From bootleg VHS tapes to a Tony-winning Broadway musical and Netflix megahits, Koreans have gone from “who?” to “whoa!” In this episode of our Big Korean Energy season, we sit down with Phil Yu, creator of Angry Asian Man, and talk about the seismic shift of K-culture going global, what it feels like to win Olympic gold alongside Queen Yuna, and owning our stories is SO important.  What’s at stake when the whole world suddenly has Big Korean Energy??

Follow along on our Substack for more things Big Korean Energy.

But What *Is* Big Korean Energy?

It’s cultural, sure—but it’s also a feeling, a vibe, an intuition. Not everything that has BKE is Korean in origin, but that’s what we love so much about it. Mac salad? 100% BKE. Sunbathing? Hard no.

To further illustrate our point, we ranked things using a very scientific process on a scale of “No Big Korean Energy” to “Big Korean Energy,” and “Made For Us By Us aka FUBU” to “Not For Us By Us.”

An Edited Transcript of Our Convo:

Amy: Hey, I am Amy Choi.

Rebecca: And I’m Rebecca Lehrer. And we are the Mash-Up Americans.

Amy: And this is our new series on Big Korean energy.

Rebecca: The world is so Korean, but it’s not just banchan and BTS.

We are celebrating all things Korean and Korean in spirit. In vibes.

Amy: In vibes. And what it means when Koreanness becomes all of us.

Rebecca: I mean, where are we? Where do things end? Where do they start? Is everything Korean? 

Amy: Yeah. 

Rebecca: Yeah. That’s the answer. And we are so excited to have Phil Yu as our guest today. We go way, way back. He is a legendary blogger and cultural critic who created Angry Asian Man.

Amy: And it turns out though we were not friends at Northwestern much to my chagrin, I think because you were busy being Asian. And when I was at Northwestern, I was busy being not Asian.

Phil: Mmmm. Okay.

Amy: It was one of those…

Rebecca: Well, you were always Asian.

Amy: It’s true. It’s just one of those paths that I chose in my social life.

Rebecca: Mm-hmm.

Amy: I have a vision, although now I feel like it’s not accurate that you started Angry Asian man from, like, your room in the Plex.

Phil: Not true.

Amy: This is good, but…

Rebecca: This…

Amy: Oh, this is lore!

Phil: But it’s sort of directly related.

Rebecca: Good. Okay. Yeah, like I, so what is the Plex?

Phil: The Plex is like this…

Amy: Very Asian dorm.

Phil: Yeah. Pri — prison-like dorm where it’s like, it’s just all singles. Nobody has a roommate. It’s just singles.

I mean, I went to college in the nineties where this internet thing seemed to be, you know, kind of catching on and seemed to be here to stay.

So, I started learning some basic rudimentary HTML coding.

That plus sort of the burgeoning Asian American political identity that I was forming, thanks to Asian American studies and stuff like that in college, those two sort of met, collided, intertwined.

And then when I was outta college looking for a job, I had a lot of free time in my hands. That’s what gave birth to Angry Asian Man.

Amy: It’s funny because you’re so not angry, and I know this must be a thing that has come up over the past 25 years for you, but like, you’re a gentle dude, but you have a deep core of what I will call is part of BKE: The Rage.

Rebecca: Or also like, don’t underestimate, like I feel like part of BKE is like the, like…

Phil: Sleeping tiger.

Amy: Yeah. That’s what…

Rebecca: It is. Like, it’s like, sure. Try me. Yeah. You could wake it up, right? You wanna wake it up? 

Phil: Yeah. Don’t poke it.

Amy: So we are here to talk about this moment in time, which is maybe a generation in the making, but very specifically or very strongly, feels like a decade, five years in the making where everything in the world feels Korean.

There is a lot of actual Koreanness happening in the world that’s surging in sports, in media, in food, in literature.  

So the premise of this season of the Mash-Up Americans, right? We have been thinking for decades about what it means when cultures come together, what it means to create and kind of craft a life or create a new way of being while still being rooted in our traditions and looking forward.

As a Korean American person with, Korean kids and a lot of chips on my shoulders and whatever other stuff that I’ve tried to heal, it feels fucking great.

And then also I’m like, is this confusing? And also, what is this experience and what does it mean when a diaspora culture goes American mainstream? 

Rebecca: It’s also an energy. It’s like both real. It’s also borrowed and it’s also blurred. And I think that’s what we’re particularly excited about. 

So we are just so pumped to be able to talk to you because you’ve been so essential to making meaning around so much of this stuff. It’s summer 2025, we’re recording this episode, and K-pop Demon Hunters is at the top of the Billboard charts.

It’s like on Spotify, the songs. We were just on a camping trip with, I’m gonna tell you, zero Koreans. Okay. And I, and I also wanna be clear.

Amy: Camping. Korean or not? I think very Korean.

Phil: Yeah. Oh yeah, totally.

Rebecca: You think it is? Why?

Phil: For sure. Koreans know how to make like any situation extra and awesome.

Rebecca: Right?

Phil: Yes. Including camping, right? So it’s like, it’s not just camping and you bringing hot dogs and all.

Rebecca: It’s that there’s gimbap for the…

Phil: No. Somebody’s gonna make a whole jjigae.

Rebecca: Yes.

Phil: Around the campfire. Yes. You know what I mean? And like, and, and not just like, like camp jjigae, but like the best fucking jjigae you’ve ever had. Right. Someone’s gonna do it. Someone’s gonna bring that stuff and make it happen.

Rebecca: At some point we’re like prepping dinner, which is not jjigae, but there were other delicious things.

And you hear just suddenly five or six kids singing K-pop Demon Hunters “Golden.”

Phil: Non Korean kids, right?

Rebecca: Non Korean kids. Right. Non Korean kids. Yeah. Um, singing like Take Down and Golden. It’s like top of the charts not of soundtracks of just like all music. And so if we’re, we’re there, we’re kind of in this moment, How do you feel?

Phil: For me it, it kind of felt all of a sudden. I look around and we’re in it, we’re in the thick of it.

Amy: Yeah.

Phil: You know what I mean? We’re up to here with it, you know, up to our next, and I’m like, when did that happen? You know what, what? I mean, because I grew up with such a dearth of kind of like Korean reinforcement of Korean culture and identity around me. Okay. So when I was a kid, I have a very vivid memory of being little and in the neighborhood, this is like back when, like they just let kids roam free.

Amy: Oh yeah.

Phil: So this is like the eighties. And then just remember a bunch of kids around me and being like, you know, like, are you Chinese? Are you Japanese? I’m like, no, no. I’m Korean. And they’re like, what? What is that? I never heard of that. Never heard of that. Never heard of Korea, right? 

It wasn’t until like the ‘88 Olympics where that was kinda like a coming out party for Korea and Korean culture, or just like that word on someone’s tongue, you know?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

Amy: I had the exact same experience. By the way, are you, are you Chinese or Japanese? Neither. Yeah. What else is there?

Phil: Yeah. What else is there? Right? Yeah, totally.

Rebecca: As an Angeleno, it was…

Phil: Not quite…

Rebecca: I assumed everyone was Korean.

Phil: That conversation, people would never believe that now.

Like no kid would have that conversation.

Rebecca: No.

Phil: Well then, and then there’s a whole phenomenon of us as Korean Americans having to hold it down out here.

Yeah. Right. You know, us, us gyopo kids. Right. Like holding it down as Korean Americans and not having, you know, like kind of a base to really like hang on to and be like, oh, this is what I’m all about. I grew up a typical American pop culture kid.

Amy: Right, right.

Phil: And Korean pop culture never really found its way into my, you know, vocabulary or interests. Right. I know a lot of other kids who like sought out like K-pop and stuff, K dramas and stuff like that. That was very late for me because like, it…

Rebecca: That’s so hard?

Phil: Was just hard. It’s inaccessible, but it was also like, that’s not my lived experience and I had a hard time kind of, um, you know, finding my way into that. It’s a lot different now, I think, and it’s because it’s so much more accessible and so much more accepted. And, my embrace of K-Pop in recent years, it has a lot to do with becoming a father and being, a dad to a girl who’s trying to figure out who she is and what she’s interested in and being Korean and instilling a piece of her that’s Korean culture.

I’m not like consciously forefronting that, but it’s also definitely like something you think about.

Amy: Right? 

Phil: But there’s a moment where you kind of just look around and all of a sudden you’re like, whoa, whoa. How did it get like, like everywhere? How did it get like this? 

 You know, You know, I will say my, but along the way there’s been milestones, right?

Like I would say my top three Korean pride pop culture moments, uh, in no particular order is the 2002 World Cup.

Amy: Obviously.

Phil: Being up like, you know, like on some ungodly hours to watch soccer and I’m not a soccer person.

Amy: You’re a Korea fan.

Phil:  I didn’t know the names of these players a week ago and…

Amy: Like, oh, all in.

Phil: It’s my whole world. Totally. Is everything, you know. Um, number two is Kim Yuna winning gold medal figure skating. Mm-hmm. Right. Like, just like, I was like, oh my God, I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud to be, and she wins one for Korea and I am an American citizen, and yet that’s where you’re like, we’re all Korean.

Amy: Yeah. 

Phil: We’re all Korean, you know? Right. And at this moment, like, I’m standing on that podium with you. 

Amy: Yes. You know, like…

Phil:  And then of course it’s Parasite winning best picture.

Amy: Mm-hmm. 

Phil: That also was like…

Amy: Local awards.

Phil: Yeah. Very local, very regional, you know. But that for me was like, we can all agree this was an awesome movie. And everyone agrees, you know, it’s not just me being Korean, being like, “Yay Korean.”

Rebecca: Yeah. Like, am I giving it a discount? Am I giving it a curve? We’re no longer grading on a curve. Like, this is a gold.

Phil: These are the motherfucking Oscars.

Rebecca:  I mean, we talk a lot about this as just people, like, what does success mean to us?

In, in that depth defining of it. There are things where like, who do I need to acknowledge my success? For me to feel successful. And for me, that’s not like I need to be famous on the internet, which is great for some people. That’s not it. But like there are things where like, yes, Oscars are an American award, but they’re the most prestigious  film award. And so it does matter. And that it’s not put into just the foreign films category. But it gets to win all of it. That does matter.

Amy:  Each of those moments were Koreans on a global stage.

Winning global, getting international acclaim, rightfully so. And there’s an interesting, for me, tension being like, yeah, fucking duh. You know, like, of course, of course, of course. This is how it should be. And then I’m like, why did I, why? What was in me that felt like that  deeply Korean need to prove yourself and be like, yeah, see?

And it’s like a gotcha to who? Yeah. A gotcha to what? And then also being like, but yeah, we are the best. You know? And it’s like, but there’s some sort of deep rooted insecurity or like tenuousness that feels like, oh, I feel more secure and safe in the world. We can get into this later, but, you know, the concept of rep sweats is like, I, I don’t know. Do other cultures feel the same thing as you’re describing? Because I completely relate being like, I won a gold medal. Yeah. I won the Europa Cup. Yeah. A few weeks ago. Like, I won an Oscar. You know, like, I feel that really deeply.

Phil: This is how I know, is that after Kim Yunaa won the gold medal and after Parasite won best picture, I called my mom and was like, Mom, did you see that?

She’s  like yeah, I saw. Yeah, we won. 

Rebecca:  The cool thing about this moment is that it’s evolving and I’m, I’m curious about that. Like, how have the rep sweats, what’s changed? Mm. Like, ’cause when you’re winning and you have enough wins, right.

You actually get to be like, I didn’t like that movie.

Phil: Well, okay, first of all, in the notes leading up to this conversation you sent, you said Jenny Yang came up with that. I have to correct you, Jenny Yang and I and my wife Joanna Lee. We came up with that term together. The three of you? 

Amy: The term rep sweat. Should we describe rep sweats for anybody who doesn’t know?

Phil: Okay. So the rep sweats are that feeling you get when say an Asian person pops up on screen and like you’re watching a movie and you’re like, oh, okay. Oh, please be good.

Rebecca: Please…

Amy: Be good.

Phil: Please. Or, or at least please don’t be embarrassing. And it’s that anxiety you feel where you’re like, oh boy, let’s go. You know? And, and that is a terrible way to watch anything, but it’s a feeling that I always had growing up. But I think in recent examples, just there just being this quote unquote K wave or just, there’s just so many that one’s reputation doesn’t have to ride on any one representation.

Phil: There’s good and bad examples. There’s stuff that you like, the stuff you don’t like, and you don’t have to like it all. I’ve, I’ve definitely come around to being like, less. Being like, oh…

Amy: Less of a cheerleader.

Phil: This is…yeah. If this is embarrassing. I don’t, I don’t give a shit. Like it’s embarrassing, but for a whole other reason that has nothing to do with me. 

Rebecca: Well, you also can’t possibly…Yes. And you can’t possibly watch every K drama that’s on Netflix. Yeah. To be like, that is a good one. And that’s a bad one. 

Phil: Okay, like now I, I get to actually have discernment about like what’s good or bad, you know?

Rebecca: Can I ask a question about cousins?

Amy: Yeah.

Rebecca: This is a cousin question. Do you have cousins in Korea?

Phil: Yes.

Rebecca: So their families took the different path, right?

They did not immigrate. 

Are you aware of how they experience these waves? Or like, do you, can you, is there any distinction in terms of, of that? 

Phil: I can’t even imagine trying to explain the rep sweats to my Korean cousins.

They just don’t understand. And so all this stuff is so much more meaningful in a twisted way, which it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t matter so much to me, you know? But it does, you know, over here, like I said, holding it down in the States.

Rebecca: Right. You know.

Phil: You know, Squid Game was such a big deal for us, obviously. Over there, half my cousins hadn’t seen it. You know what I mean? I was trying to explain to them, I hosted the Squid Game podcast. They’re like, oh yeah, I heard that was good. They had just hadn’t had time to get around to watch.

Amy: Yeah.

Phil: You know, like it’s just another show to them.

Amy: I do have cousins and lots of family, in Korea, you know, there’s no k anything.

You just, you just are. 

Rebecca: Well, actually I just saw a stat yesterday, and I’ll pull it up. South Koreans mostly watch their own products. So 88% of viewing in Korea on major streaming services is of Korean content. And The US made content, it’s just 8%. So it’s like, you know that Koreans are watching Korean shit, you know?

Amy: Yeah. Koreans are doing Korean things. Yeah. Just being Korean out there.

I think that there’s a part of that that I like when I think about my aspirations for like a relationship with Koreanness, or that I hope to instill in my kids is that they get to a point of entrenchment that they feel like that they’re just like. Why not? 

To my kids who are, almost 10 and 12, K-pop Demon Hunters makes total sense. Why wouldn’t Netflix have a movie about K-pop Demon Hunters? Yeah. With like, shamans and half of the lyrics are in Korean? It doesn’t feel unusual or special to them. And I’m like, how fucking special is that?

Phil: Yeah. 

Amy: Earlier you were talking about, like, it was also just challenging to be immersed in pop culture, Korean pop culture.

When we were growing up in the eighties and nineties, I have very distinct memories growing up in the suburbs of Chicago where my parents would go to the grocery store on Lawrence, where in the back they had, uh, like pirated VHS tapes and we would rent them and we would play them in our little bunny ear antenna, VHS thing, and then you’d have to give them back after a week.

And then that’s how they watched dramas.

Amy: That was true for a really long time. My first real memory of going to Korea was my junior year of high school, so that would’ve been like 95, 96, something like that. And I got my own first K-pop CDs, listening to them and bringing them back.

And I’m being like, this is, this is what they’re doing over there. 

I don’t know, it’s hard to say that because so much of the hallyu wave and everything that structurally the Korean government did to support the arts and the music industry, all of those things, but ithout that, would we be here?

I guess it’s an impossible question, but as people who are very interested in the permeability of culture and how things transfer and evolve and become something new. Like would we just like not have this?

Phil: Well, I mean, as cynical as it is, that’s like all, a lot of this consumption of Korean culture is so manufactured, right? Like, there it is by design. you can honestly say it has like torn down walls, like the walls, you know, between our cultures, the barrier is so much lower, right?

And it allows, as opposed to the way we grew up, where it’s like, it was so hard to access Korean culture in a way that we’re like, oh, this is awesome and this is me. It always felt like there was something between me and the culture that was coming from over there. Whereas now it’s so much more accessible, so much, you’re so much more able to consume that.

Make it part of your identity in some whatever way you want. You know, like it’s a Spotify click away, you know? So for sure. I mean, the fact that you don’t have to go to get bootleg tapes at the Korean grocery store on the one street in Chicago.

Amy: Rebecca.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Amy: As the one non Korean, should you represent all people who are not? 

Rebecca: I would love to.

Amy: Of the Korean diaspora.

Rebecca: What a, yes.

Amy: As the people in the world who unfortunately are not Korean.

Rebecca: Ugh, what a shame.

Amy: What a shame. What is it like for you, especially as somebody who grew up in a Korean city?

Rebecca: Yeah.

Amy: Like what is it like to see this and to be like, does it feel like the same flooding of big Korean energy to you?

Rebecca: Yes. I think I don’t have as much baggage, right? Obviously. So it’s not as much like, I don’t have as much shame when on the flip.

But I’m, I obviously am paying attention. I don’t know, it just, it feels right.

It’s an energy that I love, right? I’m like, like just lot of swagger, like just terrific hair, like a kind of dark humor that I love, And I think what’s cool about this moment feels like people are really trying to figure some things out.

And that might be the newer generations. But like, there’s like a wrestling with  the rage, the, the resentment, the grudges, the, the shame. 

I’m in Los Angeles, which is in my mind a Korean city.

So it’s like, I don’t know if everyone’s Costco has all the Korean things in it, you know, and like the Spam aisle. I don’t know because I only have my Costco, which is at the intersection of Filipino immigrants, Armenian immigrants, Koreans and uh, everybody else, right?

So that’s what the experience is. For my kids, eating Korean food is like they don’t always remember that it’s called japchae, but my son who’s six will be like, I need my favorite Korean noodles right now.

Phil: Non Koreans love japchae. And it’s not my favorite thing.

Amy: Me neither. I make it for other people.

Phil: Other Koreans are all like, this is kind of a, like a low tier thing for us, right? But it’s so easy. Non Koreans love japchae.

Rebecca: Yeah. It’s so good.

Amy: You love japchae.

Rebecca: Yes.

And also barbecue. I mean like those are things that are also easy access points for non Koreans.

Amy: I think the emergence of groups like New Jeans feels very Korean-Korean to me. Maybe. RIP New Jeans. We don’t know what’s happening with them. I did love them. I do love them. Minji’s my girl. I know that.

Phil: Me too.

Amy: Ah, I love Minji. Anyway, but that like, there’s a difference to me between New Jeans say, or even like, um, Twice is a great example versus like Katseye. Which is the K-pop girl band. It’s not even that most of them are non Korean.

Amy: But that they were designed for an international audience. Whereas, New Jeans is a K-pop group for Koreans that became popular internationally. The way that, like Squid Game was, it’s a Korean show made by and for Koreans that became huge internationally, but K-Pop Demon Hunters…

Phil: The director Maggie Kang has spent every summer in Korea.

Amy: And like one of the co-writers was a white dude. Right? Yeah. Like, and it, it was made for…

Rebecca: Every…

Amy: Everybody but especially an English-speaking Western audience. I think what’s interesting here is that I feel like even 10 years ago, we would’ve talked a lot about it, and been trying to have a nuanced conversation with it.

But I know that I personally would’ve been more focused on what’s authentic, right? Like, what feels the most Korean? Is that really Korean? Or like, are you performing Koreanness for white people? And I just, I don’t know if it’s just getting older or not caring more, but it’s also like, oh, now the Korean diaspora is creating Korean diaspora stuff that still has that like totally quintessential feeling, but THIS is for us by us. I guess that’s the Big Korean Energy of it. 

Phil: Yeah. I mean it’s, it’s, it is possible now to have like a transnational identity where like, yeah, you know, you’re, you’re interested in where you come from and the creators of something like K-pop Demon Hunters…

I firmly believe something like K-Pop Demon Hunters actually could not have been made by Koreans in Korea. You know, like it has a very distinct North American identity to it. Like the jokes and the way they observe K-Pop and the way they appreciate these little things about Korean culture.

Like we said, like in Korea, there’s no K this, K that, it’s just, it just is. Whereas we are look like the way that somebody would make K-pop Demon Hunters. It is with a lens of like, K this, K that like, right. These are the things we like about Korean culture.

We love, we obsess over and so we’re gonna make those into jokes and…

Amy: She’s from a place called Burbank. Burbank. Oh, so good.

Phil: So exotic.

Amy: That’s so true, because the way that I would describe it to people was like, no, you’re gonna love this movie. I would be like, it uses every trope, every, every like k drama, the music, the scenery, it like the anime, like every single storytelling effect, but they use it to such great effect and you’re like, oh, this is why this is a trope. But you’re right, it’s with a deep love and both like an inside outside.

Phil: Yeah. Like Koreans wouldn’t make jokes about a lot of these things ’cause it’s just like the way things are in Korea, right.

Rebecca: Totally. 

Phil: So the week, uh, K-pop Demon Hunters came out, that was the same week I was in New York to go to the Squid Game premiere. 

Rebecca: Well you were also there to interview…

Phil: Yes, I interviewed the stars and the director.

Amy: Wow. Okay. So guys, I would like…This is a fun tangent story, which  also speaks to our Mash-Up Americans Korean production team that we put together, Korean American…is that the agony in the Google comments over how we were going to address, Lee Byung-hun.

Rebecca: What’s the honorific you used?

Phil: So the one I ended up using. I called them Lee Byung-hun beunim, which is like an actor, like is an honorific for actors, right?

Rebecca: Oh, that’s…

Phil: Beu means actor.

Rebecca: That’s so funny. ’cause also it sounds like Hebrew word, so every time you were saying it I was like, uh, I just was like, this feels like I’m at a bar mitzvah.

Phil: As a Korean American, there’s no way I’m just gonna call them Byung-hun or Jung-jae.

Hell no. You, you don’t, you, I couldn’t…

Amy: Bring shame on all of our families for generations!

Phil: But we were like, what do we, what do I call him? You know? And so I, I sourced all these responses. You know, it was like no, no, that makes them sound so old. You can’t do that. Then I thought I could call them Jung-jae ssi which is like a, it’s kind of like a collegial term.

Then I was like, no, that’s too informal. Like, you know, and it was a whole debate until we settled on beunim, you know what I mean?

Rebecca: Do you feel when you doing that sourcing, which I love that you did, and, and then like, do you feel nervous? Because that word is not a thing that is comfortable to come out. Not even just saying it. Yeah. The pronunciation obviously is a thing, but I mean, like, is this, I feel it with Spanish, which I speak fluently and communicate in a lot, but I’m, sometimes I’m like, I’m just gonna double check…

Phil: Yeah. Like I need to go, ’cause like, I almost got it right. But is it, my instinct is it’s that, but maybe my instinct is wrong.

Amy: But also literally it was me. James, Janet, like, we had all five Korean American producers and then Phil had to go to his cousins and then we went to our relatives and like we were just, it was a really big deal.

Phil: Yeah. It was like we just, I need to get it right and it’s, it does come from like…if I was in Korea, I would know. I just don’t know. I just don’t know right now.

Rebecca: Yeah. And you, and you wanna, you wanna be respectful, right? 

Phil: Right. In the end I was just, hope they appreciated it, you know? 

Rebecca: Well you weren’t embarrassed. But you’re saying, so that week that was like K-pop Demon Hunters. So then you’re interviewing Squid Game actors.

Phil: I go to the Squid Game premiere, I interview the Squid Game stars and director.

Then I go to see Maybe Happy Ending on Broadway, right? It’s the same week … 

Amy: The week that they won the Tony,

Phil: The week after they won the Tony. Yes. Um, and I get to bring my daughter, right?

Yeah. Her first trip to New York, her first Broadway show. It’s a Korean story, right? Like, this Tony winning musical. And then on the plane home I’m like, oh, I, I had already marked my calendar. This is the day that K-Pop Demon Hunters come out. I’m going to download it to my phone so that I can watch it on the plane.

I watch it on the plane. I’m like, this is fucking amazing. Pass the phone to my wife, like, you gotta watch this. She watches like, this is amazing. We get home, we’re like, turn it on for my daughter. Immediately we’re like, we need to share this. We need to evangelize this movie.

And like, and then my daughter watches it. And my daughter watches like it’s no thing. Whereas me at nine years old would’ve been like, you know, outta my mind.

Rebecca: So, can I ask a question? I know I’m gonna, ’cause I’m gonna cry. So at that same time, you’re coming back to LA um, the exact same moment the military is occupying Los Angeles to rip apart families and steal our neighbors and friends and family.

Amy: Mm-hmm.

Rebecca: The very grounding of like the kind of societal fabric that we are building our mashiness on. And I’m finding the contrast to be beautiful and really jarring. And I’m curious, I’d love to just talk about for you, and again, I don’t, it’s like … 

Phil: No, I get it.

Rebecca: I’m not trying to be that guy. ‘Cause it doesn’t take away from it at all. It’s more like, in fact, it makes it even more important. 

As people who care about this so much, how are you kind of, um, metabolizing that? How are you digesting it? If, if at all, or like in your, in your life and work this moment where we’re both like in celebration?

Phil: It’s super weird. It’s just super weird to go about your day. We’re in the summer and we’re doing very mundane things back and forth, and like trying to make sure my kid goes to camp and all this stuff. Meanwhile, like democracy is crumbling around us.

Right. And then we’re celebrating.

Rebecca: And it’s stuff, we know. The crumbles are the things we know because our parents told us.

Yeah. Like this is the part where they take and they hide information. They just erase information. 

Amy: Our parents, because of when they came to the US they, they came from occupation and war, but they missed the military dictatorship and the rise of democracy in Korea. Which is also like, they’re politically very different than the people who are there.

Amy: I desperately wanna hear what you have to say, Phil, but when you were talking about that, it’s like the investment that the Korean government made that made this moment possible now, like 50 years later.

Yeah. It’s because Korea was essentially doing what it knew to be true, which is that like, if you see us, if you can see Korean people as human and beautiful and powerful and good at all of these things on the world stage, then you won’t shit on us and occupy us like the militaries and different countries have done for millennia.

Right. You know, it’s, it was a way of saying, you are forced to look at our humanity and excellence and therefore this can never happen again. We have always believed in the power of storytelling and narrative change work. This is kind of like the uber work of what we do, like the, ur text.

And we know that this is powerful because look, Donald fucking Trump and MAGA are rewriting history and providing an entirely new story that people are believing. 

Phil: So we always joke, and a joke is such a dark way to say it, but we’re always like, Hey, so what were you doing when, uh, democracy was falling? And you know, they were just locking up people?  

It’s like, oh, we were planning a K-pop Demon Hunters birthday party. Yeah. Like, you know, like, you know, we were just like shuttling our daughter to camp back and forth. You know, like if we look back at this moment in history, you know, like, you know, so many years from now and be like, what were we doing?

It’s like, oh, it was this slow slide into just a, you know, fascism and we just let it happen. And like, but you know, it it, it’s, it’s a weird thing ’cause we’re like just amidst all this, also trying to hang on to some joy.

Rebecca: Absolutely.

Amy: But I also fundamentally don’t believe that it’s not just planning a K-pop Demon Hunters birthday party for your daughter.

It is essential for us to invest in our culture and our storytelling and community in this moment.

That is why the bad guys are trying to erase it. That’s why they’re working so hard to rewrite history and rewrite our stories and make, like, why they don’t want “woke” movies is because they know that this actually shapes people and like gives us the kind of soul lift and strength that we need to actually then not just survive what’s happening in the country, but then be like, no, we actually have something worth fucking fighting for.

I think fighting for democracy is HUGE Big Korean Energy, this is like the…

Phil: Oh, come on. Yes.

Amy: Is the Korean energy is being like, bruh, I don’t want a military occupation in my fucking country, this is what shaped Bong joon-ho. 

Phil: If we could have just a sliver of the energy that’s Koreans against fascism, if we could transport a little bit of that, inject into our veins over here a little bit.

Amy: We would win.

Phil: Yeah. We’d be in a way better place.

Rebecca: No, totally.

Phil: In this moment where we’re seeing something like K-pop Demon Hunters take over and all these little girls, Korean and non-Koreans alike just embrace it, sell out theaters to watch this one sing-along, screaming …

Rebecca: Front row, we’re gonna sit in the front row!

Phil: Amidst all that. I, I, there’s a part of me that’s like, guys, can we just stop for a minute and just like speak to 9-year-old Phil being like, I can’t believe this moment is happening.

Like, acknowledge the Big Korean Energy that’s happening here, you know? And then another part of me is like, You just gotta let it go, man. It belongs to everybody now. You know what I mean? Like being able to let it go a little bit is, is the part that let’s us move on.

And, and the hangups that I had and all that stuff is like, you, you can let that go and let my kid be her own thing. You know, develop her own identity. 

Rebecca: Yeah. It’s so cool. It’s really cool.

Amy: And I think it’s also really hard to do.

Rebecca: Of course.

Phil: Yeah. It’s hard.

Rebecca: It is funny that you used, like the framing we’ve always said, rooted and looking forward thinking. It’s like always how we’ve defined mashiness and Mash-Up and it feels even more true.

It’s just like everything you’ve done, it’s like, it’s so prescient and you’re like, yeah, I did that. Yeah. I invented this word. Yeah. But so much of it when you’re truly observing something and also evolving with it, some of it fundamentally stays the same.

That it’s like the way we described it was, is still completely true. Even if we are evolving in how we understand its meaning, it’s like it’s cool ’cause your kid is different. Yeah. She is Korean, Chinese, American, second generation from, you know, Torrance.

Phil: Yeah.

Amy: Right.

Rebecca: And she’ll have other insecurities about what it is. Like I’m, I’m struggling with that as like realizing that because my family’s in multiple diasporas from its origin. I don’t have any relationship to the place my grandparents are from, none, no language, nothing. I’ve never even been, but I’ve been, went to where they moved to and have strong relationships there. 

Amy: There is something to speak to 9-year-old Phil, because I had that moment and I was very surprised that I had the moment speaking to 9-year-old Amy. BTS fans can often speak to, if they’re in the U.S., they’re like I’m Saturday Night Live Army, like I’m SNL Army. Or like, what’s the moment that they were like, oh, that’s the piece of content, or that’s the song, or that’s the performance that like, made me be like, oh, I’m gonna find out what their names are. And then you enter into the spiral.

And I was very surprised that I had the moment speaking to 9-year-old Amy.

I saw a YouTube clip of Namjoon giving a speech in English at MetLife, and he’s kind of crying because he’s just really emotional and he’s doing it in English. And his English is nearly perfect now. But this was like, I don’t know, seven or eight years ago or something.

So it was like still excellent, but clearly a Korean native speaker. And I just sat there and I was weeping. I remember I was in my tiny apartment and my cousin had been to that show, and I had like, just started kind of becoming a fan, and I could not articulate why it, like, like I felt like my heart was like getting wrenched and also cuddled at the same time.

And it was seeing this young Korean man speaking in like, for lack of a better term, in that mindset that I was in at the time, in broken English, that like my parents and like all these other Koreans that I had known, had been so ashamed about for their whole lives in America. And he was just out there and people were with him listening.

And I was like, it’s, it’s okay to have an accent. And this bitch was like 38 years old, you know? I didn’t even know that I still had that in me, that like little shame or that little thing that was in me that I was like, oh my God.

Rebecca: Your demons.

Amy: My demons.

Rebecca: So we have to play a game.

Amy: We’re gonna do two. One is called K-Dramatique.

We are going to read you scenarios and you, Phil, you are going to guess if they are plot lines from K dramas or real news stories about Koreans. Okay.

Rebecca: It’s either true or not true.

Amy: K-Dramatique.

Rebecca: True or K-Dramatique. That’s your answers. The daughter of a cult leader held a strange sway over the president later. It was revealed that she had influenced the president’s decision making on everything from wardrobe statements to state affairs.

Phil: Oh, that’s real life. That’s the news.

Rebecca: Ding ding ding! Totally.

Amy: It’s true. Um, a chaebol heiress parachuted over the DMZ by accident when she was hang gliding.

Phil: That’s Crash Landing on You. That is not true.

Rebecca: Crash Landing on You.

Okay. Police charge a man for kidnapping a class of students who are supposed to attend his mom’s hagwon.

Phil: Is, is that real?

Rebecca: No, it’s, it is Extraordinary Attorney Woo.

Phil: Oh, yeah. I, I knew that! I was like, why did that sound so familiar?

Rebecca: Okay. The last one.

Amy: One night in Seoul, a burglar broke into a fried chicken restaurant overnight, fried some chicken, grabbed a beer and left without taking anything else.

Phil: That feels real.

Rebecca: Yes. True story. Absolutely.

Okay, so this is a game called Korean or not. We’re just gonna say a name or a thing, and you just say yes or no.

Taylor Swift. 

Phil: No. 

Rebecca: Beyonce?

Phil: Yes.

Amy: Cate Blanchett?

Phil: Yes.

Rebecca: Jason Momoa.

Phil: Yes.

Amy: Keanu Reeves. Oh, my stomach made a funny sound. Keanu Reeves.

Phil: Yes.

Amy: Oh, interesting.

Rebecca: We…We don’t agree even though he’s our hero. Elvis Presley.

Phil: No.

Amy: New Order. 

Phil: Yes.

Rebecca: Phone cases?

Phil: Yes. 

Amy: Beds. 

Phil: No.

Amy: Camping. 

Phil: Yes. 

Rebecca: Hiking?

Phil: Yes. 

Rebecca: Beaches? 

Phil: Yes. 

Amy: Pickles. 

Phil: Yes.

Amy: Thank you. That was a great round of Korean or Not. 

Rebecca: Thanks Phil.

Phil: My pleasure.

Rebecca:  That was our conversation with our dear friend Phil Yu — writer, cultural critic, Angry Asian man, K-Pop Demon Hunters Army, and you know, casually, a Peabody Award winner. Phil is the host of many podcasts, including Squid Game: The Official Podcast, They Call Us Bruce and All the Asians on Star Trek. You can check out more of his work at angryasianman.com.

Amy: Next time on The Mash-Up Americans: catch our conversation with the incredible writer RO Kwon. We’ll talk about her childhood in the very Korean American city of Los Angeles, the anxiety that comes with writing frankly about sexuality, and how RO is forging a whole new way of relating to our ancestors.

There’s also a whole lot more Big Korean Energy on our substack. So subscribe at mashupamericans.substack.com for extras from this series, weekly news from around the world and more. Bye!

CREDITS: This podcast is a production of The Mash-Up Americans. It is executive produced by Amy S Choi and Rebecca Lehrer. Senior producer is Mia Warren. Development producer is Donna Suh. Production manager is Shelby Sandlin Mixing and mastering by Kojin Tashiro. Thanks to DJ Rob Swift for our theme song, Salsa Scratch. Please make sure to follow and share the show with your friends.