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8.29.2011

guest post by kevjumba: shh! don't say those things!


Aloha! I'm on vacation, taking a much-needed break from blogging for a bit. But it's all good, because I've enlisted the help of some great guest bloggers to keep things going around here. Here's Kevin Wu, aka YouTube's KevJumba, on making videos, keeping it real and embarrassing his mom.

After every video I make, my mom calls to give me her input. Usually to point out the things I shouldn't have talked about or mentioned in my video. I used to find these calls slightly annoying, but now I'm starting to find them entertaining, and even reassuring. What I realized is... If my parents are CONTENT with the things I say in my videos, then I'm doing something WRONG. I'd be playing it safe. Let me explain.

My parents are immigrants from Taiwan, and they tried to raise me based on their traditional values. Growing up there are things we were never exposed to. When these "things" did accidentally come up, it was extremely uncomfortable. For instance, have you ever watched a movie with your Asian parents and a random, unexpected sex scene pops up? You could cut the tension in the room with a mother effing chainsaw. Our parents wanted us to be as far removed from these things as possible.

Because of this, we end up learning about sex, drugs, and everything else through our peers and not our parents. Then we have to go through life lying to our parents, pretending we never drink, have sex, try drugs, masturbate, like were all purists or something. Granted, some of us really are 100% clean and never partake in these things, but the majority of us aren't.

In my videos, I strive to be as honest as possible. Which has lead to videos where I talk about drugs, sex, drinking, even masturbation. I know there's a certain level of uncomfortableness that occurs when I talk about these issues, but if I never talked about them, I'd be lying. I'm a 21-year-old Asian American male and I'm part of a new generation of Asian Americans. I want to represent that as much as I can in my videos.

So the next time my mom calls to tell me she's embarrassed to show my videos to her friends, I'll know I'm doing something right.

Kevin Wu, also known as KevJumba, started making videos for the web five years ago. He loves soccer, fishing, R&B music, and Thai food.