Saturday, March 17, 2012

The state of Asian American blogs?


Back in 2009, the website connected to the excellent documentary Vincent Who? featured a list of over 50 Asian American blogs. It certainly wasn't meant to be comprehensive, but was an interesting snapshot of many of the voices writing regularly in our community. I wanted to see how many are still active and operating.

Some interesting notes along the way of examining this list: Few of those listed were driven by a Southeast Asian American perspective, or those by transcultural adoptees.

The list also didn't include Asian American newspaper blogs such as Asian American Press, or literary journals such as the Kartika Review or Lantern Review, nor did they include those of many Asian American writers, such as Timothy Yu or Barbara Jane Reyes. These exclusions almost invalidate the list entirely for me, but I thought it would be an interesting exercise.

This year, on the 20th anniversary of Vincent Chin's murder, it's surprising to see who's still standing and posting out of the sample Vincent Who? noted three years ago.

Out of 55 listed, fewer than 30 are still around. I wouldn't call this a 40% attrition rate but it suggests there are some changes happening on the internet and how Asian Americans are developing their voices. What do you think? And who are some of the blogs you think should be listed in an updated list?

Among those we have left:
  1. 8Asians.com
  2. AAA-Fund Blog
  3. Alllooksame.com 
  4. Alpha Asian
  5. The ANBM Source
  6. Angry Asian Man
  7. Asian American Giving
  8. Asian-Nation
  9. Bakit Why
  10. Bicoastal Bitchin
  11. BigWowo
  12. Brown Men, Women and Children
  13. channelAPA.com - broadcasting Asian America
  14. DISGRASIAN
  15. Film Beats (from the East)
  16. FlipFob
  17. Frank Chow: Asian- American Political Pundit
  18. Giant Robot: Eric Nakamura
  19. Giant Robot: Martin Wong
  20. Hyphen
  21. Instant Yang
  22. jozjozjoz
  23. Kimchi Mamas
  24. Manzanar Committee
  25. Mochi Blog
  26. NIKKEI VIEW: The Asian American Blog
  27. Racialicious
  28. Secret Asian Man
  29. Slant Eye For The Round Eye

4 comments:

J said...

Well I'm still blogging: Alpha Asian.

I think there is always a high attrition rate with blogs, because most people don't realize how much work it is. it's really a game of endurance.

Both bloggers and readers are becoming lazier. Tweeting or microblogging is much easier than blogging and readers nowadays don't have the patience to read a lengthy blog post.

Bryan Thao Worra said...

There are a lot of days I'm sure we're eventually going to resort to Grntr, a shorter version of Twitter/Tumblr where you just hoot, woot, or poot.

Eurasian Sensation said...

Ben Efsaneyim's blog.

http://benefsanem.blogspot.com.au/

Bryan Thao Worra said...

And now we're down to 22 of these blogs left. Hmm.