Asian Girlz

Overview

“Asian Girlz” is a 2013 alternative rock song by Los Angeles-based band Day Above Ground. Upon its release in July 2013, both the song and its music video became widely criticized for promoting racial stereotypes and objectification of Asian women.

Background

On July 29th, 2013, Day Above Ground^[3] uploaded the official music video for the song “Asian Girlz” to YouTube, which featured model Levy Tran parading in front of the band members serenading her inside a small bird cage (shown below). In the first 48 hours, the video gained over 235,000 views, 16,900 down votes and 6,300 comments.

Notable Developments

Online Reaction

On the following day, the blog Angry Asian Man^[1] posted a critique of the music video, denouncing the song’s lyrics for being racist and calling the production “pretty much the worst thing ever made.” Immediately after, Redditor Consciouswrdsbt submitted a link to the blog post on the /r/asianamerican^[2] subreddit, where it received more than 70 up votes and 80 comments in the next 48 hours. On the following day, YouTuber DavidSoComedy uploaded a video criticizing the song’s racist lyrics (shown below), which garnered upwards of 120,000 views and 2,100 comments in the next 24 hours.

Day Above Ground’s Response

On July 31st, 2013, Tran posted several tweets apologizing for offending those who found the video racist.

I sincerely apologize to all who feels that I set Asian women back 50 yrs. I know I lost respect from a lot of ppl. It wasn't my intention

— Levy Tran (@MissLevy) July 31, 2013

It was meant to be light hearted and fun. Satirical. They are sweet boys and not at all racist. That is all I will say. I'm sorry once again

— Levy Tran (@MissLevy) July 31, 2013

Shortly after, the YouTube description for the video was modified with an apology from the band claiming that the song and video were not meant to be racist.

This is Day Above Ground reposting this video with a new description as a response to all the comments we received on this video. We appreciate all the criticism and support. Our song “Asian Girlz” was not written with any malicious, hateful, or hurtful intent. We know it is racy and does push the boundaries further than other songs out there. Understand that we do not promote or support racism or violence. We love everyone no matter what race, religion, or sexual orientation. Please respect our decision to delete any violent, insensitive, or hurtful comment and also one that supports racism. We hope that we can continue with our lives with much love and peace.

News Media Coverage

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the controversial video, including Complex,^[5] Jezebel,^[6] Gawker,^[7] Thought Catalog,^[8] UpRoxx,^[9] The Daily Beast,^[11] Fox News,^[12] The Huffington Post,^[13] Shangaiist,^[14] Mediaite^[10] and BuzzFeed.^[4]

Search Interest

External References