Wong Fu Productions has just aired the final episode of the first season of Yappie, a modern comedy series depicting the struggles of balancing friends, love, and personal growth as a young upwardly-mobile Asian American in Los Angeles.
Wong Fu cofounder Philip Wang plays the main character Andrew, and the series has a mixed-race love interest played by Janine Oda, who is Japanese and Black. The rest of the cast is majority Asian.
What’s a Yappie? It stands for “Young Asian Professional,” derived from the slang “Yuppie,” a term coined in the 1980s that means Young Urban Professional.
Wong Fu Productions summarizes their series:
“‘Yappie’ is a single-camera comedy that explores the social and racial issues related to the contemporary Asian American experience from the perspective of Andrew and his bubble of friends who are all ‘yappies’.
Asian Americans are an often overlooked minority in the US for a variety of reasons, and we’re creating a show to examine and share these causes and their effects on an entire generation.”
A lot of Asian Americans have given positive feedback to the series for its relatibility and for highlighting some of the issues facing Asians today, such as yellow fever, the model minority myth, and use of racial slurs.
sheesh we need more creators/people like @wongfupro … always appreciate the realness and message of your content but #yappie was on another level
— Timothy Chuman (@TimothyChuman) July 19, 2018
lmao my favorite scene from #YAPPIE
fr tho it’s really amazing to see @wongfupro talking about all the social constructs of race and minorities and they’ve worked really hard on this. if you guys are interested on seeing the asian american perspective, this is the show! pic.twitter.com/xqikzgHiLS— Aisha Linh Hussain (@a_linhh) July 18, 2018
Wong Fu Productions is a popular YouTube channel with over 3 million subscribers. The three founders are Asian American, and the channel often features Asian American guests.
Watch the first episode of Yappie:
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RE: The first season of Wong Fu’s Yappie is out: Just watched all five in the series. I am a seasoned performer of Asian content and an Asian psychotherapist who works with Asians and identity, relationship, bi-culturality, and family issues.
I think this series is so important. I really loved them and find them artistically right on, psychologically right on, and really well written. Actors are all excellent. More more more!!! How do I donate?