By Jason Cruz
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Michael Wong
Michael Wong didn’t just want to make funny videos—he set out to chronicle Asian America. A decade later, his brainchild, Asian Verified, is drawing tens of thousands of followers. Now, Asian Verified has over 147,000 followers on Instagram, 3,200 followers on YouTube, and another 20,000 on Facebook.
Wong describes Asian Verified as “Cultural Anthropology for Asian America.” He provides social commentary with a humorous bent on daily happenings in the Asian American community. The videos include visits to Seafood City in Tukwila, the T&T Supermarket in Factoria, as well as getting outside Seattle with observations from San Francisco, Las Vegas, and even Singapore to attend an F1 event.
Born in San Francisco, California, Wong moved with his mother to the Seattle area when he was young, after his father passed away. Wong’s father was Chinese and mother is Filipino.
“I was raised by my Filipino family in Seattle,” he said with pride. “If you are Chinese and Filipino, you get Korean,” Wong, also a comedian on the side, quipped about his resemblance to Koreans.
Wong grew up in Auburn, Washington and went to Southern California to attend Chapman University located near Disneyland in Anaheim.
“I went to school at Chapman University because I wanted to work at Disneyland,” said Wong. “I am a major Disney Adult before Disney Adult was a thing.”
“I was there on my off days, I was there all the time,” said Wong of his devotion to Disneyland. He did have the opportunity to work for Disneyland while in college. In addition, he worked in social media including agencies that worked with content creators.
Wong graduated from Chapman in 2015 with an English degree.
The concept of Asian Verified started while in college. Wong went into a teriyaki place while living in Southern California. As he walked in, he noticed two Caucasian guys sitting at the restaurant. He overheard one of the guys say to the other, “I knew this place is legit, it’s Asian verified.” The inference was that the restaurant was going to be authentic because Asians frequented.
Wong wanted to create something for the Asian American community to retake the commentary.
“I’d love to get this meme out as Asian Verified,” Wong explained.” The way I think about Asian Verified is informed by all of my experiences with social media and the YouTube agencies. I saw a lot of people burn, crash out in glorious flames,” Wong recalls from his days working with content creators. He wanted to make sure that he built his channel correctly. “I took it (building Asian Verified) seriously from the get go. The goal was if I could get someone to say it’s “Asian Verified” without seeing my face, “we’re winning.” Wong did not appear in his first 30 videos for Asian Verified. Relying on his marketing experience, he wanted to “reclaim the rubric” of what was Asian verified.
“Instead of having someone else deciding what is Asian Verified, let me tell you what Asian Verified is to me.”
The first video started in March 2023.
“I needed a vessel to show my commentary through this meme.” Using his comedic background, he made witty observations of the places he ate and what he saw. Wong decided that shooting a food video would be a good way to introduce the world to Asian Verified.
“I’d go to a spot, take 8 shots of things, and not know what I’m going to say until I get home.” He’d post a rubric about it and people started posting about it. “And that’s how I got bigger.”
“As soon as I was able to pivot [away from food videos], I did it and I believe I earned the right to make cultural commentary at large.”
On his channel, he has a popular series entitled, “Asian Dad Cam.” The purpose of Asian Dad Cam was to show that people, regardless of race, are the same. “I love that people saw their dads (not literally) in Asian Dad Cams.” He also found the videos cathartic since his father passed away at an early age.
Recently, Asian Dad Cam went under retooling as Wong started to see posted comments which he found to be concerning and patronizing (not in a good way) of the people in the videos.
“I don’t love it when the video does not reach its intended audience.” The comments made him reconsider the purpose. “If I had to lose some people along the way, I would not notice,” he said of ‘course-correcting’ the series.
Asian Verified has caught on as Wong notes that some famous people follow him on social media. Wong highlights being the only account actor Steven Yeun followed on Instagram. Yeun followed Asian Verified for a week. The actor of The Walking Dead fame follows no social media accounts, although he is followed by 3.5 million accounts. He also is followed by Severance’s Adam Scott and by singer Anderson .Paak.
His favorite celebrity moment came while in Asia.
“I’m in Singapore with my mom, I’m running across the street and this dude yells at me, ‘Asian Dad Cam!’ ‘Asian Verified!’” Wong was astounded that the person lived in Singapore and knew him.
“Where it goes from here is a variable,” said Wong of the social channel. “It’s on its way to succeed.”
Wong’s social media popularity gave him the opportunity to work with the Seattle Mariners.
Wong reached out to the Mariners a couple years ago after making Filipino Night at the Mariners videos. Although he did not receive an immediate response, a Mariners executive reached out to Wong this spring to do a tour of Chinatown on behalf of the Mariners. Then, the Mariners promotional department invited Wong to help promote this year’s Filipino Nights (there were actually two) and showing off the Filipino Mariners jersey which was a giveaway.
Wong works a full-time job in addition to a column he writes for The Stranger based on the Asian Verified meme. This is in addition to the amount of time he works on Asian Verified. He sees Asian Verified as an entrepreneurial venture.
“We’ve grown Asian Verified to the degree that it’s worth all of the energy I could ever spend stewarding it, where it goes from here is a variable but it’s on its rails to succeed.”
The path to monetizing for a content creator is tough. Wong stated he had over 4 million views last month on Instagram, but he’s made “less than a dollar.” But he explained that it’s about parlaying the views into future partnerships. He notes that YouTube is the medium where many creators make money and he works constantly on determining what makes a good video that people will stop and watch.
His first three paid videos were last month.
“I’m not a billboard, if I’m putting something on, it’s something I like and I know the community would like,” he said of the avenues to monetize the channel.
Asian Verified can be found on YouTube at @asianverified, Instagram at @asianverified, and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/asianverified.
Jason Cruz can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.
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