Ridiculous YouTube Video Draws Ire of Asian American Bloggers
By wchung | 22 Feb, 2025

It's 2010 and you'd think we'd be past saying "herro" for laughs.

This video came up on a blog that I frequent and the writer used various expletives to voice his discontent at the video.

The first spoken line in the video is an Asianized woman saying, “Herro”. Classic.

It’s troubling, to say the least. Since the last time I’ve seen this video, the ability to add comments has been taken down. I guess things got a little out of hand for this little comedy troupe of non-asians from Los Angeles (you’d think they’d know better, right? They do live in LA). Their sketch comedy troupe is called the Casual Mafia and they were barely a blip on my radar, at least until I saw the aforementioned video. Any publicity is good publicity, right?

Disappointing. It’s 2010 and it’s safe to say I’ve been dealing with ignorant and racist Asian impersonations done in the name of parody and comedy for two decades now. It’s like the elementary school recess yard all over again. Racism is a big part of comedy. I think we all understand that. But this little sketch was tasteless. It literally wasn’t funny at all. I’m more than willing to laugh at myself every once in a while. It’s a good way to keep my head on straight. Comedy is designed to reinforce some stereotypes – the ones that we all know are somewhat true. What is the Casual Mafia trying to reinforce? That Asians all own laundromats? That we all try to up-sell you by trying to sell something ridiculous in a place you wouldn’t expect it, like Korean barbecue in a laundromat? That our women will do anything to make extra money, even cover up murder? And that the men are stupid and have high squeaky voices and wear ridiculous glasses? I feel like this video is the same sort of ignorant media that was around pre-civil rights. I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. Let’s show some progress, people.