Experiencing the outbreak of COVID-19 as an Asian American has been an eye-opening experience. I have seen first hand how people’s perceptions of Asians have shifted. Some have lauded the efforts of Asian governments who have demonstrated best-in-class behavior on how to handle a global pandemic. Others have grown to hate and blame Asians for the economic hardship that is blanketing our world. Even at work, trivial and seemingly innocuous comments from my non-Asian colleagues actually hold more meaning than they appear — “I’ve seen people wear masks, and it freaks me out. I’ve seen a lot of Asian people wear masks, and we have a big Chinatown.” What are people thinking about when they think “Asian?”
In order to dig deeper into these questions, I grounded myself in data. I studied how the query “Asians” has trended over the past five years (2015–2020) and ended up with just as many questions as I had started with. Most of this piece will focus on trying to add context, open up new ideas, and extrapolate the meaning of my findings.
Leveraging Google Trends
For those who don’t already know, Google has over 75% search market share. As a result, billions of people are entering queries every day, and with such a large data set, it’s a fantastic source to get a high level view on changes in perception or behavior quickly. Google offers a consumer product called Google Trends which allows you to “explore what the world is searching.”
I focused my analysis on the query “Asian” and studied the data across a five-year period, a 12-month period, and a 90-day period. I studied two dimensions:
- Related topics: Users searching for your term also searched for these topics.
- Related queries: Users searching for your term also searched for these queries.
Generally, interest over time remained stable over every period, so I left that out. Interest over time is simply how popular the term is for that given period. Here’s what I found.
How “Asians” has trended in the last five years
As the time of writing, the top rising topics include, but are not limited to the below. Rising topics are related topics to the term “Asian” with the biggest increase in search frequency since the last time period.
- Crazy Rich Asians (film) +1,050%
- Asian lady beetle (insect) +200%
- BBC — Broadcasting company +130%
- Asian supermarket +70%
- Fusion cuisine +50%
- Erotic massage +50%
The top rising queries include, but are not limited to the below. Rising queries are the search queries that are related to the query “Asian” with the biggest increase in search frequency since the last time period.
- Crazy Rich Asians
- Asian Cup 2019
- Massage near me
- Best Asian food near me
Crazy Rich Asians: While I knew Crazy Rich Asians was a huge box office success, I didn’t realize how much interest it had generated to rank within the top topics and queries in the last five years. We’re at the top of people’s minds because of a film. To reiterate, hundreds of millions of people are interested in an entire race because of a film. Ironically, many Asian Americans I know grapple with the idea of pursuing film or any creative field as a way to earn a living, but let’s put that in the parking lot for another time.
Asian lady beetle: I don’t quite understand the Asian lady beetle topic. Have we had an influx of beetles in the last five years?
Asian supermarket: It doesn’t surprise me that Asian food is one of the top topics and queries. Asian food has had a lengthy history in the United States — most notably started when the first wave of Asian immigrants settled in the country in the 1850’s, as part of the California Gold Rush. With a burgeoning economy, and many renown Asian American chefs and restaurateurs entering the scene (shout out to David Chang, whose Instagram is filled with practical cooking tips such as how to grow your own green onions), Asian food has become much more accessible to the masses. I would hypothesize that Asian food will continue to become an even stronger interest topic over time.
Erotic massage: Lastly, erotic massages. Sigh. Not today. Let’s continue.
How the query “Asians” has trended in the past twelve months
The most popular topics include, but are not limited to the below. Scoring is on a relative scale where a value of 100 is the most commonly searched topic and a value of 50 is a topic searched half as often as the most popular term, and so on.
- Asian people — people 100
- Asia — continent 98
- Massage 13
- Erotic massage 7
- Asian supermarket 5
The top rising queries include, but are not limited to the below.
- Asian flu +700%
- Asian melodies +350%
- Is Keanu Reeves Asian +190%
- Asian comedian Netflix +140%
- ABG +90%
While the top topics didn’t carry anything insightful, the top rising queries opened up many feelings.
Asian flu: Even when looking at data within the past twelve months, the fact that “Asian flu” is a rising query suggests that people are associating COVID-19 with the flu, and secondly with Asia. When studying history, we can see that a similar phenomenon of attribution occurred with the “Spanish flu,” also known as the 1918 flu pandemic. The term “Spanish flu” was born because the media reported that the epidemic’s effects in Spain were particularly egregious. “Asian flu” also suggests that people group all the countries or ethnicity in Asia as one entity, which certainly is convenient when thinking about things that are, in reality, nuanced and varied. The idea of grouping 4.3 billion people that encompasses 60% of the world’s population into one bucket undermines the beauty of different Asian histories, traditions, cultures and beliefs. A parallel would be if the query was instead “European flu” or “Latino flu.” What would that actually mean?
Asian melodies: Asian melodies! Are we talking about the Michael Wong — Tong Hua kind or the Twice — Feel Special kind? Jokes aside, I googled this query myself, and it turns out that it’s actually an Asian dating website that I hadn’t ever heard of. Other search results mention finding a Japanese mail order bride… I think we can move on.
Is Keanu Reeves Asian: It is reported that Keanu Reeves does, in fact, have Chinese-Hawaiian roots. Finally, another fantastic celebrity we can add to our little Asian American celebrity museum. My hypothesis is that this query became popular as in coincided with his appearance in Ali Wong’s Netflix film, “Always Be My Baby.”
Asian comedian Netflix: We are seeing more Asian comedians on Netflix, which is very exciting, especially now, given that we have all scoured the ends of the Netflix universe to watch something new. In the past few years, Ronny Chieng, Ali Wong, Hasan Minhaj, Margaret Cho, Harith Iskander, Aditi Mittal, Fakkah Fuzz, and Kavin Jay have made a big splash delighting viewers on Netflix. It’s uplifting to see Asians change the world through humor.
ABG: The acronym for “Asian Baby Girl,” this term of endearment refers to women who maintain a certain aesthetic and lifestyle. They are most commonly spotted with wavy ombré hair (dyed ash gray or blonde or whatever the latest trend is), tight clothing (most likely a crop top), enjoys a fair amount of winged eyeliner and fake eyelashes, lives off of bubble tea, loves clubbing, owns a small dog and carries the latest designer bag ($2,000+). It could be that the interest for Asian Baby Girls has increased. Another hypothesis is that the interest for the Asian Boss Girl podcast (name inspired by Asian Baby Girl) increased. Either way, Asian women are having their moment, which is a win for all of us.
How the query “Asians” has trended in the past 90 days
The top rising topics include, but are not limited to the below.
- Influenza A virus subtype H2N2 +1,300%
- Central Asian Shepherd Dog +200%
- Racism +120%
- Food delivery +70%
The top rising queries include, but are not limited to the below.
- Asian flu 1957
- Asian virus +1,400%
- Asian flu 850%
- Asian stock market futures +650%
Racism: Racism is taking more mind share as demonstrated by the increase in search behavior for this topic. It saddens me to say this, but I do exercise more caution when I go on my rare but prized walks outside. I have explicitly been told to be careful from loved ones. Although 24% of the racial makeup of my neighborhood in Asian, this fact alone doesn’t empower me to walk completely carefree.
On March 23, the New York State Attorney General launched a hotline for New Yorkers to report hate crimes and discrimination amid rising reports of anti-Asian harassment. The New York State Attorney General’s office said that the hotline is intended to provide resources to victims that could lead to civil investigations. I haven’t used the hotline myself yet, but I’d assume that the intent of the hotline is also to track the volume and types of hate crimes Asians are experiencing. Is this measure enough for Asian New Yorkers? Are there any other systems in place across the United States to handle these situations? Based on the stories I’ve heard and seen, we need measures from all levels (government, grassroots, etc.) to provide support to those impacted, and be vigilant in our strategy of how to prevent hate crimes altogether.
Asian flu 1957: The Asian flu in 1957, otherwise known as the H2N2 virus, was first reported in Singapore, then in Hong Kong, and then in coastal cities in the United States. My hypothesis is that people are searching for this in an effort to understand if there are any learnings we missed in the COVID-19 outbreak that we could apply now.
TL;DR
While I didn’t come across any ah-ha moments while reviewing the data, I felt strongly that it spoke volumes to the urgency of how important it is for Asians in America (especially Asian Americans — those born in the United States and have balanced the weight of living both American and Asian cultures) to take an active role at shaping the narrative of Asians in the United States. It is not enough to let our work speak for itself, which I would argue is a character trait that many Asians tend to over index against. It is important to take an intentional approach at crafting and leading the narrative.
So let’s explore some areas for conversation.
What are we doing to shape the narrative of Asians in the United States? How do we continue to empower Asian women to be more than just a mail order bride? How can we support Asians in creative fields, knowing that they have the ability to make a difference? How are we helping those experiencing anti-Asian harassment, and what can we do to prevent them?
These questions won’t be answered neatly today, nor will they be answered neatly tomorrow. If we all believe in the power to make change and start small within our local communities, we can begin to craft some of these answers.
