvious sheep out there who have Make America Great Again hats, bumper stickers, and other orange guy paraphernalia, and those guys are sad and disappointing in their own right, but at least they’re honest and straightforward with their allegiance.  But it’s the people that want you to know without making it obvious that I’m more fascinated in and frankly, these are the people out there that I think are worse, because it’s like they want to enjoy the luxuries of America, while being in support of ‘Murica.

Not to mention, that a lot of these types have unfortunately co-opted all sorts of brands, IPs and other forms of symbolism, and ruined it for everyone else by claiming that they’re symbols of their hatred of modern society.

So anyway, here’s what I’ve observed as being signs of more subtle orange guy fanaticism:

  • Don’t Tread On Me stickers, flags or decals
  • The Punisher logo decals
  • Salt Life stickers
  • Really loves firearms
  • Very large trucks with lift kits, usually black
  • American flags hanging off of said trucks
  • Properties that look like they are somewhat defensible in an apocalyptic scenario

I’m sure there are lots of other things that could be on this list, but these are the things that come immediately to mind when I think about things I see that instantly make me very confident that a person is an obvious patriot.  And the more bullets they check off, the more I’m curious what they were doing or where they were on January 6th.

The point is, people don’t really need to be brandishing the very obvious stuff to make it obvious where their general allegiances and temperaments lie.  Whether they care to realize it or not, there’s plenty of other things that have manifested and been nurtured throughout the last few years that make it pretty obvious to what type of person a random stranger on the street is, just by their behaviors and preferences, which to me, is what makes something meme-worthy. 

What’s sad, aside from the people who are brainwashed by all this bullshit, are the poor identities and IPs that have been bastardized by their being co-opted by the extreme right.  I feel bad for any intelligent Marines who have to see the Gadsden flag being used by idiots who have never even thought about serving the country, flying it without knowing any bit of its history.  I feel bad for Marvel Comics and any writer who ever was involved with The Punisher, seeing all these morons using the skull emblem and claiming it to be “for them.” 

And worst off, I feel saddest for the American flag, which is so often being flown with almost a malicious intent, by people who want to throw their extreme patriotism in the faces of normal, regular Americans who might not feel the need to have to throw the flag up everywhere they go to represent the country we live in.

The behavior of the mindless and ignorant have taken a lot of historic elements and respectable  symbols and turned them into memes by how flagrantly misused they’ve been, but at least in doing so, they’re making it very easy to identify people that I really have no interest in associating with, because ain’t nobody need this kind of stupidity anchoring down my little world.