The New York Times just ran an article the other day on the zine Giant Robot. Giant Robot started out as a tiny, photocopied zine and now is a glossy. Ten years of influence on pop culture by two Asian-American guys not much older than me.
This is really just the tip of the iceberg, though; Asian cultures have had a huge impact on pop culture. Japanese manga and anime and Hong Kong action flicks have influenced visual media from comics to cartoons to graphic design to Hollywood movies. The Japanese are even influencing auto racing with the new trend of drifting. Fashion, music and more - it's interesting that Asian cultures have had such an effect on Western culture, and yet there are so few prominent Asians in Western culture. I suppose I'm hardly saying anything new (see Oliver Wang's site, Pop Life for a nice jump-off point if this is something that interests you) but I find it interesting that the Gray Lady is picking up on it...
This is a big can of worms for me. Asian cultures on eastern side of the world may influence the Western world, but Asian-American culture does not. I think for the most part, Asian-Americans are a bland lot. I don't think it's unfair to say that Asian Americans are still seeking a cultural identity of their own, and sometimes that's nothing more than taking elements of Black or White culture and somehow assimilating to those standards. It's not very imaginative. I find myself trying to break out of Asian stereotypes, while at the same time wanting to embrace them.
i love giant robot!
i first heard of it in 1998 at this zinefest in california that i was at.
my claim to fame is a review in the 10th anniv. issue (out this month)
xo
annie
I first saw Giant Robot in a record store back in 1995 or so when I was an impressionable young teen studying bass at Berklee in Boston. Somewhere I've got a Giant Robot T-Shirt that I mailordered from Issue 3.
A lot of the zines back then were just catching on to the "Japanese Invasion" aesthetic. XMag was another one with a very similar aesthetic.
I think the mainstream fascination with the "Japanese Invasion" aesthetic (I'd say it peaked in about '98) was a natural extension of the fascination with "irony", kitsch, and pop-postmodernism that, in many ways, defined the 90's.
I've been on a few message boards where O-Dub posted a lot, but the whole internet "crate digging" scene, to me, has kind of a creepy fanboyish vibe -- it kind of reminds me of hanging out in a guitar store in 1989.
$0.01,
rs